01/22/2026
MUSEUM HOPPING
Renaissance, Race, and Representation in the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art
Alain Locke Gallery of African & African American Art
The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research
On view through June 6, 2026
Renaissance, Race and Representation in the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art coincides with the recent renaming of the Cooper Gallery in honor of Alain LeRoy Locke (1885-1954). The first African American to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1918, and the first African American Rhodes Scholar, Locke was the architect of the Harlem Renaissance and a leading figure in the recognition of the arts of Africa and its diasporic lineages in the United States and the Americas.
As the Kelley family has sought to acquire the work of artists such as Aaron Douglas, William H. Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, and Elizabeth Catlett, they have developed a vast collection that reads like a "who's who" of landmark works that includes paintings, etchings, lithographs, watercolors, block prints, silkscreens, and drawings. In this year marking the centennial anniversary of the publication of “Harlem, Mecca of the New Negro” - the path-breaking special issue of the social science journal Survey Graphic in which Locke outlines his vision for Afro-modernist aesthetics, this exhibition draws on the stewardship of the Kelley family, the robust history of the Harlem Renaissance as well as selected works by Romare Bearden, Hale Woodruff, Charles White, John Wilson, Lois Mailou Jones and Emma Amos from the Hutchins Center’s permanent collection.
This exhibition was organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA in partnership with the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research and the Alain Locke Gallery exhibitions team: Dell Marie Hamilton, curator; Jessica Dow, curatorial assistant; Pablo Gonzalez, preparator, and Bob Shane of Shane Signs.
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