Howardena Pindell
Born 1943, Philadelphia
1965 BFA Boston University
1967 MFA Yale University
Selected museum exhibitions: Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018); Louisiana Art and Science Museum, Baton Rouge (2007); Heckscher Museum of Art, New York (1999, 2004); Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Massachusetts (1993); Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford(1989); The Studio Museum in Harlem (1986); Birmingham Museum of Art (1985); State University of New York at Stony Brook (1979); Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, Norway (1976); Douglass College Art Gallery, Rutgers University (1973); Spelman College, Atlanta (1971, 2015)
Selected honors: Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement, College Art Association (2019); IAM Pioneer Award (2000); Artist Award, The Studio Museum of Harlem (1996); John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1987)
Selected public collections: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; Brooklyn Museum; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Smithsonian Museum of American Art; Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
Multidisciplinary artist Howardena Pindell creates works with diverse methods using both conventional media like paint as well as materials like postcards, glitter, fabric, and paper dots made with a hole punch. Pindell’s formal innovations and writing, which are often autobiographical, also express social and political criticism, addressing issues of racism, sexism, apartheid, and war. In The New York Times, William Zimmer declared Autobiography: The Search (Chrysalis/Meditation, Positive/Negative) “a triumphant painting because it embodies the notion of potential for change.” This expansive autobiographical work on unstretched canvas mixes painting, photo transfer, words, and other media to present a bold and multifaceted vision of her outer and inner spiritual journey through life. Included in the artist’s definitive retrospective organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, in 2018, curator Naomi Beckwith called this piece “one of Howardena’s most amazing works.”