Contemporary Art and Artists
Important Moments Represented in Art
Revolutionary Black Artists
The Diaspora
Black Queerstory
100
Fiber artist who creates quilts that look like paintings. Her work resurfaces and reimagines historical narratives of Black life through intricately layered and vibrantly colored quilts
Bisa Butler
100
What movement in American history does this painting by Archibold Motely depict?
The Harlem Renaissance
100
He achieved fame as part of SAMO, a graffiti tag used on the streets of New York City, and in the 80s’ his art expanded to neo-expressionist paintings that brought graffiti to galleries and museums internationally.
Jean Michele Basquiat
100
Ancient city in Mali that was a flourishing center for the trans-Saharan salt and gold trade which also grew as a center for Islamic culture.
Timbuktu
100
This artist is a portrait painter based in New York City who restages classical portraits and sculptures, replacing historical white subjects with contemporary subjects of color painted against elaborate decorative motifs sampled from history.
Kehinde Wiley
200
She is best known for her vignettes of big cut paper silhouettes portraying images of racial stereotypes, such as mammies and pick ninnies. In her works, she powerfully represents the origins of the systemic injustices and racial inequalities that are embedded in our cultural mores, in our history and in our myths.
Kara Walker
200
The movement of some six million African Americans from rural areas of the Southern states of the United States to urban areas in the Northern states between 1916 and 1970.
The Great Migration
200
The first African American artist to have his work in the Museum of Modern Arts’ permanent collection and was instrumental in portraying African American historical moments and contemporary life in his artwork, bringing the black experience to life with vivid colors.
Jacob Lawrence
200
What important moment in history does this painting depict?
The Haitian Revolution
200
Visual artist best known as a painter of complex works using rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. This artist's collage work is inspired from popular art histories and movements, including Impressionism, Cubism, Dada and the Harlem Renaissance.
Mickalene Thomas
300
Who is the artist that created this painting?
Kerry James Marshall
300
This movement was an African American-led art movement, active during the 1960s and 1970s. Through activism and art, it created new cultural institutions and conveyed a message of black pride.
Black Arts Movement
300
American artist and author who became famous for innovative quilted narrations that communicate her political beliefs. She also actively sought the racial integration of the New York art world.
Faith Ringgold
300
Who does this statue represent?
Yasuke
300
This artist is best known for powerful text-based paintings and lightworks that offer challenging messages about Black identity and queerness in America.
Glenn Ligon
400
Artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and installation video, and is best known for her photography. She achieved prominence through her early 1990s photographic project The Kitchen Table Series.
Carrie Mae Weems
400
This national monument in NYC is the oldest and largest known excavated burial ground in North America for both free and enslaved Africans. It protects the historic role slavery played in building New York.
African Burial Ground National Monument
400
In 1907 this person became the first African-American woman to receive a U.S. federal government art commission. Her sculptures, inspired by ghost stories and the dark interiority of the human spirit, earned her the sculptor of horrors nickname.
Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller
400
Who does this painting depict? 
Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba
400
Mixed-media artist who “aims to create work that imagines a future where black queer life is prosperous and thriving.” He recently launched the Black Queer Tarot Campaign.
Kendrick Daye
500
Who is the artist?
Wangechi Mutu
500
What moment in history does this piece by Elizabeth Catlett represent?
Harriet Tubman leading slaves to freedom on The Underground Railroad
500
Who is the artist that painted this piece, The Banjo Lesson?
Henry Ossawa Tanner
500
Instead of waging war, this Pharaoh set out on a massive infrastructure campaign, building temples and erecting monuments across the land... the art that survives from the reign speaks volumes about this person's creativity, unconventionality, and political cunning.
Hatshepsut
500
In much of her visual work, this artist references her own body and history as she examines socio-political issues. The series Seven Archetypes (2012–13) ruminates on the artist’s experience of gender transitioning as well as the cultural forces that inform normative conceptions of gender and sexuality.
Juliana Huxtable