Tammi Lawson, Assistant Curator of our Art and Artifacts Divisions shares some of the Schomburg's newest gems:

Our Art and Artifacts Division may be temporarily closed due to renovations, but our collection continues to grow! Dr. Constance Clayton of Philadelphia recently donated a collection of twenty-nine works of art by prominent African-American artist to the division.

The impressive collection includes works by one of the most successful artists of the nineteenth century, landscape painter Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901); a suite of photographs by Harlem Renaissance photographer James Van der Zee (1886-1983); silkscreen prints by Romare Bearden (1911-1988); and Carborundum Mezzotints by Dox Thrash (1893-1965), an artist mostly associated with the Works Progress Administration period who invented the carborundum technique. 

Dr. Clayton’s gift also presented the Schomburg with a new artist to our collection, Laura Wheeler Waring (1887-1948). Waring is associated with the Harlem Renaissance and was also an art educator who taught for several decades at Cheney State University.