"To See Reality in a New Light:"
The Art and Activism of Marion Perkins
Carter G. Woodson Regional Library
January 31 - December 31, 2009
January 31, 2009, the Chicago Public Library will open a major retrospective
exhibit on the life and work of Chicago Renaissance sculptor and social activist
Marion Perkins. The free, eleven-month, exhibit will be located at Carter G.
Woodson Regional Library, 9525 S. Halsted, and will run through December,
2009.
The exhibit will include original sculptures by Marion Perkins, loaned by the Art Institute of Chicago, DuSable Museum of African American History, members of the Perkins family, art galleries, and private collectors. It will also feature original correspondence, rare photographs, and memorabilia from the holdings of the Harsh Research Collection. All items will be installed in the exhibit gallery at Carter G. Woodson Regional Library.
A celebratory opening program, hosted by the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature, will be held Saturday, January 31, 2009, beginning at 1:30PM at Woodson Regional Library. The program is free and open to the public.
A panel of distinguished speakers will include:
- Dr. Margaret Burroughs, artist, poet, DuSable Museum founder
- Haki Madhubuti, author, Third World Press founder
- Calvin Jones, Chicago muralist
- Useni Perkins, poet, playwright, essayist, son of Marion Perkins
- Toussaint Perkins, art collector, activist, son of Marion Perkins
- Daniel Schulman, art historian
- Elise Ward, daughter of Chicago Renaissance playwright Theodore Ward Douglas
- Williams, Chicago sculptor
Born in Arkansas in 1908, Perkins was sent to Chicago at the age of eight.
Forced to drop out of high school to begin work, he labored for the rest of his
life as a dishwasher, as a postal clerk, and as a freight handler. During the
1930s he began to carve as an artistic "pastime," and with some sculpture
classes, became recognized as an artist with immense talent.
Not for a single year in his life was Perkins able to devote full time to his art as a sculptor. Yet he became one of the most important visual artists in the Chicago Renaissance. His work was featured in the 1940 American Negro Exposition. In the years that followed he repeatedly won prizes and awards at the Art Institute of Chicago, which purchased two of his finest pieces. He was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, and lauded in prominent magazines and newspapers.
Marion Perkins was a blue-collar worker, yet he was a leader in struggles to defend Ethiopia, to fight for civil rights in Chicago neighborhoods, to get justice for the poor. His is a Black History Month story with a universal quality.
Perkins' career was short; it did not begin until he was over 30, and he died in 1961 at age 53. Yet he combined, as few others have, a unique artistic vantage point with a fierce dedication to social justice. In 1959 he was one of the founders of the National Conference of Negro Artists, and gave the keynote address to its first convention, on "Problems of the Black Artist." Art historian Daniel Schulman wrote that "Perkins's work…is remarkably beautiful, emotionally authentic, and politically impassioned…A reconsideration of his valuable, but largely unknown, legacy is long overdue."
For further information, please call the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of
Afro-American History and Literature at 312/745-2080.
Chicago Public Libraries Press Release