During a time when the nation is under racial duress, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) is preparing to display “Soul of A Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” in record time.
Originally scheduled to open in April as the last stop on a three-year national tour, “Soul of a Nation” has been at San Francisco’s de Young Museum during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The show features work created by more than 60 Black artists during the revolutionary decades of American history that began with the Civil Rights Movement and extended to the emergence of identity politics in the early 1980s.
In addition, the MFAH will add a section from its own collection of art made by Black American artists in Houston and Texas during the period covered by the exhibition, including works by John Biggers, Kermit Oliver and Carroll Harris Simms.
“This new section contributes to a more comprehensive representation of Black American art during the same era and celebrates an important legacy of art making in Texas,” said the show’s Houston curator, Kanitra Fletcher.
