Black Artists in America: From the Bicentennial to September 11

This third and final volume in the Black Artists in America series features work from the transitional moment of the late 1970s to the dawn of the twenty-first century

In the 1980s and 1990s, Black artists in the United States who came of age during the civil rights activity of the preceding decades began experimenting with new media and innovative approaches to artmaking, often as a way of questioning long-held inequities in the art world and in American society. Artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Sam Gilliam, Glenn Ligon, Faith Ringgold, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, and many others created works that celebrated their racial identity and fought exclusion and prejudices in the establishment. This book considers the ways that the artists of this generation challenged cultural, environmental, political, racial, and social issues of the last decades of the twentieth century.

Black Artists in America: From the Bicentennial to September 11 is the final volume in the three-volume series that traces how Black artists have responded to the social issues of their time. Beautifully illustrated with 150 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, this volume completes the story of a century of artmaking.

Published in association with the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

Exhibition Schedule:

Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
(October 5, 2025-January 11, 2026)

Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN
(January 25-March 29, 2026)

Ellen Daugherty is assistant curator at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. Earnestine Lovelle Jenkins is professor of art history at the University of Memphis. She is the author of the previous volumes in this series, Black Artists in America: From the Great Depression to Civil Rights (2022) and Black Artists in America: From Civil Rights to the Bicentennial (2024). Julie L. McGee is associate professor of art history and Africana studies at the University of Delaware. Kevin Sharp is the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea Director of the Dixon Gallery and Gardens.