Selections from the Pearl Bowser Collection, NMAAHC

The work of sculptor Inge Hardison is the subject of this beautiful short portrait of an artist. Hardison is perhaps best known for “Negro Giants in History,” her important series of busts made during the early 1960s. Hands of Inge was edited by Hortense “Tee” Beveridge, a pioneer in her field who worked in the commercial industry and on independent, non-commercial films such as Amiri Baraka’s 1968 film The New-Ark. In the mid-1950s Beveridge became the first Black woman to gain admission to Local 771, the motion picture editors union. (John W. Fletcher Jr., 1962, 16mm, 10 minutes)

Edited by famed filmmaker Kathleen Collins, Statues Hardly Ever Smile follows a group of middle school children during a six-week project at the Brooklyn Museum, where they collectively discover and respond to the Egyptian collection. With narration by a member of the museum’s education department, we witness the group’s daily exercises and reflections as they create a theatre piece centered on the relationships developed with the objects and each other. (Stan Lathan, 1971, 16mm, 21 minutes)

With Four Women, renowned filmmaker Julie Dash collaborated with dancer Linda Martina Young to interpret Nina Simone’s song “Four Women.” Made during her studies at UCLA’s film school, Dash used “kinetic camerawork and editing, richly colored lighting, and meticulous costume, makeup and hair design . . . together with Young’s sensitive performance to turn longstanding Black female stereotypes to oblique, critical angles”—Jacqueline Stewart. With thanks to Third World Newsreel for access to the digital file. (Julie Dash, 1975, 16mm, 8 minutes)