Benny Andrews
The Georgia-born artist Benny Andrews visited Spelman College as an artist-in-residence in 1971 during the heyday of the AUC Coordinated Art Program. Decades later, he donated hundreds of artworks to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, including Spelman.
By Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
Benny Andrews, "Fun #2," 2002.
"For Benny there was no line where his activism ended and his art began. To him, using his brush and his pen to capture the essence and spirit of his time was as much an act of protest as sitting-in or sitting-down was for me. He was honest to a fault, and I think it was his determination to speak the plain truth that shaped his demand for justice and social integrity. He never aligned with any political group but would offer the full weight of his support to anyone he thought was standing for truth."
— Civil Rights Leader and Congressman John Lewis (1940 - 2020) in his foreword to the 2013 exhibition catalog Benny Andrews : There Must Be a Heaven
From Georgia to Chicago to New York
Born in rural Plainview, Georgia, in 1930, artist Benny Andrews studied at Fort Valley State University before serving in the Air Force and going on to earn his BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1958. In New York, Andrews became involved in founding the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, which advocated for greater representation of Black artists and curators in major New York City museums during the 1960s and 70s.
Beginning in 1968, Andrews taught at Queens College, City University of New York, for over thirty years. He also taught art classes at the Manhattan Detention Complex, curating an exhibition of works made by incarcerated artists at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1976.
While working primarily as a figurative painter, Andrews drew upon a range of visual influences in his work, including expressionism, surrealism, collage techniques, and Southern folk art. Some of his best known works, such as those in his Bicentennial Series (1970 - 76), offer satirical yet scathing critiques of American militarism, racism, and sexism.
From 1982 through 1984, Andrews served as Director of the Visual Arts program of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Andrews and Spelman College
In 1971, Benny Andrews spent time at Spelman College as an artist-in-residence during the heyday of the Atlanta University Center Coordinated Art Program. Established in 1960, the program offered a diverse and enhanced arts curriculum to AUC students. It provided instruction in art education, art history, ceramics, design, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, weaving, and other media.
Spelman College hosted the exhibition Paintings and Drawings by Benny Andrews (March 7 – 26, 1972) as part of his residency.
The Benny Andrews Foundation and UNCF Gifts
In 2002, Benny Andrews and his wife Nene Humphrey established the Benny Andrews Foundation to help emerging artists gain greater recognition and to encourage artists to donate their work to historically Black museums. In 2008, two years after Andrews's death, the foundation donated over three hundred of the artist's works to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) to be distributed to cultural and educational institutions that would use the artworks as a foundation for education initiatives.
Two years later, in 2010, the foundation donated an additional 128 artworks to the collections of UNCF’s historically Black colleges and universities, African American museums, and other places where people come together to learn about Black culture and American life. As part of this gift, Spelman was the recipient of the three following works by Andrews: Fun #2 (2002), Sunrise (2005), and From the Mountain Top (1999).
Fun #2 (2002) by Benny Andrews (American, 1930 – 2006)Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
Combining Figuration and Expressionism
Andrews often employed a distinctive and expressionistic approach to rendering the human figure.
In a 1968 interview, he said he sought to paint "a face that conveys a feeling... of a real person... [Not a] realistic photographic likeness, but I mean feeling" [1].
Fun #2 (2002) shows a group of figures — possibly a Black family — in a lighthearted domestic scene that combines elements of figuration, color, texture, and pattern.
With their appearance visually flattened and their long, spindly fingers and limbs slightly exaggerated, the figures in Fun #2 share many similarities with those Andrews depicted in other works over the course of his career.
The vibrant floral motif of the wallpaper, the stripes of the female figure's dress, and the design encircling the border of the rug introduce patterns into the scene that visually evoke the rhythm and movement of music.
Portrait of A Young Artist
Below the dancing pair of figures, an artist — likely a child — draws the couple. This figure could represent a reflective self-portrait by Andrews within the painting. The artist made a number of self-portraits throughout his career, often showing himself drawing or painting.
On the young artist's drawing table, the image mirrors the composition of the other two figures in Fun #2.
Sunrise (2005) by Benny AndrewsSpelman College Museum of Fine Art
Sunrise (2005) was created while Andrews was conducting research for his Migrant Series, which addresses the Dust Bowl migration, the forced removal of the Cherokee people known as the Trail of Tears, and those displaced in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina.
The lone figure in the painting is turned away from the viewer and faces the rising sun, suggesting hope and renewal.
From the Mountain Top (1999) by Benny Andrews (American, 1930 – 2006)Spelman College Museum of Fine Art
"I've Been to the Mountaintop"
The title of this 1999 painting — From the Mountaintop — could be a reference to "I've Been to the Mountaintop," the popular name of the final speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 3, 1968 before his assassination the following day.
The expressionistic manner in which Andrews paints the trees in From the Mountaintop — as stylized, lollipop-like clusters — bears a striking resemblance to the those in his 1975 Utopia series, reinforcing the painting's ethereal qualities and suggestion of a dreamlike place.
In another visual echo of a previous work, the upward-looking figure with outstretched arms is shown in a similar pose to the figure in Andrews's drawing Little Richard (Study for Symbols) (1970), showing a return to this gesture of rejoicing and jubilation.
[1] Quote from 1968 interview with Benny Andrews, Benny Andrews: Portraits, A Real Person Before the Eyes, 2020; published by Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York.
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