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Beverly Buchanan

January 20, 2023

Beverly Buchanan (October 8, 1940 – July 4, 2015)[1] was an African-American artist whose works include painting, sculpture, video, and land art. Buchanan is noted for her exploration of Southern vernacular architecture through her art.[2]

Beverly Buchanan
BornOctober 8, 1940
Fuquay, North Carolina U.S.
DiedJuly 4, 2015(2015-07-04) (aged 74)
Ann Arbor, Michigan U.S.
Occupation(s)Painter
Sculptor

Early life and education

Buchanan was born in Fuquay, North Carolina, and was raised by her great-aunt and uncle in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where her adoptive father was dean of the School of Agriculture at South Carolina State College—then the only state school for African Americans in South Carolina.[2][3]

Buchanan spent a considerable amount of time with her father on his trips where he would work with rural farmers, advising them in their farming processes.[4][5]

In 1962, Buchanan graduated from Bennett College, in Greensboro, North Carolina, a historically black women's college, with a Bachelor of Science degree in medical technology.[6] She went on to attend Columbia University, where she received a master's degree in parasitology in 1968, and a master's degree in public health in 1969.[6] While working in New Jersey, Buchanan applied to medical school; although she was accepted to medical school as an alternate at Mt. Sinai, Buchanan decided not to go due to her desire to dedicate more time to her art.[7][5] Part of this choice consisted of her decision to "express the images, stories, and architecture of her African American childhood".[2]

Career

In 1971, Buchanan enrolled in a class taught by Norman Lewis at the Art Students League in New York City. Lewis, along with artist Romare Bearden, became friends and mentors to Buchanan.[2] This relationship with Bearden happened after an accidental incident at a concert where Bearden designed a poster for the event. Buchanan bumped into Norman Lewis backstage while trying to get the Bearden poster signed, and Lewis took Buchanan back stage to meet Bearden. Buchanan later wrote a letter to Bearden reminding him of that event and Bearden became her mentor and had her display her art at the Cinque Gallery.[5] Buchanan decided to become a full-time artist in 1977 after exhibiting her work in a new talent show at Betty Parsons Gallery.[8] In the same year, she moved to Macon, Georgia.[2]

In 1976 and 1977, Buchanan drew "black walls" on paper.[9] She "wanted to see what the wall looked like on the other side" and put four walls together in three dimensions.[9] She then began to sculpt in cement. An example of a three-dimensional work from her early career is the sculpture "Ruins and Rituals" at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, Georgia, part of a series of concrete structures that recall ancient tombs.[10]

Buchanan is best known for her many paintings and sculptures on the "shack," a rudimentary dwelling associated with the poor.[11] Scholar Janet T. Marquardt argues that Buchanan treats shacks not as documentary elements but as "images of endurance and personal history"; often using bright colors and a style of childlike simplicity, the works "evoke the warmth and happiness that can be found even in the meanest dwelling, representing the faith and caring that is not reserved for privileged classes."[11] Her art takes the form of stone pedestals, bric-a brac assemblages, funny poems, self portraits and sculptural shacks. But potent themes of identity, place and collective memory unite the works uncovering the animus that runs through them: to connect with those around her and reckon with the history that shaped her communities.[12]

Buchanan is noted to have seen viewers sitting on her stone art piece Unity Stones, but let the men remain seated because she did not mind people sitting on her pieces as they contemplated the work and it represented. "The piece serves as a communal place to sit and talk, and do the other things that we do."[13]

Scholar Alex Campbell notes in an essay how Buchanan worked in a studio on College Street in Macon, GA which served as an unofficial racial dividing line for the town. It "separated the working- and middle-class black part of town from the middle-class and affluent white part of town".[14]

In 1981, Buchanan created Marsh Ruins, a temporal land art sculpture in coastal Georgia near a commentated site known as "The Marshes of Glenn." To the east of the work was Saint Simons Island, where a group of Igbo people sold into slavery collectively drowned themselves in 1803. This work bears witness to the unmarked histories of enslaved peoples. There she planted three concrete forms and covered them with layers of tabby, a mixture used in slave living quarters. Marsh Ruins gradually disintegrated into the marsh. Buchanan captured that erosion process on video.[15]

Buchanan said of her work, "My work is a logical progression of my early interest in textures and surfaces and walls. The early "walls" were lonely, freestanding, fragmented things. When I lived in New York I was looking for things that were demolished. That gave them character. I liked to imagine who might have lived in the apartment, and whose home it might have been. Each family that moved in repainted the walls their color. When a building is torn down the various layers of color are exposed. It is almost surgical--like looking through a microscope and looking at different layers of tissue and media."[16]

In an interview with Angela Son, Son asked Buchanan what her concept of home was and Buchanan responded with, "[Home] means what I've stablished and where I am, wherever that is. And it means South Carolina, where I grew up... I consider home as where I grew up."[17]

On July 4, 2015, Buchanan died in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the age of seventy-four.[1] In the fall of 2016 a comprehensive exhibition of her work opened at the Brooklyn Museum in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Beverly Buchanan - Ruins and Rituals featured painting, sculptures, drawings, as well as the artist's notebooks and photographs form her personal archive.[18][19]

Buchanan's work was featured at the Independent Art Fair 2017 at Andrew Edlin Gallery's booth.[20] Buchanan has remarked, "A lot of my pieces have the word ‘ruins’ in their titles because I think that tells you this object has been through a lot and survived — that’s the idea behind the sculptures ... it’s like, ‘Here I am; I’m still here!'"[21][22]

Buchanan's work featured among that of twenty African-American artists in an exhibition at the Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent, UK in February 2020, entitled 'We Will Walk-Art and Resistance in the American South'. [23]

Buchanan's work is in the collection of the Addison Art Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, Georgia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art,[7] and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia.[24]

Awards

Selected solo exhibitions

List from exhibition catalogue "9 Women in Georgia"[16]

References

  1. ^ a b "Beverly Buchanan: Obituary". Ann Arbor News. 9 July 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Klacsmann, Karen Towers (6 May 2005). "Arts & Culture. Visual Arts. Beverly Buchanan (1940-2015)". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  3. ^ a b "The Johnson Collection: Beverly Buchanan".
  4. ^ Quinton, Jared. "Beverly Buchanan Ruins and Rituals". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  5. ^ a b c Yerman, Marcia G. (December 31, 2013). "Beverly Buchanan - An interview with Marcia G. Yerman". Marcia G. Yerman. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  6. ^ a b "Beverly Buchanan" (1999). Contemporary Women Artists. Detroit: Gale. Retrieved via Biography in Context, 1 January 2017.
  7. ^ a b "New Georgia Encyclopedia".
  8. ^ Buchanan, Beverly (1994). "Shack Portraiture: An Interview with Beverly Buchanan". In Flomenhaft, Eleanor (ed.). Beverly Buchanan: ShackWorks, a 16-year survey. Montclair, NJ: Montclair Art Museum. p. 12.
  9. ^ a b Buchanan, Beverly (1994). "Shack Portraiture: An Interview with Beverly Buchanan". In Flomenhaft, Eleanor (ed.). Beverly Buchanan: ShackWorks. p. 13.
  10. ^ . Collections. Museum of Arts and Sciences. masmacon.org. Archived from the original on 30 April 2016. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  11. ^ a b Marquardt, Janet T. "Beverly Buchanan 2015-03-27 at the Wayback Machine", section in 2005 CWA Annual Recognition Awards. College Art Association. collegeart.org. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
  12. ^ Gotthardt, Alexxa (2016-10-27). "Fiercely Independent Artist Beverly Buchanan Finally Gets the Retrospective She Deserves". Artsy. Retrieved 2018-05-23.
  13. ^ Campbell, Andy (2016). ""We're Going To See Blood On Them Next": Beverly Buchanan's Georgia Ruins and Black Negativity". Rhizomes. Issue 29 – via Google Scholar.
  14. ^ Campbell, Alex (2017). "Beverly Buchanan". Art Papers. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  15. ^ ""The Brooklyn Museum Gives Fiercely Independent Artist Beverly Buchanan the Retrospective She Deserves"". Artsy.
  16. ^ a b Georgia Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (1996). 9 Women in Georgia: An Exhibition of Contemporary Art.
  17. ^ Son, Angela (November 8, 2012). "Interview with Beverly Buchanan". Art Animal. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  18. ^ "Brooklyn Museum: Beverly Buchanan—Ruins and Rituals". www.brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved 2017-02-28.
  19. ^ "Ruins and Rituals exhibition review". Art in America. Art in America. Retrieved 3 March 2018.
  20. ^ Greenberger, Alex (2017-03-02). "Beverly Buchanan House Sculptures Charm at Independent Art Fair". ARTnews. Retrieved 2017-07-01.
  21. ^ Almino, Elisa Wouk. "From Mysterious Erotica to Holy Bell Jars, Singular Projects at the Independent Art Fair". Hyperallergic. 2017-03-03. Retrieved 2017-07-01.
  22. ^ Cotter, Holland (2017-04-20). "To Be Black, Female and Fed Up With the Mainstream". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-07-01.
  23. ^ "We Will Walk – Art and Resistance in the American South". Turner Contemporary. Retrieved 2022-08-17.
  24. ^ "Mid Line Fault". High Museum of Art. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  25. ^ . Guggenheim Foundation. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015. Retrieved 7 March 2015.

External links

  • Official website
  • Angela Son Interview
  • Marcia G. Yerman Interview
  • Andrew Edlin Gallery
  • Smithsonian: Beverly Buchanan Papers

January 20, 2023
beverly, buchanan, october, 1940, july, 2015, african, american, artist, whose, works, include, painting, sculpture, video, land, buchanan, noted, exploration, southern, vernacular, architecture, through, bornoctober, 1940fuquay, north, carolina, diedjuly, 201. Beverly Buchanan October 8 1940 July 4 2015 1 was an African American artist whose works include painting sculpture video and land art Buchanan is noted for her exploration of Southern vernacular architecture through her art 2 Beverly BuchananBornOctober 8 1940Fuquay North Carolina U S DiedJuly 4 2015 2015 07 04 aged 74 Ann Arbor Michigan U S Occupation s PainterSculptor Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Career 3 Awards 4 Selected solo exhibitions 5 References 6 External linksEarly life and education EditBuchanan was born in Fuquay North Carolina and was raised by her great aunt and uncle in Orangeburg South Carolina where her adoptive father was dean of the School of Agriculture at South Carolina State College then the only state school for African Americans in South Carolina 2 3 Buchanan spent a considerable amount of time with her father on his trips where he would work with rural farmers advising them in their farming processes 4 5 In 1962 Buchanan graduated from Bennett College in Greensboro North Carolina a historically black women s college with a Bachelor of Science degree in medical technology 6 She went on to attend Columbia University where she received a master s degree in parasitology in 1968 and a master s degree in public health in 1969 6 While working in New Jersey Buchanan applied to medical school although she was accepted to medical school as an alternate at Mt Sinai Buchanan decided not to go due to her desire to dedicate more time to her art 7 5 Part of this choice consisted of her decision to express the images stories and architecture of her African American childhood 2 Career EditIn 1971 Buchanan enrolled in a class taught by Norman Lewis at the Art Students League in New York City Lewis along with artist Romare Bearden became friends and mentors to Buchanan 2 This relationship with Bearden happened after an accidental incident at a concert where Bearden designed a poster for the event Buchanan bumped into Norman Lewis backstage while trying to get the Bearden poster signed and Lewis took Buchanan back stage to meet Bearden Buchanan later wrote a letter to Bearden reminding him of that event and Bearden became her mentor and had her display her art at the Cinque Gallery 5 Buchanan decided to become a full time artist in 1977 after exhibiting her work in a new talent show at Betty Parsons Gallery 8 In the same year she moved to Macon Georgia 2 In 1976 and 1977 Buchanan drew black walls on paper 9 She wanted to see what the wall looked like on the other side and put four walls together in three dimensions 9 She then began to sculpt in cement An example of a three dimensional work from her early career is the sculpture Ruins and Rituals at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon Georgia part of a series of concrete structures that recall ancient tombs 10 Buchanan is best known for her many paintings and sculptures on the shack a rudimentary dwelling associated with the poor 11 Scholar Janet T Marquardt argues that Buchanan treats shacks not as documentary elements but as images of endurance and personal history often using bright colors and a style of childlike simplicity the works evoke the warmth and happiness that can be found even in the meanest dwelling representing the faith and caring that is not reserved for privileged classes 11 Her art takes the form of stone pedestals bric a brac assemblages funny poems self portraits and sculptural shacks But potent themes of identity place and collective memory unite the works uncovering the animus that runs through them to connect with those around her and reckon with the history that shaped her communities 12 Buchanan is noted to have seen viewers sitting on her stone art piece Unity Stones but let the men remain seated because she did not mind people sitting on her pieces as they contemplated the work and it represented The piece serves as a communal place to sit and talk and do the other things that we do 13 Scholar Alex Campbell notes in an essay how Buchanan worked in a studio on College Street in Macon GA which served as an unofficial racial dividing line for the town It separated the working and middle class black part of town from the middle class and affluent white part of town 14 In 1981 Buchanan created Marsh Ruins a temporal land art sculpture in coastal Georgia near a commentated site known as The Marshes of Glenn To the east of the work was Saint Simons Island where a group of Igbo people sold into slavery collectively drowned themselves in 1803 This work bears witness to the unmarked histories of enslaved peoples There she planted three concrete forms and covered them with layers of tabby a mixture used in slave living quarters Marsh Ruins gradually disintegrated into the marsh Buchanan captured that erosion process on video 15 Buchanan said of her work My work is a logical progression of my early interest in textures and surfaces and walls The early walls were lonely freestanding fragmented things When I lived in New York I was looking for things that were demolished That gave them character I liked to imagine who might have lived in the apartment and whose home it might have been Each family that moved in repainted the walls their color When a building is torn down the various layers of color are exposed It is almost surgical like looking through a microscope and looking at different layers of tissue and media 16 In an interview with Angela Son Son asked Buchanan what her concept of home was and Buchanan responded with Home means what I ve stablished and where I am wherever that is And it means South Carolina where I grew up I consider home as where I grew up 17 On July 4 2015 Buchanan died in Ann Arbor Michigan at the age of seventy four 1 In the fall of 2016 a comprehensive exhibition of her work opened at the Brooklyn Museum in the Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art Beverly Buchanan Ruins and Rituals featured painting sculptures drawings as well as the artist s notebooks and photographs form her personal archive 18 19 Buchanan s work was featured at the Independent Art Fair 2017 at Andrew Edlin Gallery s booth 20 Buchanan has remarked A lot of my pieces have the word ruins in their titles because I think that tells you this object has been through a lot and survived that s the idea behind the sculptures it s like Here I am I m still here 21 22 Buchanan s work featured among that of twenty African American artists in an exhibition at the Turner Contemporary Margate Kent UK in February 2020 entitled We Will Walk Art and Resistance in the American South 23 Buchanan s work is in the collection of the Addison Art Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover Massachusetts Georgia Museum of Art the Metropolitan Museum of Art the Whitney Museum of American Art 7 and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta Georgia 24 Awards Edit1980 Guggenheim Fellowship 25 and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship 1990 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in sculpture 1994 Pollock Krasner Foundation Award 3 1997 Georgia Visual Arts honoree 2002 Anonymous Was a Woman Award 2005 College Art Association Committee for Women in the Arts distinguished honoree 2011 Women s Caucus for Art lifetime achievement award 2 Selected solo exhibitions EditList from exhibition catalogue 9 Women in Georgia 16 Traveling retrospective exhibition organized by the Montclair Art Museum to nine museums and college galleries 1994 96 Steinbaum Krauss Gallery New York 1993 Schering Plough Headquarters Gallery Madison NJ 1992 Three Rivers Art Festival Pittsburgh Pennsylvania 1992 Chrysler Museum Norfolk VA 1992 Jacksonville Art Museum Florida 1992 Bernie Steinbaum Gallery New York 1991 1990 Oregon School of Arts and Crafts Portland 1991 Greenville County Museum South Carolina 1991 Fairleigh Dickenson University Rutherford NJ 1990 Museum of Arts and Sciences Macon GA 1990 Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art Winston Salem NC 1989 Heath Gallery Atlanta GA 1987 1986 1981 University of Alabama 1982 Kornblee Gallery New York 1981 Truman Gallery New York 1978 Mercer University Macon GA 1977 Upsala College East Orange NJ 1974 Cinque Gallery New York 1972References Edit a b Beverly Buchanan Obituary Ann Arbor News 9 July 2015 a b c d e f Klacsmann Karen Towers 6 May 2005 Arts amp Culture Visual Arts Beverly Buchanan 1940 2015 New Georgia Encyclopedia Retrieved 29 February 2016 a b The Johnson Collection Beverly Buchanan Quinton Jared Beverly Buchanan Ruins and Rituals The Brooklyn Rail Retrieved December 10 2020 a b c Yerman Marcia G December 31 2013 Beverly Buchanan An interview with Marcia G Yerman Marcia G Yerman Retrieved December 10 2020 a b Beverly Buchanan 1999 Contemporary Women Artists Detroit Gale Retrieved via Biography in Context 1 January 2017 a b New Georgia Encyclopedia Buchanan Beverly 1994 Shack Portraiture An Interview with Beverly Buchanan In Flomenhaft Eleanor ed Beverly Buchanan ShackWorks a 16 year survey Montclair NJ Montclair Art Museum p 12 a b Buchanan Beverly 1994 Shack Portraiture An Interview with Beverly Buchanan In Flomenhaft Eleanor ed Beverly Buchanan ShackWorks p 13 Ruins and Rituals Collections Museum of Arts and Sciences masmacon org Archived from the original on 30 April 2016 Retrieved 1 January 2017 a b Marquardt Janet T Beverly Buchanan Archived 2015 03 27 at the Wayback Machine section in 2005 CWA Annual Recognition Awards College Art Association collegeart org Retrieved 2 January 2017 Gotthardt Alexxa 2016 10 27 Fiercely Independent Artist Beverly Buchanan Finally Gets the Retrospective She Deserves Artsy Retrieved 2018 05 23 Campbell Andy 2016 We re Going To See Blood On Them Next Beverly Buchanan s Georgia Ruins and Black Negativity Rhizomes Issue 29 via Google Scholar Campbell Alex 2017 Beverly Buchanan Art Papers Retrieved December 10 2020 The Brooklyn Museum Gives Fiercely Independent Artist Beverly Buchanan the Retrospective She Deserves Artsy a b Georgia Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts 1996 9 Women in Georgia An Exhibition of Contemporary Art Son Angela November 8 2012 Interview with Beverly Buchanan Art Animal Retrieved December 10 2020 Brooklyn Museum Beverly Buchanan Ruins and Rituals www brooklynmuseum org Retrieved 2017 02 28 Ruins and Rituals exhibition review Art in America Art in America Retrieved 3 March 2018 Greenberger Alex 2017 03 02 Beverly Buchanan House Sculptures Charm at Independent Art Fair ARTnews Retrieved 2017 07 01 Almino Elisa Wouk From Mysterious Erotica to Holy Bell Jars Singular Projects at the Independent Art Fair Hyperallergic 2017 03 03 Retrieved 2017 07 01 Cotter Holland 2017 04 20 To Be Black Female and Fed Up With the Mainstream The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 2017 07 01 We Will Walk Art and Resistance in the American South Turner Contemporary Retrieved 2022 08 17 Mid Line Fault High Museum of Art Retrieved 2020 03 31 Beverly Buchanan Guggenheim Foundation Archived from the original on 3 April 2015 Retrieved 7 March 2015 External links EditOfficial website Angela Son Interview Marcia G Yerman Interview Andrew Edlin Gallery Smithsonian Beverly Buchanan Papers Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Beverly Buchanan amp oldid 1104856611, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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