Andrea Barnwell Brownlee

Andrea Barnwell Brownlee is an American art curator and author. She is the current CEO of the Cummer Museum. She is the former director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. Her work has historically focused on the promotion of female African-American artists. She has published four books on artists and film.

Andrea Barnwell Brownlee
NationalityAmerican
EducationDuke University
Alma materSpelman College
SubjectsAfrican-American art/artists
Notable awards2013 David C. Driskell Prize[1]

Early life and education

Brownlee was born in Alexandria, Virginia. Her father was in the military.[2] She entered Spelman College in 1993, focusing on English and the arts. During her junior year, she studied at the University of Essex. She earned her master's in art history from Duke University in 1997, and PhD in art history in 2001.[3]

Career

She was eventually contacted by Spelman College during her time working in the MacArthur Curatorial Fellowship at The Art Institute of Chicago, asking her to act as the director of the college's new art museum. Though she initially declined, she would later accept the role in 2000, becoming officially sworn in as the director.[4] In December 2020, Brownlee joined the Cummer Museum of Art as CEO.[5]

Brownlee has written four books. Her first was Charles White: The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art, Volume I, an analysis of the life and times of the 20th-century African-American artist Charles White. In 2005, she wrote with Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons, and the Blues, a similar compilation piece about Alabama artist Amalia Amaki and contemporary African-American art. This was followed in 2008 by a broader analysis of African-American women in film in Cinema Remixed & Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970, which also acts as an adaptation of one of her exhibitions by the same title.[6]

Brownlee collaborates with other contemporary artists for her exhibitions, which share a focus on introducing unfamiliar artists to a wider audience. In 2009, she collaborated with Karen Comer Lowe to curate Undercover: Performing and Transforming Black Female Identities, an exhibition held in the Spelman College Museum of Fine Arts.[7] The exhibit explored the reason black women artists, have a tendency to hide away or manipulate their self-image.[8] Her exhibition Africa Forecast: Fashioning Contemporary Life, opened in 2016 and focused on art that documents African women's history and emotions towards clothing and fashion.[4] The exhibition adaptation of Cinema Remixed and Reloaded was exhibited at the Havana Biennial, becoming the first time a curatorial team from the United States was invited to the event.[9]

Awards and honors

Brownlee won the Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.[10] In 2013, she received the David C. Driskell Prize for her achievements in advancing the field of African-American art and art history, and in 2015, she was awarded the James A. Porter Award for her advancement in these efforts.[1][11] In 2018, Brownlee was promoted by Atlanta Magazine as being the "Best Curator of the Year".[12]

Selected works
  • Charles White: The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art, Volume I
  • -'Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons, and the Blues
  • Cinema Remixed & Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970

References
  1. "Artforum.com". www.artforum.com.
  2. Jubera, Drew. "SPELMAN'S RISING STAR". ajc.
  3. Valentine, Victoria L. (2020-10-08). "Longtime Spelman Curator Andrea Barnwell Brownlee Named Director and CEO of Cummer Museum of Art in Jacksonville, Fla". Archived from the original on 2021-01-24. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  4. "Legacy Series: Spelman's Andrea Barnwell Brownlee". ARTS ATL. April 18, 2018.
  5. Valentine, Victoria L. (8 October 2020). "Longtime Spelman Curator Andrea Barnwell Brownlee Named Director and CEO of Cummer Museum of Art in Jacksonville, Fla". Culture Type. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  6. "Andrea Barnwell Brownlee - Collaborators - Independent Curators International". curatorsintl.org.
  7. Cochran, Rebecca Dimling. "Undercover: Performing and Transforming Black Female Identities" at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art". www.artforum.com. Archived from the original on 2021-01-24. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  8. "Undercover: Performing and Transforming Black Female Identities". www.newswise.com. Archived from the original on 2021-01-24. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  9. Burnett, Victoria (May 18, 2012). "American Accents Being Heard on the Malecón (Published 2012)" – via NYTimes.com.
  10. "2013 Driskell Prize Winner: Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, PhD". High Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 2021-01-24. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  11. "The Porter Colloquium Turns 25 :: IRAAA". iraaa.museum.hamptonu.edu.
  12. "Dr. Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, C'93, Named to Best of Atlanta 2018 List". www.spelman.edu.
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