Black American Portraits, group exhibition, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2021-22)
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To complement the presentation of The Obama Portraits by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, which toured from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG), LACMA presented Black American Portraits. Remembering Two Centuries of Black American Art, guest curated by David Driskell at LACMA 45 years earlier, had reframed portraiture to center Black American subjects, sitters, and spaces. Spanning over two centuries from circa 1800 to the present, this selection of approximately 140 works drew primarily from LACMA’s permanent collection and highlighted emancipation and early studio photography, scenes from the Harlem Renaissance, portraits from the Civil Rights and Black Power eras, and multiculturalism of the 1990s. Black American Portraits chronicled the ways in which Black Americans had used portraiture to envision themselves in their own eyes. Countering a visual culture that often demonized Blackness and fetishized the spectacle of Black pain, these images centered love, abundance, family, community, and exuberance.

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Related:

Black American Portraits, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2021-22‍
LACMA - Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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‍Christine Y. Kim © 2026. Site Credit: Common Space