In partnership with Arion Press, the historic San Francisco letterpress printer, the National Portrait Gallery is proud to present a public conversation with visionary artist Kenturah Davis. In 2023, Arion conceived and produced a new limited edition of Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 classic, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” as an artist book featuring works by Davis.
Join us for a talk led by Rhea Combs, director of curatorial affairs, about Davis’s signature style of “text drawings.” Two recent projects exemplify the ways she fuses the acts of writing and drawing: her portraits of Janie Crawford for Arion’s edition of “Their Eyes Were Watching God”and her acclaimed portrait of Ava DuVernay, now on view in the museum’s“Portrait of a Nation” exhibition. Discover how Davis marks cultural histories by inscribing text and language onto her intricately layered portraits, all while investigating Black identity.
More information available here.
Sun Sep 17, 2023 2:00pm - 3:00pm
McEvoy Auditorium - Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
Click here for ticket availability.