Whitfield Lovell facts for kids

Whitfield Lovell (born October 2, 1959) is a modern African-American artist. He is best known for his drawings of African-American people from the early 1900s. Lovell creates these drawings using pencil, oil stick, or charcoal. He draws on paper, wood, or even directly on walls. In his newer artworks, he often puts these drawings with old items he finds. He collects these items from flea markets and antique shops.

Becoming an Artist

Whitfield Lovell was born on October 2, 1959, in the Bronx, New York. His mother, Gladys Glover Lovell, was a teacher from South Carolina. His father, Allister Lovell, was a postal worker and photographer from Barbados. Whitfield grew up in the Bronx and went to The High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. While in high school, he also joined many art programs. These included programs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum.

In 1977, Lovell traveled to Spain to study painting and sculpture. He was with Manhattanville College. At El Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain, he decided to become a painter. Lovell shared his experience:

"I knew I would go into some form of art, but I wasn't sure which. I was interested in fashion and advertising as options. But while I was standing in front of a Velasquez painting I had an amazing spiritual experience. The painter had communicated with me through centuries and cultures, and I suddenly understood the role of the artist. I ran from room to room. Goya, El Greco, Reubens, and Picasso all began to speak out to me. Whatever they were doing in those rooms was what I wanted to do with my life."

Lovell studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 1977. Then, in 1978, he traveled through many countries in Europe. When he came back to New York, he studied at the Parsons School of Design. He then went to The Cooper Union School of Art, graduating in 1981. In 1982, Lovell visited Egypt, Nigeria, and Benin in West Africa.

In 1985, Lovell attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. There, he thought deeply about his art. He said:

"In Skowhegan I had time to really think about what I wanted to do with my work. I felt the formal issues about color were fighting with the narratives I was getting at ... So I narrowed down the color, and began to work monochromatically. I had all of my father's old photographs mailed to me, and I began a process of looking through these images each day before starting to work. The work became more personal and a reflection of the way I saw myself as an artist."

Using old photographs as inspiration is something Whitfield still does today.

In 1986, Lovell stayed with family in Barbados. In 1989, he joined a graduate program in Venice, Italy, through New York University. In 1990, he traveled to Mexico. There, he started collecting ex-votos and retablos, which are types of folk art. He said these influenced his work.

"After looking at European paintings for so many years and then the great black painters Jacob Lawrence, Bob Thompson, and Horace Pippin, I looked toward other cultures for inspiration. I found myself more attracted to folk art, which wasn't as concerned with making high art, but with the joy of storytelling. My training, however, was heavily steeped in European artistic values; even the earlier pieces, which had more modernist notions in them, really did come from that tradition. So I also found artists from Latin America to be a very refreshing discovery for me. They seemed to fuse European colonial styles with a different sensibility. I felt they were more passionate about the religious and social narratives and less concerned with skill. Although I didn't grow up Catholic, I was attracted to that symbolism and to certain decorative elements that I feel are part of many images one sees growing up in a place like the Bronx. Rather than return to Venice to finish my master's degree, I spent a lot of time in Mexico getting an education of a different sort."

In 1994, Lovell's art was shown in Ecuador at a big international painting event. Other American artists there included Donald Locke and Philemona Williamson.

Art Installations

In 1993, Lovell visited a special artist's place in Italy. The house had been built by a slave trader many years ago. Lovell noticed old paintings of Africans with nose rings on the ceilings. He also saw an African face on the building's coat of arms. He learned that enslaved people had lived there.

"There were grotesque paintings of Africans with nose rings lining the ceilings of some of the rooms. Also, the coat of arms on the front of the building had an African face on it, and a few very elderly locals could apparently remember the blacks who had lived there. The slaver had obviously continued to trade long after it had become illegal, but that was not unheard of in some other countries. It was hard to ignore the background of the place. Ordinarily the experience of being somewhere new would have fermented over time and then become a piece much later. That's how I was used to working. But in this case, I later realized, it was only by leaving my marks in the house itself, giving a voice to those African slaves, that I could truly express what it meant for me--an African American--to be there in the seemingly luxurious environs of an Italian villa."

Whitfield Lovell, 2 8 M, 2008

Because of this, Lovell drew on the walls of the villa. He created dignified images of black people. This was his first installation. An installation is a type of art that uses a whole space or room.

In 1995, Lovell created his second installation. It was called Echo. He made it at Project Row Houses in Houston, Texas. This place uses old, empty houses for artists to create art. Lovell said: "Villa Val Lemme was the first time I worked directly on the wall. At the time I wanted to explore installation further but wanted the right circumstances to arise. When I was approached to do a row house it was just the right time. The feeling in the house was ideal for trying new ideas related to my interest in old photographs of "anonymous" people".

Whispers From the Walls was Lovell's fourth installation. He made it in 1999 in Denton, Texas. Lovell built a house from old wooden boards with peeling paint. He covered the floors with soil and old clothes. Inside, there was a room with furniture, clothes, and personal items. On the walls, he drew life-size charcoal pictures of people. This art piece traveled to the Seattle Art Museum and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Visitation: The Richmond Project focused on Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virginia. This area was known as the first major black business community in the U.S. This artwork traveled to the University of Wyoming and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in Australia.

SANCTUARY: The Great Dismal Swamp was inspired by stories of enslaved people. They hid or escaped through the huge Great Dismal Swamp. Lovell visited the swamp to get ideas. He said:

"The main inspiration for Sanctuary: The Great Dismal Swamp, aside from the readings and research I did, was visiting the swamp itself. The people at the Dismal Swamp Wildlife Refuge hosted me for a day of hikes and a boat ride across Lake Drummond, which is in the center of the swamp. Lake Drummond is an egg-shaped pond about three miles across and no deeper than six feet at its center. It was referred to by Irish poet John O'Reilly as 'the most wonderful and beautiful sheet of water on the continent.' The water is a rich brown color, like tea, the result of the tannin that dripped from the juniper trees over the centuries. That was the inspiration for the pool of water that became the centerpiece for the installation.

"Most important for me were the moments when I stood silently in the swamp and just listened to the sounds and felt the ambience."

For the installation, Lovell used thirty trees in the gallery. They had branches and vines, making barriers for visitors. The floor was covered with mulch. Sounds of crickets, cicadas, and barking dogs played. Basins and washboards filled with water were placed around the room. Faces of people looked out from the water. Many images and objects were underwater. This showed how the stories of those who hid in the swamp were almost lost.

Tableaux Artworks

In 1997, Lovell created his first tableaux (pronounced "tab-LOH"). These are artworks where he combines charcoal drawings on old wooden panels with found objects. He made these while at an art program in Mount Desert, Maine.

Kin Series

The Kin Series (2008 - 2011) is a group of sixty artworks. Each one has a portrait drawing in Conte crayon on paper. These drawings are combined with found objects. Sometimes the objects overlap the drawing. The drawing and object are then framed behind glass.

This series started with a drawing of a young boy from a photo booth picture. Lovell said: "There was something about that young boy's face that captivated me. His eyes and mouth were so expressive, as if he were about to cry. I felt compelled to try and capture that emotional quality."

For this series, Lovell used different kinds of photos. Instead of old studio portraits, he used mug shots, passport photos, and photo booth pictures. He explained that these photos showed people more honestly. They were not posed or made up.

Collecting Objects

Lovell's Tableaux and Kin Series use many old objects. This shows his love for collecting. Lovell said: "I began collecting hands after I had already been using hands in my work. The more I learned about the iconography of hands, the more excited I was to continue with the theme. Also, my interest in collecting crayon portraits came simultaneously with the images in the Hand Series, thought I didn't consciously think about it at the time ... There has always been a reason for my wanting to own certain objects more than others. I've tried to be a focused collector, so that I was spending my money on things that fed the work."

Recent Exhibitions

In February 2023, a large exhibition of Lovell's work opened. It was called Whitfield Lovell: Passages. It premiered at the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Boca Raton, Florida. This show looked back at many of Lovell's important artworks. It included installations like Visitations: The Richmond Project and Deep River. It also featured works from the Kin series and Card Pieces (2019-2020).

After Florida, the exhibit traveled to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. It then went to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts and the Cincinnati Art Museum. It also visited the Mint Museum Uptown. The exhibit's final stop is at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas. It opened there on October 23, 2024, and will be on display until February 19, 2025. This stop includes Lovell's newest series, The Reds (2021-2022). These works are on deep crimson paper. They even include two working telephones where museum visitors can listen to the hymn Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Awards and Recognition

Whitfield Lovell has received many awards for his art. Some of these include:

• 1982 Jerome Foundation Fellowship
• 1985 Eastman Scholarship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
• 1986 New York State Council on the Arts Grant
• 1990 Penny McCall Foundation Grant
• 2003 Richard C. Diebenkorn Fellowship
• 2007 MacArthur Fellows Program (a very important award)
• 2009 Nancy Graves Grant for Visual Artists
• 2014 National Academy Award for Excellence

Art in Collections

Lovell's art is kept in many museums and collections around the world. Some of these include:

• Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland
• Brooklyn Museum, New York
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
• Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City
• National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.
• Seattle Art Museum, Washington
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
• Yale University Art Gallery, Connecticut

Solo Exhibitions

Whitfield Lovell has had many solo art shows, where only his work is displayed. Some of these include:

• 1982 Interchurch Center, New York, New York
• 1997 DC Moore Gallery, New York, New York
• 1998 Collecting Inspiration, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA
• 1999-2005 Whispers From the Walls - An Installation by Whitfield Lovell, University of North Texas Art Gallery, Denton, TX (this show traveled to many places)
• 2000 Recent Tableaux, DC Moore Gallery, New York, New York
• 2000–02 Portrayals, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY (this show also traveled)
• 2001 Beyond the Frame: Whitfield Lovell, Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN
• 2001–04 Visitation: The Richmond Project, Hand Workshop Art Center, Richmond, VA (traveled to many locations)
• 2002 SANCTUARY: The Great Dismal Swamp, An Installation by Whitfield Lovell, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA
• 2003 GRACE: A Project by Whitfield Lovell, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, New York
• 2008 Whitfield Lovell: All Things in Time, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York
• 2013 Whitfield Lovell: Deep River, Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN
• 2016 Whitfield Lovell: The Kin Series and Related Works", The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
• 2017 Inbox: Whitfield Lovell, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
• 2023-2025 Whitfield Lovell: Passages, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida (this major exhibition traveled to several museums across the U.S.)

Group Exhibitions

Lovell's art has also been part of many group shows with other artists.

• 2021 The Black Index (online only due to COVID-19 restrictions), University of California, Irvine (CAC Gallery), Irvine, California.
• 2024 Drawing, David Klein Gallery, Detroit, Michigan, featuring 21 artists.