Margaret Rose Vendryes Explained

Margaret Rose Vendryes
Birth Date:16 March 1955
Birth Place:Kingston, Jamaica
Nationality:Jamaican American
Occupation:Curator, Educator
Education:Princeton University

Margaret Rose Vendryes (March 16, 1955 – March 29, 2022) was a visual artist, curator, and art historian based in New York.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Early life and education

Vendryes was born on March 16, 1955, in Kingston, Jamaica. She began her studies in costume design before moving to fine art and earning a Bachelor's degree at Amherst College, graduating in 1984.[5] She went on to earn her MA in Art History in 1992 from Tulane University and her PhD from Princeton University in 1997 where she focused on African American art history and was the first Black woman to earn a PhD in art history from Princeton.[6] [7] [8]

Career

Vendryes served as Chair of the Department of Performing and Fine Arts and Director of the Fine Arts Gallery at York College in New York where she began working in 2000.[9] She was set to assume the role of Dean of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston in June 2022.[10]

From 2000 to 2001 she worked as visiting lecturer for Art & Archaeology and African American Studies at Princeton University. She also worked as associate professor for Modern American and Contemporary Art at City University of New York from 2002 till 2007.[11]

She warned against what she calls "the race-centered approach" to interpreting artwork, the practice of reading the influence of an artist's race into their artwork, as she believed it could limit the interpretation and context of the work and minimize the assessment of their impact on the larger art movements.[12]

In 2009 Vendryes worked as lecturer for African Art at Boston University in Massachusetts.

In 2010 she curated an exhibition at the new Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art called, Richmond Barthé: The Seeker.[13] She compared Barthe's work Blackberry Woman to Wallace Thurman's novel The Blacker The Berry... A Novel of Negro Life in her thesis dissertation and wrote about Barthe's work further in her 2008 book about his sculpture.[14] [15] That same year she curated an exhibition titled Beyond the Blues at New Orleans Museum of Art.[16]

From 2011 to 2013 she was a lecturer for African & African American Art at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

In 2013 Vendryes returned as Distinguished Lecturer in Fine Arts and Director of the York College Fine Arts Gallery at York College, CUNY.[17]

In 2015 she gave the opening lecture for The Visual Blues, an exhibition with work from the Harlem Renaissance at the Jepson Center for the Arts.

Artwork

In 2005 Vendryes began a series of multi-media works within her The African Diva Project, with oil and cold wax on canvas, and more recently, embedded African masks. The series began with a portrait of Donna Summer inspired by her Four Seasons of Love album cover. The imagery juxtaposes and combines portraits of Western pop culture icons with traditional African masks. Because these masks are traditionally worn only by men, she has noted her exploration of power, race, gender and beauty through these works. The project has included many Black American women icons including Aretha Franklin, Grace Jones, and Whitney Houston.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture commissioned an artwork in 2014 from Vendryes for an exhibition celebrating the 40th anniversary of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf called, My spirit is too ancient to understand the separation of soul & gender - Guro Ntozake. The exhibition, titled i found god in myself: the 40 anniversary of Ntozake Shange's for colored girls... and curated by Peter "Souleo" Wright, traveled to African American Museum in Philadelphia in 2016 and City Without Walls (cWOW) gallery in 2017 in Newark, New Jersey. The exhibition also featured artists Renée Cox, Carrie Mae Weems, Deborah Willis, Saya Woolfalk, Michael Paul Britto, Pamela Council and Dianne Smith among others.[18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

Death and legacy

Vendryes was a longtime board member of the Leslie Lohman Museum.[23] Vendryes' death, on March 29, 2022, due to respiratory failure, was announced by the Southeast Queens Artists' Alliance.[24] [25]

Childs Gallery in Boston, with whom she had a long history, hosted a memorial exhibit in Vendryes' honor from November 2022-January 2023.[26]

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: A Sculptor of Black Heroes Leaves a Legacy. Kahn. Eve M.. 2016-05-26. The New York Times. 2018-12-08. en-US. 0362-4331.
  2. Web site: 40 Years of 'for colored girls…': Loving Ntozake Shange Fiercely • EBONY. 2016-07-22. EBONY. en-US. 2018-12-08.
  3. Web site: Vendryes, Margaret Rose (1955-) Amistad Research Center. amistadresearchcenter.tulane.edu. 2018-12-08.
  4. Web site: African Diva Project By Margaret Rose Vendryes. AFRONOIRE. en-GB. 2018-12-08.
  5. Book: Campbell, Mavis Christine. Black Women of Amherst College. 1999. Amherst College Press. 9780943184067. en.
  6. Web site: 'Visual Blues' and the Harlem Renaissance at the Jepson. Flotte. Lauren. Connect Savannah. en. 2018-12-08.
  7. Book: A Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund. Schulman. Daniel. Museum. Spertus. Museum. Allentown Art. Museum. Montclair Art. 2009-02-05. Northwestern University Press. 9780810125889. en.
  8. Web site: 'Margaret Rose Vendryes: The African Diva Project' on exhibit at Childs Gallery. ArtfixDaily. en. 2018-12-08.
  9. Web site: Why Southeast Queens Is Primed to Be NYC's Next Creative Hub. Carrigan. Margaret. 2018-03-19. Observer. en. 2018-12-08.
  10. Web site: Flaherty . Julie . As Dean of SMFA at Tufts, Margaret Vendryes Will Build on a Legacy . Tufts Now . 25 January 2022 . 31 March 2022.
  11. Web site: MARGARET ROSE VENDRYES. 3 June 2020.
  12. Book: A Companion to American Art. Davis. John. Greenhill. Jennifer A.. LaFountain. Jason D.. 2015-01-30. John Wiley & Sons. 9781118542491. en.
  13. Web site: Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art: fit for a 'Mad Potter'. Harrison. Thomas B.. Press-Register. AL.com. 20 June 2010 . en-US. 2018-12-08.
  14. Web site: A historic work of art is crumbling in a NYCHA complex. Chiusano. Mark. am New York. 26 November 2018 . en. 2018-12-08.
  15. Web site: Our Time at Home: My Journey with Artist … Richmond Barthe. Green. Bernice Elizabeth. en-US. 2018-12-09.
  16. Web site: Beyond the Blues. New Orleans Museum of Art. en-US. 2018-12-08.
  17. Web site: Vendryes, Margaret — York College / CUNY. 2020-06-03. www.york.cuny.edu.
  18. Web site: ArtsBeat: Schomburg Center Plans Exhibition on 'For Colored Girls'. Lee. Felicia R.. 2014-09-08. The New York Times. en-US. 2018-12-08.
  19. Web site: Broadway Play 'For Colored Girls' Inspires New Works from 20 Artists. Sargent. Antwaun. 2016-10-19. Creators. en-US. 2018-12-08.
  20. Web site: Dr. Ntozake Shange's seminal work gets a gallery's worth of consideration in new exhibit. Taylor. Andaiye. brickcitylive.com. 2018-12-08.
  21. Web site: On the "A" w/Souleo: Groundbreaking Choreo-poem for colored girls... Turns 40. Wright. Peter "Souleo". 2014-09-02. Huffington Post. en-US. 2018-12-08.
  22. Web site: An Art Scene Grows in Newark Village Voice. MITTER. SIDDHARTHA. www.villagevoice.com. 2018-12-08.
  23. 1511119506046951436 . LeslieLohman . We are heartbroken by the passing of our beloved friend and long standing Board member and Vice Chair of The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art Board of Trustees, Margaret Rose Vendryes, Ph.D.
  24. Web site: SE Queens Artists Alliance . 2022-04-08 . www.instagram.com.
  25. News: 2022-06-29 . Remembering Margaret Rose Vendryes, Creator of the African Diva Project . en-US . 2022-11-27.
  26. Web site: Legendary Diva: Margaret Rose Vendryes Memorial Exhibition . 2022-11-27 . Artsy . en.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Margaret Rose Vendryes".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.