Hello, My name is Emily Holtrop and I am the director of learning and interpretation at the museum. Today I will be reading the “The Life of David Driskell” timeline.

The Life of David Driskell

1925

During the “Harlem Renaissance,” philosopher Alain Locke coins the term “The New Negro” to describe the racial pride that accompanies economic independence and a sense of one’s heritage. Calls on African American artists to define an aesthetic rooted in the study of African art.

1929

Stock market crashes, ushering in the Great Depression.

June 7, 1931

David C. Driskell is born in Eatonton, Georgia, to Rev. George Washington Driskell and Mary Lou Cloud Driskell.

1935

The Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) is launched to support the fine arts. By its demise in 1943, it employs more than 10,000 artists.

1936

Driskell family moves to Ellenboro, North Carolina, where they work as sharecroppers.

1941

US enters World War II.

1949

Graduates high school and enters into study of art at Howard University, Washington, DC, a historically Black institution, under James Lesesne Wells, Loïs Mailou Jones, James A. Porter, and Morris Louis

1952

Marries Thelma Deloatch, with whom he has two daughters

1953

Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man wins the National Book Award.

1953

Wins scholarship for summer at Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Madison, Maine, and develops lifelong relationship with the school

1954

Landmark case “Brown vs. (Topeka, Kansas) Board of Education” in which the United States Supreme Court outlaws segregated public schools

1955

Earns a Bachelor of Arts degree in fine arts from Howard University. Teaches at Talladega College, Talladega, Alabama (until 1962), where he has his first solo exhibition

1955

Black activist Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white rider on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus. Bus boycotts culminate in the 1956 US Supreme Court ruling against discrimination on buses. 

1956

Paints Behold Thy Son in response to the lynching in Mississippi of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till for allegedly flirting with a white woman in his family’s grocery 

1958–62

Pursues Master of Fine Arts degree at The Catholic University, Washington, DC. Wins awards for his paintings and graphic arts at Atlanta University Annuals 

1961

Purchases property in Falmouth, Maine 

1961–63

Director of Barnett-Aden Gallery, Washington, DC, a non-profit that promoted African American artists (not exclusively). Solo exhibition there (1963) 

1962–66

Associate professor, Howard University; becomes acting department chair and acting gallery director 

1963

200,000 protesters march on Washington, DC, in demand of equal rights. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers “I Have a Dream” speech 

1964

Summer. Travels in Europe on Rockefeller and Harmon Foundation fellowships 

1964–65

The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act are passed to prevent discriminatory practices.

1964-65

US enters the Vietnam War (ends 1973) 

1966

Activist Kwame Ture (born Stokely Carmichael) coins the term “Black Power.” 

1966–76

Professor of art and department chairman, Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee 

1968

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. 

1969

Travels to West Africa: Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Nigeria. Serves (in 1970) as a visiting professor in Ile-Ife, Nigeria 

1971

Collaborates on book Black Dimensions in Contemporary American Art 

1972

Curates a Smithsonian exhibition on the work of William H. Johnson. Awarded US government grants to lecture throughout Africa and Europe 

Shirley Chisholm is the first Black presidential candidate nominated by a major party. 

1973

Visiting professorship and exhibition of his work at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine 

1975

Curates traveling exhibition Amistad II: Afro-American Art for Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee 

1976

Curator and catalogue essayist for the landmark exhibition Two Centuries of Black American Art at Los Angeles County Museum, which travels to Atlanta, Dallas, and Brooklyn. Includes Horace Pippin, Christmas Morning, Breakfast (Cincinnati Art Museum) 

1977–98

Professor of Art, University of Maryland, College Park 

1980

Fellow at Yaddo (artist residency), Saratoga Springs, New York. Exhibition David Driskell: A Survey opens at University of Maryland Art Gallery. 

1983

Alice Walker wins the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Color Purple. 

1983

Federal holiday established in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

1985–89

Curates traveling exhibitions Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800-1950 for Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, Washington; Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America for Studio Museum in Harlem, and others  

1991

Dedication of stained-glass windows he designed at Peoples Congregational United Church of Christ, Washington, DC. Also designs windows for Talladega College chapel (1996) 

1991

In Los Angeles, four white police officers are videotaped beating Rodney King, a Black man. 

1995

Million Man March in Washington, DC, counters negative stereotypes of Black men and fosters solidarity. 

2000

Cincinnati Art Museum hosts the traveling exhibition Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection. Driskell gives the keynote lecture at the symposium.   

President Bill Clinton presents Driskell with the National Humanities Medal. 

2001

Opening of the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland 

2002

Receives Governor’s Arts Award, Maryland. Launches David C. Driskell Series of African American Art with publisher Pomegranate 

2006–11

Exhibitions of his work at University of Maryland and Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport (traveled) 

2008

Barak Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States. 

2016

The National Museum of African American History and Culture opens in Washington, DC. 

2018

Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 

April 1, 2020

Driskell dies in Maryland at age eighty-eight. 

2020

George Floyd’s brutal murder by Minneapolis police officers leads to protests worldwide. 

2021

Release of HBO documentary Black Art: In the Absence of Light, in which interviews with Driskell figure prominently