Afro-Atlantic Histories

Zanele Muholi, Ntozakhe II, (Parktown), 2016, photographic wall mural from digital files, sheet: 355.6 x 254 cm (140 x 100 in.), National Gallery of Art, Washington, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2021.88.1, © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of the artist, Yancey Richardson, New York, and Stevenson Cape Town/Johannesburg

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David C. Driskell, Current Forms: Yoruba Circle, 1969, acrylic on canvas, overall: 112.4 x 86.36 cm (44 1/4 x 34 in.), National Gallery of Art, Washington, Purchased with support from the Ford Foundation, Estate of David C. Driskell. Courtesy DC Moore Gallery, NY

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Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Eko Skyscraper, 2019, acrylic and colored pencil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Purchased with support from the Ford Foundation, © Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner

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Dalton Paula, Zeferina, 2018, oil on canvas, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand–MASP, Gift of the artist in the context of the Afro-Atlantic Histories exhibition, 2018, MASP.10808. © Dalton Paula

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Aaron Douglas, Into Bondage, 1936, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (Museum purchase and partial gift from Thurlow Evans Tibbs, Jr., The Evans-Tibbs Collection), 2014.79.17. © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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Samuel Fosso, Self-Portrait (as Liberated American Woman of the ’70s), 1997, printed 2003, chromogenic print, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by Nina and Michael Zilkha, 2004.809. © Samuel Fosso, Courtesy Jean Marc Patras Galerie, Paris

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A man and a woman with black skin stand in a sage and olive-green boat that comes toward us on a wavy, dripping band of cobalt blue that spans the lower edge of this loosely hanging, square canvas. The word “WANDERER” is written in white capital letters along the bow of the boat. Closer to us, in the boat, a woman is seen from the hips up. An oval, cloud-like form covers her torso, shoulders, and the area behind her head. It is white with rose-pink swirls, and has a few black lines creating scallops around the edge. A black shape at her waist, just over a cobalt-blue skirt, could indicate that at least one arm is bent behind her back. The penis, thighs, and knees of a man are seen between the boat and the triangular, pale lilac-purple sail. The sail is painted with long, curling strokes of violet purple up its center. A long, white pennant with two gold stars flutters from the boat’s burgundy-red mast, which has a crosspiece just below the pennant. The water is painted with strokes of royal blue, which partially drip over a white skull at the lower center. The boat is set against a background layered in washes of white, shell pink, and baby blue, with swirls and thin strokes of brick red scattered across it. A yellow sun outlined in deeper gold peeks above the horizon in the lower left, and is repeated with more orbs that together make an arc that curves to the upper right corner. A few geometric line drawings hover next to the woman, on our left, such as a compass-like cross with a crosshatched oval at each end. A black number

Kerry James Marshall, Voyager, 1992, acrylic and collage on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the Women’s Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art), 2014.79.52

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Barrington Watson, Conversation, 1981, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston, Gift of Workers' Savings & Loan Bank. © Estate of Barrington Watson

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Frank Bowling, Night Journey, 1969–1970, acrylic on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Maddy and Larry Mohr, 2011, 2011.590.2. © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London

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Lois Mailou Jones, The Green Door, 1981, watercolor over graphite on wove paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, William A. Clark Fund), 2015.19.2951

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