African American “Protest” Art Lecture – Professor Mary Ann Calo

The Bruce Contemporaries hosted an engaging and informative lecture on the topic of African American "Protest" Art given by Professor Mary Ann Calo.

This lecture examined how Black artists in the 20th century sought to convey ideas about racial injustice through their artworks. 

  Beginning with the fairly reserved approach to protest in the Harlem Renaissance and during the Depression, moving to the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, and ending with the various approaches that emerged in contemporary art at the end of the century.

Mary Ann Calo, Batza Professor of Art History, Emerita, recently retired from the faculty of Colgate University where she taught courses on modern and contemporary art history, the arts and public policy, and American art. During her 25 years at Colgate, she also served as Chair of the Art and Art History Department, Associate Dean of the Faculty, Director of the Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts, and Director of the Division of Arts and Humanities. 

Prof. Calo is the author of three books and numerous articles. Her edited volume, Critical Issues in American Art, is widely used as a textbook for college courses on American Art. Calo’s most recent book, Distinction and Denial: Race, Nation and the Critical Construction of the African American Artist, 1920-1940, focused on the critical reception of African American artists in the early 20th century. She has just completed a study of African American artists and the New Deal federal art projects of the 1930s.

Calo also spent many years living and working in Italy, initially as a student and then later as a professor. She led a study group for Colgate in Venice and was a visiting professor of modern art at Syracuse University in Florence. Since her retirement, Prof. Calo has led study tours to Rome and Venice, for Colgate alumni, parents, and friends, focused on “Italy: Past and Present.” She is hoping to visit Florence in 2021 as part of this series.

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