Schomburg Center, 2026

Since its inception, the Schomburg Center has invested in the cultural work of people of the African Diaspora. However, gender inequities exist in our collections. Curators in the Art and Artifacts and Photographs and Prints Divisions have been addressing the institutional underrepresentation of Black women artists through acquisitions of contemporary art. 

Working across various media, the 21 artists featured in this exhibition engage wide-ranging themes including iconography of the Black woman’s body, storytelling, futurism, spirituality, and the mapping of Black history. These recent acquisitions acknowledge the importance of Black women artists and advance the Schomburg Center’s ability to represent, preserve, and share more dimensions of our expansive Black culture. 

Curator: La Tanya S. Autry and Tammi Lawson

Graphic Designer: Yeliz Secerli and Olya Domoradova