NGA | Chromatic Dispatches: Télémaque, Basquiat

Join us for the fifth talk of the 71st annual A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, hosted by Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University, Richard J. Powell.

*We welcome you to attend this event in-person (in our West Building Lecture Hall) or virtually.*

Through a six-part lecture series that provides a close look at works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Nina Chanel Abney, Sam Gilliam, Jacob Lawrence, Raymond Saunders, and Alma Thomas, the National Gallery of Art invites you to examine how color can strike a chord for freedom and reclamation in art and life. 

#AboutThisLecture — titled “Chromatic Dispatches: Télémaque, Basquiat” — Richard J. Powell pairs the works of the 1980s art legend Jean-Michel Basquiat and the innovative Haitian-born, Paris-based painter Hervé Télémaque—compatriots in spotlighting the transgressive powers of the autographic paintbrush and the maker’s mark. Their mutual interest in history and their shared enthusiasm for contemporary signs and insignia not only facilitated postmodern interpretations of Blackness but also conveyed an astute understanding of painting’s affective reach via color.

(Registration is required to attend in person or virtually.)