Nell Irvin Painter

My Elsewheres

A lifetime of travel outside the United States has enlarged my sense of history far beyond the prevailing American ideology of race.

History in Open Air

“Local history bonds people today to the place where they are, giving them a stake in local people and local politics.”

‘This Land Is Yours’

Two recent books recover the missing Black history of upstate New York, challenging the delusion of New York as a land of freedom far removed from the American original sin of slavery.

Black Power Art in Arkansas

Looking at reproductions of art isn’t seeing art. You have to see it as it appears in exhibitions—at particular times on particular walls in particular buildings in particular cities or towns. 

'Soul of a Nation': The Book

Soul of a Nation answers the complaint that black visual artists have been making since the Harlem Renaissance, that their art suffers from a lack of serious engagement.