Дэвид Дрискелл: Художник и пионер афроамериканского искусства

American painter, scholar, and curator (1931–2020)

David C. Driskell (June 7, 1931 – April 1, 2020) was an American artist, scholar and curator; recognized for his work in establishing African American Art as a distinct field of study. In his lifetime, Driskell was cited as one of the world's leading authorities on the subject of African American Art. Driskell held the title of Distinguished University Professor of Art, Emeritus, at the University of Maryland, College Park. The David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, is named in his honor.

David Clyde Driskell was born in 1931 in Eatonton, Georgia, the son of George Washington Driskell, a Baptist minister, and Mary Cloud Driskell, a homemaker. His grandfather, William Driskell, was born into slavery in 1862, and taught himself Methodist doctrine, becoming a minister. When David Driskell was five years old, he moved with his family to Appalachia in western North Carolina, where he attended segregated elementary and high schools. Art was already embedded in his family life before he went to college, his father created paintings and drawings on religious themes, his mother made quilts and baskets, and his grandfather was a sculptor.

After teaching for several years at Talladega College in Alabama, he went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from Catholic University in 1962. In 1966 he joined the faculty of Fisk University in Nashville, as professor of art and chairman of the department. During his time at Fisk, Driskell curated a number of shows highlighting black artists including Aaron Douglas, William T. Williams and Ellis Wilson. He was a rigorous scholar and due to his careful cataloging of African American works he began creating the archive and context for research into black art. After ten years at Fisk, he moved to the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1976. Driskell retired from the University of Maryland in 1998. In 2001, he was honored with the naming of the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora, which presents exhibitions on African American art and holds the Driskell archive
Driskell has been recognized as a mentor for developing art collectors for works by African American artists, as well as advocating for "younger, up and coming artists". David C. Driskell: Artist and Scholar by Julie L. McGee, a book detailing Driskell's life and work, was published in 2006. Driskell died in Washington, D. C., on April 1, 2020, of complications from COVID 19 during the COVID 19 pandemic in Washington, D. C.

During his seven decade career as an art historian and curator, Driskell made contributions that are considered foundational to the field of African American Art. He curated more than 35 exhibitions of work by black artists, including Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, and Elizabeth Catlett. This landmark exhibition later traveled to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition featured more than 200 works by 63 artists as well as anonymous crafts workers and cemented the essential contributions of Black artists to American Visual culture. He also selected works that appeared on The Cosby Show. He later wrote a book about the Cosby's collection, The Other Side of Color: The African American Collection of Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr. In 1996, Driskell advised the White House on its purchase of Sand Dunes at Sunset: Atlantic City (1885) by Henry Ossawa Tanner, which became the first artwork in the White House's collection by a Black artist. The exhibition was planned to include more than 60 artworks, gathered from museums, private collections, and Driskell's estate, and representing his studio work from the 1950s to the 2000s. Julie McGee, author of a 2006 monograph about Driskell, guest curated the retrospective. Driskell's art is represented by DC Moore Gallery in New York City.

Driskell received numerous awards including the Distinguished Alumni Award in Art from Howard University (1981), the Distinguished Alumni Award in Art from The Catholic University of America (1996), the President's Medal from University of Maryland (1997), and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture's Lifetime Legacy Award (2016). He was honored by President Bill Clinton with the Presidential Medal as one of 12 recipients of the National Humanities Medal (2000). As of 2020, the Prize has continued to be awarded annually, recognizing a U. S. based, early or mid career scholar or artist each year. Additionally, proceeds from the annual Driskell Prize Dinner, a formal award ceremony, go to the museum's David C. Driskell African American Art Acquisition funds, supporting the acquisition of works by African American artists. Driskell was named a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018. 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, College Park was named in tribute to him and honors his legacy. In September 2020, the fourth annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. honored Driskell's legacy, noting his "contribution as a distinguished university professor emeritus of art, and as an artist, art historian, collector, curator, and philanthropist." In 2021, a documentary titled Black Art, directed by Sam Pollard, pays tribute to Driskell, featuring his views on how Black artists have been isolated from art history. On May 4, 2021, the Hyattsville City Council voted in favor of renaming Magruder Park after David Driskell in an effort to formally abolish the park's segregationist past.

Amistad II: Afro American Art (editor), Nashville: Fisk University, 1975. Two Centuries of Black American Art, Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1976. The Afro American Collection, Fisk University, with Earl J. Hooks, Nashville: Fisk University, 1976. Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America, introduction by Mary Schmidt Campbell; essays by David Driskell, David Levering Lewis, and Deborah Willis Ryan, New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem, 1987. Introspectives: Contemporary Art by Americans and Brazilians of African Descent, curators, Henry J. Drewal and David C. Driskell, Los Angeles: California Afro American Museum, 1989. African American Visual Aesthetics: a Postmodernist View (editor) Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995. The Other Side of Color: African American Art in the Collection of Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr., San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2001.