Emma Amos: Postmodernist Artist Who Confronted Race and Gender Dies at 83
Emma Amos, a prominent postmodern artist, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1937. Raised in a family engaged in community service, she began her artistic journey at the age of 11 at Morris Brown College, later studying at institutions including Antioch College and New York University. Relocating to New York in 1960, she faced challenges but collaborated with notable figures and became the sole female member of the Spiral group in 1963. Amos's impactful work examined themes of race, gender, and identity. She passed away in 2020, and in 2021, her first major retrospective was showcased, celebrating her artistic legacy.
Key facts
- Emma Amos was born in 1937 in Atlanta, Georgia, and died in 2020.
- She was the first and only female member of the Spiral group, which was formed in 1963 by Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Norman Lewis, and Hale Woodruff.
- Amos joined the Heresies Collective in 1982 after being introduced by Lucy Lippard.
- She was also a member of the Guerrilla Girls.
- She taught at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts and at Rutgers University from 1980 to 2008.
- Her first career retrospective, Emma Amos: Color Odyssey, was held at the Georgia Museum of Art in 2021.
- Her work was included in Tate's Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power and the Brooklyn Museum's We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965-1985, both in 2017.
- She created the painting Tightrope in 1994, which depicts her balancing as a Black woman, artist, wife, and mother.
Entities
Artists
- Emma Amos
- Zora Neale Hurston
- W. E. B. Du Bois
- Dorothy Liebes
- Letterio Capalai
- Robert Blackburn
- Hale Woodruff
- Romare Bearden
- Charles Alston
- Norman Lewis
- Lucy Lippard
- Joan Braderman
- Robert Levine
- India Levine
- Nicholas Levine
- Paul Gauguin
Institutions
- Morris Brown College
- Antioch College
- Central School of Art
- Alexander Gallery
- Dalton School
- New York University
- Spiral
- Heresies Collective
- Guerrilla Girls
- Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts
- Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University
- Tate
- Brooklyn Museum
- Georgia Museum of Art
- Philadelphia Museum of Art
- Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute
- Ryan Lee Gallery
- Studio Museum in Harlem
- Whitney Museum of American Art
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- National Gallery of Art
- Women Make Movies
Locations
- Atlanta
- Georgia
- United States
- Yellow Springs
- Ohio
- London
- United Kingdom
- New York
- New York City
- Utica
- Cleveland