EMERGENCE: Intersections at the Center spotlights The South Side Community Art Center’s historical role in supporting a full spectrum of Black artists through an intersectional viewpoint. The first exhibition of its kind at the South Side Community Art Center, EMERGENCE positions the Center as an important anchor for Black LGBTQ artists who belonged to its community from its founding in 1940 to the 1980s. The exhibition features works addressing identity and community, queer spaces and performance, in collage, painting, sculpture, photography, and more.

EXHIBIT

The exhibition is laid out in four sections: EARLY YEARS, NIGHTLIFE, PERFORMANCE, IDENTITY, MIXED MEDIA AND STILL LIFE, and OBLIQUE BODIES. It also includes historical ephemera of interest. Each section page contains a description of the themes represented there and information about the artworks exhibited in that section.

Richmond Barthé (1901–1989). Shoe Shine Boy. Painted plaster, 1938. 10” (H) x 5 1/4” (W) x 4 1/2” (D). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

William Carter (1909–1996). Barbara. Oil on canvas, 1938. 28 1/8” (H) x 20” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Ellis Wilson (1899–1977). Figure on Beach. Oil on masonite, 1947. 22” (H) x 36” (W). Collection of the Bates College Art Museum, Gift of the Owen Dodson Estate, 1984.1.25.

Charles Sebree (1914–1985). Untitled (Portrait). Gouache and beeswax on board, circa 1960. 6” (H) x 4” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

EARLY YEARS

The earliest decades represented in EMERGENCE tell a story of migrations. Richmond Barthé and William Carter traveled to Chicago from Missouri. Charles Sebree and Ellis Wilson came from Kentucky. Allen Stringfellow came from Champaign, Illinois. Of the artists in this early generation, only Berry Horton was born in Cook County. The others were drawn…

Nightlife, Performance,
Identity

Artists connected to the South Side Community Art Center were also part of intersecting communities that found homes and modes of self-expression in different spaces in the city. The Center’s own Artists and Models Balls involved playful displays that could embrace gender performance and ambiguity, and advertisers included gay bars and bars that featured…

William Carter (1909–1996). Seated Girl. Oil mounted on board, 1940. 20 1/8” (H) x 15 7/8” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

William Carter (1909–1996). Untitled (Portrait of a Woman, possibly Carmencita Romero). Oil on canvas, 1940. 20” (H) x 15 7/8” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Artist unknown. Poster for Artists and Models Ball. Offset lithography, 1940. 21 5/8” (H) x 14” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Bobbe Cotton (1924(?)–??). Design for Artists and Models Ball (Mardi Gras). Watercolor and color pencil on paper, 1946. 15” (H) x 12” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

El Roi Parker (1923–1978). Design for Artists and Models Ball (Africanesque). Watercolor and graphite on board, circa 1946. 15” (H) x 11” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center

Charles Sebree (1914–1985). Untitled (Man at Bar). Gouache and beeswax with pigment on paper, circa 1960. 4 3/4” (H) x 4 1/2” (W). Courtesy of Aaron Galleries, Glenview, Illinois.

Walter Sanford (1909–1987). Rosebud. Pen and ink drawing, 1970. 14” (H) x 11” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Mikki Ferrill (born 1937). Untitled (The Garage). Gelatin silver print, 1973. 14” (H) x 11” (W). Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, The Richard Florsheim Art Fund Purchase.

Mikki Ferrill (born 1937). Untitled, Chicago, IL. Gelatin silver print, ca. 1965; printed before 1980. 10” (H) x 8” (W) Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, the Irwin and Andra S. Press Collection Endowment Fund purchase, 2021.15

Mikki Ferrill (born 1937). Untitled (Portrait of Terry Readus). Gelatin silver print, 1973. 10” (H) x 8” (W) Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Patric McCoy, Faraway. 1985, digitally printed in 2022. 7” (H) x 4 5/8” (W). Collection of Patric McCoy.

Patric McCoy, Chains and Studs. 1985, digitally printed in 2022. 7” (H) x 4 3/8” (W). Collection of Patric McCoy.

Patric McCoy, Chain Cleaner. 1985, digitally printed in 2022. 7” (H) x 4 5/8” (W). Collection of Patric McCoy.

Patric McCoy, Rent Me. 1985, digitally printed in 2022. 4 1/2” (H) x 7” (W). Collection of Patric McCoy.

Ralph Arnold (1928–2006). Black Music Box. Mixed media collages on and in an upright box, 1982. Multiple dimensions, box 24” (H) x 20” (W) x 8” (D). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Allen Stringfellow (1923–2004). Untitled. Housepaint and particulate on cardboard, mid–20th century. 19” (H) x 14” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Allen Stringfellow (1923–2004). Untitled. Collage, 1962. 16.6” (H) x 25.6” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

William Carter (1909–1996). Untitled (Still Life with Bottles). Oil on hardboard, mid–20th century. 25 7/8” (H) x 22” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Jonathan Green (born 1955). Still Life. Oil on board, 1982. 15 1/4” (H) x 17 1/4” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Ralph Arnold (1928–2006). Love Sign II. Mixed media, 1995. 24” (H) x 17 7/8” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Ralph Arnold (1928–2006). The Waiting. Collage and mixed media, 1973. 44” (H) x 44” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Mixed Media &
Still Life

Works in EMERGENCE are diverse in their subject matter and media, but a few themes reappear throughout. Working in abstraction or in the traditionally peaceful genre of still life, artists like William Carter, Allen Stringfellow, and Jonathan Green express themes of interiority or sociability, history or modernity. Notably, Stringfellow and Ralph Arnold both experimented with media …

Oblique Bodies

Works in EMERGENCE take part in the long tradition of representing the human form in art, and within that tradition they represent multiple different approaches. The depiction of the body might serve to express something about an artist’s sexuality, or identity—or it might serve very different purposes. The artists in EMERGENCE have multifaceted identities, and approach their work with many different…

Richmond Barthé (1901–1989). Untitled (Saint Sebastian). Oil on board, 1957. 15 1/2” (H) x 12” (W). Collection of Dr. Margaret Rose Vendryes.

Allen Stringfellow (1923–2004). Untitled. Collage, mid–20th century. 37” (H) x 15” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Berry Horton (1917–1987). Untitled (Couple). Graphite and ink on paper, 1930s–1950s. 40” (H) x 26” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Berry Horton (1917–1987). Untitled (Abstract bodies). Graphite and paint on paper, 1930s–1950s. 40” (H) x 26” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Ralph Arnold (1928–2006). Boy with Flower. Aquatint, 1978. Image 12 5/8” (H) x 9 5/8” (W); sheet 15 7/8” (H) x 12 3/4” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Sylvester Britton (1926–2009). Heady. Screen print, second half of 20th century, numbered 6/18. Image 12” (H) x 9” (W), sheet 17” (H) x 12 3/4” (W). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Jonathan Green (born 1955). Mesakin Quisar. Oil on canvas, 1987. 48” (H) x 36” (W). Private Collection of Patric McCoy. Photo (c) Isadore Howard.

Juarez Hawkins (born 1962). Self-Portrait. Oil pastel and acrylic on museum board, 1992. 24” (H) x 18” (W). Collection of the artist.

Juarez Hawkins (born 1962). Headtrip II. Polychromed stoneware, 2012. 8.75” (H) x 4.25” (W) x 5.5” (D). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Marva Lee Pitchford–Jolly (1937–2012). Untitled. Ceramic sculpture, last third of 20th century. 15” (H) x 14” (diameter). Collection of the South Side Community Art Center.

Biographies authored by Gervais Marsh present an overview of the lives of artists in the exhibition

Ralph Arnold (1928–2006) was a mixed-media and collage artist, born in Chicago and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. Arnold’s work often grappled with media portrayals of gender, race, sexuality and politics. He briefly attended the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign before enlisting in the military from 1950-1952, during the Korean War. He returned to Chicago after the war, and completed his degree at Roosevelt University, before getting his MFA at the School of the Art Institute. During this time he met his life partner, William Frederick, who was a silversmith and a teacher at SAIC. Arnold became involved with the South Side Community Art Center in 1966, and had many group and individual exhibitions at the Center over the decades. He worked as a professor at Rockford University, Barat College, and SAIC, before joining the Fine Arts Department at Loyola University. Loyola University named the Ralph Arnold Fine Arts Annex and Ralph Arnold Gallery after the artist, who served as Department Chair and remained on faculty until 2000. Arnold’s work is in multiple museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Brooklyn Museum. In 2018, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago held a retrospective of Arnold’s work, The Many Hats of Ralph Arnold.

Richmond Barthé (1901–1989) was a figurative sculptor originally from Bay St. Louis, Missouri, whose work often focused on religious subjects, prominent figures in African-American history, and entertainers. Barthé moved to Chicago in 1924 to attend the School of the Art Institute and his debut as a professional sculptor took place in the Negro in Art Week exhibition while he was living in the city. He left Chicago for New York at the beginning of the 1930s, during the Harlem Renaissance, and lived amongst the bohemian creative circles downtown. While in New York, Barthé gained greater exposure among museums and collectors. The Whitney Museum purchased his sculpture Blackberry Woman (1930), his work was chosen to be exhibited at Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition in 1933, and he received several honors, including a Rosenwald Fellowship (1930) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1940). He was also the first African-American artist, along with painter Jacob Lawrence, to be represented in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection. In 1942, Barthé had a solo exhibition at the South Side Community Art Center. In 1947, he moved to Jamaica, where he stayed until 1960, before traveling and living briefly in Spain, Italy and Switzerland. He eventually settled in Pasadena, CA where he lived until his death in 1989.

Sylvester Britton (1926–2009) was a prolific painter and printmaker from the South Side of Chicago. After graduating from Wendell Phillips High School in 1945, Britton enlisted directly into the army to fight in World War II. Britton studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and traveled for further study in Mexico and Europe. He worked in a range of different styles, from figurative to highly abstract, and experimented with many different printmaking techniques. He worked closely with Margaret Burroughs and was also deeply involved in the 57th Street Art Fair, creating multiple posters for the annual event. He exhibited frequently at the South Side Community Art Center as a young artist and later became a member of the board. In the 1990s, he collaborated with Ralph Arnold, making works in parallel and together, and exhibiting together in a show called “Collaboration” at the Center in 1998.

William S. Carter (1909–1996) was a painter and member of the founding generation of the South Side Community Art Center. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Carter worked in a variety of painterly styles and subject matter: abstract and figurative, landscape, still-life and portraits. He began painting as a boy and moved to Chicago in 1930 to attend the School of the Art Institute, after being barred from enrolling in racially segregated art schools in Missouri. Having difficulty paying his tuition, Carter eventually earned his BFA from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. He taught at the South Side Community Art Center in the late 1930s and early 1940s. While there he contributed designs for costumes, decorations and posters for the Artists and Models Ball fundraisers. Carter also studied art at the South Side Settlement House and worked as a substitute art teacher. His work was included in the American Negro Exhibition in Chicago (1940), the first all African-African exhibition in the U.S., where his painting Study in Grey won first prize in the watercolor section. Carter was also included in Alain Locke’s book The Negro in Art, a survey of African American artists. Carter continued painting until he passed, working in his apartment in a senior citizen living facility on Chicago’s North Side.

Bobbe Cotton (1924?–??) provided designs for costumes, which she also modeled, for the South Side Community Art Center’s Artists and Models balls in the 1940s and 50s.

Mikki Ferrill (born 1937) is a photographer and photojournalist from Chicago whose work predominantly documents African-American social life. Ferrill graduated from Francis Parker High School in Chicago and studied advertising design, illustration, drawing and photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In the 1970s, she began a decade-long project documenting the happenings at The Garage/The Alley, an informal music event that happened in and around the alley between Champlain and St. Lawrence Avenues at 50th Street every Sunday from the 1950s to the 1970s. Ferrill’s portfolio of the Garage was included in the first volume of Black Photographers Annual (1973). Her work has also been featured in the exhibitions Never a Lovely So Real: Photography and Film in Chicago, 1950-1980 at the Art Institute of Chicago, and Personal and Political: Women Photographers, 1965-1985 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Ferrill has had work in publications including Ebony, Downbeat and the Chicago Defender and her work is held in numerous museums and private collections.

Jonathan Green (born 1955) is a painter and printmaker from Gardens Corner, South Carolina. Green’s work explores narrative realism through depictions of everyday life, often in rural settings. Green was raised by his grandmother, who taught him about the culture and dialect of the Gullah communities of the U.S. South. Green’s relationship to the Gullah culture remains one of the major influences on his work. After serving in the United States Air Force, he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, receiving his BFA in 1982. Green began working with the South Side Community Art Center in the 1980s and had a solo exhibition there in 1987. His work is in the permanent collections of several museums, including Morris Museum in August, GA, The African-American Museum in Philadelphia, PA and The Naples Museum of Art in Naples, FL. He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of South Carolina and published the book Gullah Images: The Art of Jonathan Green in 1996. He has been a part of several exhibitions, including In the Hands of African American Collectors at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles and Highlights: African American Art from the Norton Collection at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, FL.

Juarez Hawkins (born 1962) is a painter, ceramicist, curator, and educator from Chicago, IL, whose work explores questions of identity, spirituality and the body. Hawkins received her B.A. from Northwestern University and her M.A. from Columbia College Chicago. She has exhibited widely, with solo shows at the 33 Collective Gallery, Concordia University and the South Side Community Art Center. She is co-curator of Gallery Programs at Chicago State University and has organized exhibitions featuring artists in the permanent collection, including Richard Hunt, Marva Jolly, and William Walker (at the Hyde Park Art Center). Other recent curatorial projects include The Love Affair Continues at the DuSable Museum of African American History and Intersectional Touch at the Hyde Park Art Center. Juarez is a member of Sapphire and Crystals, a collective of African American female artists and is a two-time recipient of the Community Arts Assistance Program Grant.

Berry Horton (1917–1987) was an abstract and expressionist painter and skilled draftsman from Chicago who produced unusually frank depictions of sexuality and often fantastical bodies and situations. Horton trained as an artist through programs at the South Side Community Art Center and his talent as a draftsman is evident in his drawings, prints, and paintings. He also worked as a nude model at the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1930s. He produced a series of nudes in the 1930s and 40s influenced by the South Side Community Art Center’s Artists and Models Ball.

Marva Lee Pitchford Jolly (1937–2012) was a sculptor from Crenshaw, Mississippi, who worked primarily in ceramics. Jolly is best known for her “story pots,” pottery depicting narratives of African-American life in the U.S., especially in the South. She moved to Chicago in the 1960s to attend Roosevelt University, and later received her M.A. from Governors State University. After working predominantly in education and social services, at 45 Jolly decided to focus solely on art. In the 1980s she formed the studio Mudpeoples in Hyde Park, Chicago and became involved with both the Hyde Park Art Center and the South Side Community Art Center. Known as a devoted mentor to other women artists, Jolly founded the collective Sapphire and Crystals in 1986 to provide opportunities for African-American women artists to exhibit together. In the same year, Jolly was recognized as a Top Ten Emerging Black Chicago Artist. Her work has been featured in several exhibitions, including Kindred Spirits at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center and New Age, New Age: Strategies of Survival at the DePaul University Art Museum. Jolly taught ceramics at Chicago State University and served on the Board of Directors of the Urban Traditions, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the African American Roundtable.

William McBride (1912-2000) was a painter, designer and art collector from Algiers, New Orleans. When he was ten, McBride’s family moved to Chicago and he began to take classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He joined the collective of young Black artists known as the Arts and Crafts Guild and was an early supporter of the South Side Community Art Center, working as the center’s publicity director. In the 1930s, McBride worked as an artist through the Federal Art Project with the Works Progress Administration, and designed books and costumes for the Federal Theater Project. His paintings were featured in the first exhibition at the SSCAC, alongside his artistic contemporaries, including Charles White, Archibald Motley Jr. and William Carter. McBride became renowned for his costume designs for the Center’s Artists and Models Ball. He was also involved in the Chicago dance scene, serving as a director for the Sadie Bruce Dance Revue and the Mildred B. Haessler Ballet Group. McBride learned screenprinting and was inspired by African masks. As a collector, he traveled to African countries such as Ghana, Benin, and Nigeria, and brought back work to his collection in the U.S. He was featured in several exhibitions at different institutions, including the Newark Museum, N.J., Equitable Gallery, N.Y. and the Chicago Cultural Center. His work is a part of the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper Hewitt, and DuSable Museum of African American History.

Patric McCoy (born 1946) is an art collector, curator, environmental chemist, and photographer from Chicago whose art collection contains more than one thousand paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, and collages by African American artists. McCoy went to Englewood High School, the University of Chicago, and Governors State University and worked as an environmental scientist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1976 to 2006. In the 1980s, McCoy developed his practice as a photographer, focusing on everyday lives of people and the landscape of Chicago. In 2003, McCoy co-founded Diasporal Rhythms, a non-profit that promotes the collection of art by living African-American artists. McCoy’s collection was shown at the DuSable Museum of African-American History in Chicago in 2018.

El Roi (born Elroy) Parker (1923–1978) grew up in Chicago in a family that had migrated from Louisiana. He provided costume designs for the South Side Community Art Center’s Artists and Models balls in the 1940s and 50s.

Walter Sanford (1912-1987) was a multidisciplinary social realist and abstract expressionist artist who worked across a range of mediums, including painting, collage, linoleum cuts, woodcuts, sculptures and pencil drawings. Sanford grew up in Chicago and had his first exhibition at 18 at the Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago. He took classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to Detroit, where he studied at the Detroit Society of Art and Crafts. Famed for his cubist figurative paintings, in 1958 Sanford won the Prix de Paris La Grande Saison de Paris at the Raymond Duncan Galleries. In Detroit, he opened the first Black-owned gallery and exhibited in the first Negro Art Exhibition. After spending time in Nevada, France and Mexico, Sanford moved back to Chicago. He was deeply influenced by life on the city’s South Side. He often painted portraits of entertainers at the famous music venue Club DeLisa, including Billie Holiday and Roberta Flack. His work has been exhibited at numerous institutions, including the Stuttgart Museum, Germany, Detroit Institute of Art, the South Side Community Art Center and the Las Vegas Art League.

Charles Sebree (1914-1985) was a modernist painter and playwright from White City, Kentucky. As a child, Sebree moved to Chicago with his mother. He attended the School of the Art Institute. While in college, Sebree joined the Cube Theater Club, where he met dancer and anthropologist Katherine Dunham and writer Alain Locke, who both became major influences in his life. He built a relationship with artists on the city’s South Side, such as Eldzier Cortor and Margaret Burroughs, and was involved with the South Side Community Art Center. With an interest in theater, Sebree worked as a playwright, set designer, and director, and many of his portraits depict performers. He was drafted into WWII, where he met fellow playwright Owen Dodson, and the duo produced several plays at military camps. After the war, Sebree moved to New York and became connected to the art scene at the tail end of the Harlem Renaissance, with friends such as Billie Holiday and Miles Davis. He illustrated several books written by author Countee Cullen, and worked with both the American Negro Theater and the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. In 1944, Sebree was awarded a Rosenwald Foundation grant. In 1954, Sebree wrote the Broadway musical Mrs. Patterson, which starred Eartha Kitt. Sebree left New York in the 1960s and moved to Washington D.C., where he spent the rest of his life. He participated in numerous exhibitions, including at the South Side Community Art Center, Woodmere Art Museum, and Katharine Kuh Galleries. His paintings are in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Howard University Art Collection, and the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Allen Stringfellow (1923–2004) was a painter and collage artist from Champaign, Illinois, whose work depicted religious themes and representations of the Black middle class. The child of a Jazz musician and manager of the Club DeLisa, Stringfellow began designing costumes as a teenager for his parents’ performer friends. He studied at the University of Illinois and the Art Institute of Milwaukee. Stringfellow was a friend of William S. Carter, who introduced him to the South Side Community Art Center in the 1940s, where he taught silk screen printing. He also showed together with Mikki Ferrill at the Gold Coast Art Fair. In the 1960s, he owned the gallery The Walls of Art in the Old Town neighborhood in Chicago, and promoted Black Chicago artists amongst his clients, who worked as decorators for upscale houses in the city. Later he became the general manager for Armand Lee & Company, a custom framer and fine art restoration business. His work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Historical Society, DuSable Museum, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. In 1995, Stringfellow had a major exhibition of his work at the Harrison Museum of African American Culture in Roanoke, Virginia.

Ellis Wilson (1899–1977) was a painter from Mayfield, Kentucky, whose work combines aspects of expressionism and realism. Wilson attended the Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute but was only allowed to take courses in agriculture and education, so at 19 he moved to Chicago to study art at the School of the Art Institute. He lived in Chicago until 1928, and then moved to New York at the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. He was a part of the Harlem Artists Guild and worked for the government’s Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project from 1935 to 1940. In 1944, Wilson received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to travel across the Southern U.S. This period, together with his regular trips to Haiti starting in 1952, greatly influenced his work. He exhibited work in a solo show at the South Side Community Art Center in 1946. He took part in several national exhibitions, including The Negro Artist Comes of Age at the Albany Institute of Art and History (1945), a solo exhibition at the J.B. Speed Art Museum in Louisville (1948) and the Terry Art Exhibition in Miami (1952). In the later years of his life, Wilson lived in poverty. He died at the Cornish Arms Home for Adults, where he was buried in a pauper’s grave.

Essays by the exhibition curators, zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o’neal and LaMar R. Gayles, Jr., provide particular insights into two of the featured artists, MIKKI FERRILL and BERRY HORTON.

AIN’T DONE TRYIN YET: ON FERRILL’S GAZE

by zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o'neal

Exhibition Curator, Manager of Public Engagement and Programs

CALL ME BY MY NAME – TELL ME IN PRIVATE: THE PRACTICE OF BERRY HORTON

by LaMar R. Gayles, Jr.

Exhibition Curator, Archives and Collections Manager

History & Resources

EMERGENCE emphasizes the middle decades of the twentieth century, from the 1940s to the 1980s. For much of this time period, sexual orientation was heavily policed, both literally by the Chicago Police Department, and in a variety of other ways through the imposition of norms by society and its institutions, such as church, family, medical institutions, and school. For this reason, many of the artists in the exhibition, especially in the early decades represented here, were careful to exercise discretion in their life and work. Most did not publicly identify themselves as gay, lesbian, trans, or bisexual. At the same time, particularly in Bronzeville, Chicago’s South Side Black community held spaces that were open to participants of differing sexual orientations and identities. And political movements on behalf of Gay Liberation were active throughout this period, gaining strength in the 1970s and 80s.

Historical research reveals that many artists affiliated with the Center, even in its early decades, had romantic and sexual lives that included same-sex partners and desires. Whether this experience is visible in their work is another question entirely—one that we open up to our audience to help us consider, rather than making conclusive claims about it.

Alongside artists who might today identify as LGBTQIA+, EMERGENCE includes artists who depict spaces and performances that were part of the South Side’s queer life, or who collaborated with, influenced, or inspired other artists in the exhibition, without themselves necessarily being queer-identified.

More information about the artworks and historical documents exhibited in EMERGENCE can be found in the checklist and ephemera lists linked here. A syllabus by Gervais Marsh provides an introduction to the way historians and art historians have studied this material, providing historical context for the exhibition and a wealth of related ideas, images, documents, and questions for discussion.

Links & Downloads

SYLLABUS by Gervais Marsh, topics and readings for further exploration
CHECKLIST of all the artworks displayed in the exhibition
EPHEMERA list of historical documents and sketches in the exhibition
INTERVIEWS (Coming soon)

EXHIBITION EVENTS

May 19, 2022

CEREMONIES: A SELECTION OF SHORT FILMS BY MARLON RIGGS

Find out more

May 02, 2022

EMERGENCE CURATORS CONVERSATION

Find out more

April 21, 2022

TOWARD THE CENTER: In Conversation with Patric McCoy, Juarez Hawkins, and Jonathan Green

Find out more

GIVE

Keep the legacy of SSCAC alive, and help shape its future.

SHOP

Purchase prints, accessories, T-shirts and more in our gift shop.

JOIN

Become a member of our SSCAC community.

NEWS

CALL ME BY MY NAME – TELL ME IN PRIVATE: THE PRACTICE OF BERRY HORTON

April 12, 2022

Call Me By My Name – Tell Me In Private: The Practice of Berry Horton LaMar R. Gayles, Jr. In the song “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name),” musician Lil

CREDITS

Major support for EMERGENCE was provided by a Terra Foundation Re-Envisioning Permanent Collections grant. Programming support is provided by Northwestern University Mary Jane Crowe Program funds.

Special thanks to South Side Community Art Center Executive Director Monique Brinkman-Hill for her unwavering support of this project; to Heidi Marshall at Columbia College Library for facilitating archival research; lenders to the exhibition, including the Bates College Museum (Dan Mills and Corie Audette); the Block Museum (Kathleen Bickford Berzock, Janet Dees, Dan Silverstein, Joe Scott, and Kristina Bottomley); the Aaron Gallery (Patrick Albano and Lynne Schillaci); and Juarez Hawkins, Patric McCoy, and Margaret R. Vendryes and Jacqueline Herranz-Brooks. Additional thanks to Zahra Glenda Baker, Simone Bouyer, Chad Heap, Brian Leahy, Solveig Nelson, Michael W. Phillips, Jr., Gregory Sykes, and the Columbia College Department of Exhibitions.

Many thanks to The Woodshop and Block Museum for framing, to Faye Wrubel and the Graphic Conservation Company for conservation treatment paintings and works on paper respectively, and to Tony Smith for expert photography.

Exhibition Staff and Advisors

Exhibition curators: zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o’neal and LaMar R. Gayles, Jr.
Curatorial researcher: Gervais Marsh
Curatorial intern: Chantel McCrea
Exhibitions manager: Lola Ogbara
Project advisor and editor: Rebecca Zorach
Publication designer: Aay Preston-Myint
Web design: That’s So Creative
Exhibition board of advisors: Kemi Adeyemi, Tristan Cabello, Aymar Jean Christian, Gregory Foster-Rice, Juarez Hawkins, Patricia McCombs, Patric McCoy, Shanta Nurullah, Margaret R. Vendryes

In Memoriam

In the final weeks of preparation for EMERGENCE, we learned of the passing of the artist and art historian Dr. Margaret Rose Vendryes (1955–2022). Margaret was an enthusiastic and early supporter of this exhibition project and generously offered her vast knowledge of early twentieth–century African American artists as a project advisor who also loaned a work in her personal collection (Richmond Barthé’s St. Sebastian) to the exhibition. We join with all who loved her in mourning her loss, we celebrate the legacy of her art and scholarship, and we express deep gratitude for the contributions that immeasurably enriched EMERGENCE.

EXHIBIT

EARLY YEARS

Nightlife, Performance,
Identity

Mixed Media &
Still Life

Oblique Bodies

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Biographies authored by Gervais Marsh present an overview of the lives of artists in the exhibition

Curatorial Essays

Essays by the exhibition curators, zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o’neal and LaMar R. Gayles, Jr., provide particular insights into two of the featured artists, MIKKI FERRILL and BERRY HORTON.