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SAM Talks: Dr. Richard Powell

Sat May 24 2025

1–2:30 pm

Seattle Art Museum

Plestcheeff Auditorium

Photo provided by Richard Powell

Join us as art historian and distinguished professor Dr. Richard Powell takes the stage to delve into the world of Alexander Calder and Thaddeus Mosley. Powell will explore themes in Following Space: Thaddeus Mosley & Alexander Calder as they relate to American art and the African Diaspora.

In addition to teaching courses in American art and the arts of the African Diaspora, Richard J. Powell has written on a range of topics, including such titles as Homecoming: The Art and Life of William H. Johnson (1991), Black Art: A Cultural History (1997, 2002, 2021), Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture (2008), and Going There: Black Visual Satire (2020). Powell has also organized numerous art exhibitions, most notably Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance (1997), To Conserve A Legacy: American Art at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (1999), Back to Black: Art, Cinema, and the Racial Imaginary (2005), and Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist (2014). From 2007 until 2010, Powell was Editor-in-Chief of The Art Bulletin, the world’s leading English language journal in art history. Powell is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Powell received his Master's in Philosophy. and PhD in the History of Art from Yale University.

Tickets
Free with museum admission.
RSVPs are encouraged.

Kim and Jon Shirley Foundation

Path of the Pendulum, 2020, Thaddeus Mosley, American, b. 1926, walnut, 105 1/2 x 49 1/2 x 22 in., Courtesy the artist and Karma, © Thaddeus Mosley
Installation view of Following Space: Thaddeus Mosley & Alexander Calder, Seattle Art Museum, 2024, © 2024 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo: Natali Wiseman.
Untitled, 1956, Alexander Calder, American, 1898-1976, sheet metal, wire, and paint, 35 x 120 x 64 in., Calder Foundation, New York. Photo courtesy of Calder Foundation, New York / Art Resource, New York, © 2024 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Installation view of Following Space: Thaddeus Mosley & Alexander Calder at Seattle Art Museum, 2024, photo: Natali Wiseman.
Components, 2017, Thaddeus Mosley, American, b. 1926, walnut, 49 x 24 x 24 in., Courtesy the artist and Karma, © Thaddeus Mosley
Dispersed Objects with Brass Gong, 1948, Alexander Calder, American, 1898-1976, brass, sheet metal, wire, and paint, 19 x 66 in., Promised gift of Jon and Mary Shirley, Photo courtesy of Calder Foundation, New York / Art Resource, New York, © 2024 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Opposing Parallels—Blues Up and Down for G. Ammons and S. Stitt, 2015, Thaddeus Mosley, American, b. 1926, walnut, 89 x 36 x 38 in., Courtesy the artist and Karma, © Thaddeus Mosley

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