Silver Linings: Celebrating the Spelman Art Collection

About the publication

Founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, Spelman College has long been an important cultural hub. The historically Black liberal arts college for women began collecting objects in 1899, and in 1996, the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art opened with the mission to uplift art by and about women of the African diaspora. This goal directly reflects Spelman College’s dedication to academic excellence in the education of women of African descent. In honor of the museum’s 25 years and the College’s much longer legacy of collecting art, the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art organized the anniversary exhibition Silver Linings with a selection of works, from the 1900s until now, from the permanent collection. The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center has a similar history as an art museum, started in 1864 at a women’s college founded in 1861. In 2023, we celebrated two anniversaries—30 years in our building, designed by César Pelli and completed in 1993, and 160 years of collecting at Vassar, which was the first college in the country to include an art museum as part of its original plan. By presenting Silver Linings, the Loeb recognizes Spelman College while also honoring its own history, aspirations, and plans for the future of the collection.

Silver Linings highlights the works of masters, pioneers, and trailblazers who anchor the Spelman collection. Among the forty works in the exhibition there are sculptures by Beverly Buchanan, Selma Burke, and Elizabeth Catlett; paintings by Betty Blayton, Sam Gilliam, and Henry Ossawa Tanner; drawings by Herman “Kofi” Bailey, Nellie Mae Rowe, and Charles White; photographs by Amalia Amaki, Carrie Mae Weems, and Lorna Simpson; and mixed-media work by Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, and Romare Bearden.

Silver Linings: Celebrating the Spelman Art Collection was organized by Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia, and curated by Liz Andrews and Karen Comer Lowe with initial contributions from Anne Collins Smith. This brochure features writings from Liz Andrews and Charmaine Branch, Vassar class of ’14. Generous support was provided by Art Bridges and the Friends of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Exhibition Fund.