The 65 works in this exhibition date from the late 1800s to 2002 and represent just a fraction of what is contained in the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of San Antonio, Texas, one of the country’s major African American art collections. David Driskell, esteemed art historian and Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland at College Park, calls the Kelley Collection “one of the finest that has been assembled tracing the history of African American art.”

First exhibited in 2009, this exhibition has been shown at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas; the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas; the Krasl Art Center in St. Joseph, Michigan; and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, among other museums.

Included in the exhibition are drawings, etchings, lithographs, watercolors, pastels, acrylics, gouaches, linoleum, and color screen prints by such noted artists as Ron Adams, Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor, Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Charles White, and many other outstanding lesser known artists.

Images above (left to right): Eldzier Cortor, Dance Composition #35, c. 1990s, One color aquatint and line etching, Ed. A/P, 23 7/8 x 21 5/8 inches, Courtesy of the Kelley Collection | Hilda Wilkerson Brown, The Family, c. 1940, Lithograph, Ed. A/P, 13 7/8 x 9 1/2 inches, Courtesy of the Kelley Collection | Elizabeth Catlett, Sharecropper, 1952, Two color linoleum cut, Ed. G/P, 17 5/8 x 16 7/8 inches, Courtesy of the Kelley Collection, © 2024 Mora-Catlett Family / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY 

This exhibition is underwritten by the City of Fresno Measure P
Expanded Access to Arts and Culture Fund
administered by the Fresno Arts Council.

The Collectors, Harriet & Harmon Kelley