(BPRW) Schomburg Center’s Newest Exhibition Features Its Largest Show of Contemporary Black Women’s Art

Opening on September 24, the exhibition, Forging Ahead: Recent Acquisitions of Black Women Artists, highlights the Center’s collecting practices with art by and about Black women.

(Black PR Wire) The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture will open Forging Ahead: Recent Acquisitions of Black Women Artists, celebrating and displaying contemporary artwork created by Black women. The exhibition features paintings, textiles, collages, sculpture, photography, and more from 21 artists, including Simone Leigh, Tschabalala Self, Nona Faustine, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Xenobia Bailey, Helina Metaferia, and Firelei Baez. Forging Ahead will be open from September 24, 2026 to March 27, 2027, in the Schomburg Center’s main and media galleries. 

The gallery showcases the research library’s most recent acquisitions in the visual arts. In honor of the Schomburg Center’s 100-year celebration, Schomburg’s Art & Artifacts Division acquired a porcelain bust (Untitled, 2023) by artist Simone Leigh, and the Photographs & Prints Division acquired Nona Faustine’s Mitochondria series and a selection from the White Shoes series. 

“Forging Ahead: Recent Acquisitions of Black Women Artists is exciting because it highlights the Schomburg Center’s efforts to address gender disparities in its collections while simultaneously celebrating the work of Black women artists,” said La Tanya Autry, Associate Curator, Photographs and Prints at the Schomburg Center. “As they insist on Black life, these artists also contend with historical erasure. Having their artworks in our collection strengthens the institution’s ability to support research of past, present, and future Black life.”

“Despite the disparity across museum collections, gallery representation and auction showings, Black women press on, progress, and create. We see you and honor your work here!”” said Tammi Lawson, Curator of Art and Artifacts at the Schomburg Center.  “It has been my intention to fortify our collections with artwork by Black women artists.”

Forging Ahead acknowledges the importance of Black women artists and advances the Schomburg Center’s efforts to represent, preserve, and share more expansive dimensions of  Black culture. The Center holds 11 million objects in Black diasporic history in its collections and prioritizes acquisitions that enable a more diverse and inclusive study of Black history.  The exhibition title is inspired by bell hooks, the late scholar and critic, who said, “As women artists expressing solidarity across differences, we must forge ahead, creating spaces where our work can be seen and evaluated according to standards that reflect our sense of artistic merit.”  As a research library, the Schomburg Center is uniquely positioned to acquire and make its collections available to the public. Each work in the exhibition will be available for public study with an NYPL library card.  

Notable works include:

• Untitled (2023) by artist Simone Leigh
• The full Mitochondria series (2008 – 2016) and a selection from the White Shoes series by photographer Nona Faustine (1977–2025)
• Talking Women (1990), Rosemary Karuga (1928–2021)
• the oyster world cries out its pearls like tears (2021), Firelei Báez
• Out of Body (2020), by Tschabalala Self

Leadership support for the Schomburg Center’s Centennial is provided by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) and Andreas C. Dracopoulos.

Major support for centennial exhibitions is provided by the MetLife Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, formerly Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Ford Foundation. The Home to Harlem Initiative is made possible by the Mellon Foundation.

Philanthropic support for the Oral History Project is provided by the New York Life Foundation. 

The acquisition of Untitled was made possible by Katharine J. Rayner.

About the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Founded in 1925 and named a National Historic Landmark in 2017, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions devoted to the preservation, research, interpretation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diasporan, and African experiences. As a research division of The New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center features diverse programming and collections totaling over 11 million items that illuminate the richness of global black history, arts, and culture. Learn more at schomburgcenter.org. 

About The New York Public Library

For over 125 years, The New York Public Library has been a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With over 90 locations—including research and branch libraries—throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming, and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support.

Source: The New York Public Library