Hammonds House Museum and National Black Arts Festival present

Black Zeitgeist: Atlanta, the Visual Arts, and the National Black Arts Festival

Black Zeitgeist: Atlanta, the Visual Arts, and the National Black Arts Festival emphasizes the significant roles played by individuals, Atlanta-based institutions, organizations, and other entities in bringing the most talented African American artists to the national forefront by the 1980s. The cultural vision and leadership of Mayor Maynard H. Jackson, the awareness and creative thinking of Fulton County Commission Chairman Michael Lomax, and the National Black Arts Festival, along with the nurturing and empowering impact of the Black Arts Movement and the model and cultural fertilization of the Atlanta University Annuals, conjoined with the preponderous strength of art emanating from Black hands to achieve this goal. Additional contributory factors include the cultural agenda of African American businesses such as Atlanta Life Insurance Company; legacies of activists such as Jenelsie Walden Holloway, Alice Lovelace, and Richard A. Long; and the trailblazing private art collection of Paul R. Jones, as well as the growing population of committed art collectors since 1980 such as Kerry and Betty C. Davis, Danita and Michael Harris, Cynthia and Kenneth Prince, Kevin Cole, Larry and Brenda Thompson, Donna Turk, Najee Dorsey, Henrietta Antoinin, Margaret and Edward Spriggs, James Jackson, and others.

Artist and scholar activists played a pivotal role in shaping this cultural renaissance. Influential figures such as Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou, Faith Ringgold, and Betye Saar used their creative and scholarly work to address pressing issues of race, identity, and social justice, inspiring generations to use art as a form of activism and empowerment. Their efforts, alongside Atlanta-based visionaries, established the city as a center for Black artistic innovation and intellectual discourse, fostering an environment where creative expression and activism were inseparable. The legacy of their activism is reflected in the ongoing programming and outreach of institutions like the National Black Arts Festival, which continues to foreground the intersection of art, education, and community engagement.

Black Zeitgeist presents the works of Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Louis Delsarte, Michael Ellison, Jenelsie Holloway, Wadsworth Jarrell, Norman Lewis, Samella Lewis, Lynn Marshall Linnemeier, Donald Locke, Haywood Oubre, Curtis Patterson, John Riddle, Faith Ringgold, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Mildred Thompson, Charles White, and Hale Woodruff. Black Zeitgeist also highlights how the Hammonds House Museum extends the NBAF experience with its visual offerings. The convergence of grassroots activism, institutional leadership, visionary collectors, and artist-scholars in Atlanta not only elevated Black visual arts locally but also set a national standard for celebrating and sustaining Black artistic excellence.