African American Art and Art History Including the Billops-Hatch Collection

FEATURED COLLECTIONS African American Art and Art History Including The Billops-Hatch Collection EMORY UNIVERSITY | Atlanta, Georgia Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University 540 Asbury Circle Atlanta, Georgia 30322 African American Art & Art History at Emory University The Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University houses a diverse body of primary sources associated with the African American experience, from literature and history to politics and popular culture. These include an extensive collection of correspondence, literary manuscripts, photographs, and ephemeral material as well as rare books, periodicals, pamphlets, and other printed matter. In the last decade, African American collections have expanded dramatically in the area of art and art history. The donation of the Hatch-Billops Collection in 2002 was an inaugural event in this growth, leading – directly or indirectly – to the acquisition of the papers of important African American artists, critics, art historians, collectors, and educators. Camille Billops and James V. Hatch, former professors and longtime figures in the world of African American art and theatre, have operated their collection in New York City since the late 1960s, which, under the name of the “Hatch-Billops Collection,” is regarded one of the most distinguished repositories of material relating to African American cultural arts. Their collection in the Rose Library – designated the Billops-Hatch Archives to differentiate from the still- operational collection in New York City – has not only “The Rose Library been a boon to the African American archives, but has also become the anchor in an expanding assembly of houses a diverse important art-related collections. body of primary The artists’ biographies for this brochure were compiled by Claire Ittner. sources associated with the African RANDALL K. BURKETT RESEARCH CUR ATOR American FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN COLLECTIONS June 1, 2016 experience.” was out of print. They began collecting primary materials CAMILLE BILLOPS for their students. Artists and writers also began to send & JAMES V. HATCH material to them for safe- keeping. With a grant from (1933 - ) Artist, filmmaker, scholar, historian; the National Endowment for (1928 - ) Historian, writer, educator the Humanities, Billops and Hatch conducted oral histo- ries with black artists in all disciplines. amille Billops has had an extensive Billops began to photo- exhibition, teaching, and academic career. graph the works of black She has been a faculty member at Rutgers artists, and Hatch began to C collect plays, set designs, University, City University of New York, and for the theater programs and theatre- United States Information Service in India. Beginning related materials. Billops in 1968, Billops was the art editor of Indiana State also began photographing the openings of exhibitions University’s Black American Literature Forum. James featuring African American V. Hatch has held numerous academic positions, most artists, compiling a collection of slides that document these notably as Professor of English and Theatre, City events. They also assembled a College and University of New York, and as Fulbright library of books, periodicals and clippings related to black Lecturer, Cinema Institute, Cairo, Egypt. Hatch has cultural arts. In 1981 Billops published widely on the subject of African American and Hatch began publish- ing Artist and Influence: The theatre and wrote a biography of Owen Dodson. Journal of Black American Billops and Hatch currently live in New York City. Cultural History featuring tran- scripts of interviews they regularly conducted in New York, as well as panel The Hatch-Billops Col- discussions and forums with lection in New York, which minority artists. continues to operate there, originated in 1968 while Bil- A complete set of the jour- lops and Hatch were teaching nal is a part of the Emory col- art and literature at the City lection. The Camille Billops College of New York. With and James Hatch Archives the rise of the civil rights includes a large selection of movement and a concomitant play scripts written mostly increase in racial conscious- by African American play- ness, a demand rose for wrights. Of particular interest courses in black American are the oral history interviews art, drama and literature. conducted for inclusion in Billops and Hatch found that Artist and Influence. The col- very little had been published lection also contains printed on the history of the African ephemera, including posters, American cultural arts, and postcards, calendars, and an much that had been published extensive photograph series. The Billops-Hatch Collection is unique in its 40+ year documentation of African American arts and culture, including the life and legacy of individuals like Bob Blackburn, regarded as one of the greatest American printmakers. AMALIA AMAKI (1949 - ) Artist, professor escribing her own work, Amalia Amaki collection to speak on campus, and she created an African has said, “I’m operating from this belief American Artist Biography that a lot of what we do, automatic project, which invited students D to write biographies of things that we take for granted, are markers for artists in the collection, later elements of our identities that are deeply rooted. compiled to establish an online database. I think about what we keep, for example. It’s a way of keeping with us the people they belonged Amaki has continued to create while teaching and to. I think, even though it’s often not conscious, curating, and her work has that our past is like a quiet tug…It’s an unspoken drawn national attention. Her solo show Amalia Amaki: impulse.” Boxes, Buttons and the Blues at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in 2005- 2006, which featured her Although at the time she from Georgia State University recognizable button- and was speaking about her artistic and the University of New bead- encrusted souvenirs, inspiration, Amaki’s belief Mexico, and she earned her was lauded as a bold, witty describes a larger drive, one PhD in American art and investigation of the history that also informs her work as culture from Emory University and significance of American a curator and educator – and, in 1994. She has since taught culture. moreover, one that accurately at Spelman College, the describes the collection of her University of Delaware, and The Amalia Amaki papers papers at the Rose Library. the University of Alabama. include books, correspondence, teaching files, printed material, Amalia Amaki, born Lynda In 1994, Amaki became photographs, ephemera Faye Peek, grew up in Atlanta, the curator of the collection related to African American the fourth of six daughters. of Paul R. Jones, an Atlanta- history, slides, artwork, and Her parents encouraged based businessman, activist, audiovisual material. The her creativity from a young and lover of African African papers also include curatorial age, and in fact had a great American art. In her files and material relating to influence on the shape of their curatorial endeavors, as in the Paul R. Jones Collection of daughter’s future work. Her her educational and artistic African American Art. father, a musician, instilled in pursuits, Amaki has made it her a love of blues and jazz, her goal to integrate learning and her mother’s skill with with the viewing of art. She quilt and textile design resulted established an artist lecture in Amaki’s fascination with series at the University of traditionally female craft and Alabama which brought materials. Amaki graduated artists represented in the Jones Amaki’s photograph “I’m operating from this belief that a lot of what we do, of P.H. Polk, Tuskegee photographer and automatic things that we take for granted, subject of her academic are markers for elements of our identities that are deeply research. rooted. I think about what we keep, for example. It’s a way of keeping with us the people they belonged to. I think, even though it’s often not conscious, that our past is like a quiet tug…It’s an unspoken impulse.” AMALIA AMAKI BENNY ANDREWS (1930 – 2006) Artist, activist ne of the first major reviews of Benny changes in exhibition practice were implemented. Andrews’ work, an article in 1962 described the pieces in his early solo show Later in his life, Andrews O assumed additional roles of as “forceful...One does not forget them. [Andrews] leadership, serving as the is finding himself by taking his world apart, then director of visual arts for the tearing it up, and arranging it in a different order National Endowment for the Arts and helping to found than it was before…He looks promising.” The National Arts Program. Andrews’ wife of 20 years is artist Nene Humphrey. Over the course the next the Paul Kessler Gallery in He died of cancer, age 75. forty-some years, Andrews Provincetown, Massachusetts, The Benny Andrews collection fulfilled the unknowing and three at the Forum Gallery consists of artist’s papers prophesy of the review; not in New York City. In 1965, from 1940-2006. The papers only did he fulfill his early Andrews received a John Hay include correspondence and artistic promise many times Whitney Fellowship. exhibit files; files relating the over, but he proved, in his life his organizational work with and in his evolving work, to In addition to, or perhaps the National Arts Program feel no hesitation in tearing up because of, his growing critical and the National Endowment the world in order to better recognition and leadership for the Arts; photographs, arrange it. within the African American printed material, writings art community, Andrews and illustrations, audio-visual Benny Andrews was born became increasingly involved material, and artwork. in Madison, Georgia, the as a political activist. In second of ten children. He 1969, he founded the Black won a scholarship to study Emergency Cultural Coalition “Every series I do, I feel at Fort Valley State College (BECC) in response to the from 1948-1950.

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