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‘Artists need to be seen’: A private collection of works by young Black artists goes public

February 1, 2022 9:15AM

An exhibition of work by contemporary Black artists is opening at Lehigh University today. The 50 works in the traveling show called “Young, Gifted and Black” all come from a single private collection — a collection on a mission.

“A collection should be a story. It should be an argument. There should be a thesis to your collection,” said Bernard Lumpkin, who with his husband Carmine Boccuzzi has collected almost 500 works of art by mostly emerging Black artists of the last 25 years. “For me, that thesis has to do with telling the stories of young artists of African descent, whose work has not been shown, whose careers have not been promoted, and whose vision has not reached wide enough audiences.”

The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection was the subject of a book published in 2020, and now is an exhibition that has already been in New York and Chicago. The exhibition at the Lehigh University Art Galleries, which runs through the end of May, includes work by high-profile artists, such as Kara Walker, Derrick Adams, and Rashid Johnson.

Follow the link in the additional information box for the full article by Peter Crimmins.

Image Left: Untitled Kara Walker, 'Untitled 1', 1995; Right: Wilmer Wilson IV. 'Pres' (2017). (Courtesy of The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection)