The Kinsey Collection: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey, Where Art and History Intersect offers an inspirational journey through five centuries of African American history, culture and heritage. Presented as part of MoAD’s Collector’s Series, the exhibition celebrates Bernard and Shirley Kinsey’s passion for collecting objects of extraordinary significance over the 40 years of their marriage.
One of the largest private collections of African American artifacts, documents and artwork, the Kinsey collection of rare books and manuscripts, paintings, prints, sculpture, and photographs includes an early version of the Emancipation Proclamation, correspondence between Malcolm X and Alex Haley, slave shackles, a 1773 first-edition copy of poems by Phillis Wheatley, a 1795 Bannaker’s Almanack, 18th and 19th-century slave documents, letters by Zora Neale Hurston and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and fine art by luminaries such as Henry O. Tanner, Artis Lane, Richmond Barthé, Elizabeth Catlett, Samuel L. Dunson, Lois Mailou Jones, Richard Mayhew, Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, and more.
On view at MoAD from February 8 to May 19, 2013.
The exhibition is organized by The Bernard & Shirley Kinsey Foundation for Arts & Education and KBK Enterprises, Incorporated.
