The Alfred Stieglitz Collection: Collaboration and Stewardship
The Anne Sallee Greenwood Discovery Series is a program celebrating new perspectives in American art and culture. It is inspired by the opportunity for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art to share publicly the ways in which curators discover shared expertise and interests and how collaboration has the potential to create new audiences for art. This series was made possible thanks to the generosity of Mary Ann and Reed Greenwood, in honor of their daughter, Anne (MFA ’19).
In 2012, Fisk University and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art entered into co-ownership of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection. Gifted to Fisk by Georgia O’Keeffe in 1949, the collection includes 101 works mostly from the estate of Alfred Stieglitz, O’Keeffe’s late husband. Stieglitz has an unparalleled importance in American art history as a photographer, gallerist, and collector of pioneering artwork in the US. O’Keeffe’s decision to gift a significant group of works to a historically Black university in the South compels fresh analysis around topics of modernism, education, race, and legacy.
Fisk University and Crystal Bridges share equally in the stewardship and care of the Stieglitz Collection, with works traveling between the institutions every two years. In recent years, the partnership has expanded and evolved through innovative approaches to student engagement and collaborative research. Join Jamaal Sheats, Associate Provost of Art and Culture, Director and Curator at Fisk University Galleries, and Assistant Professor of Arts, Fisk University, and Jen Padgett, Windgate Curator of Craft, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, for a conversation around the collaboration and projects in progress, including a groundbreaking publication on the collection’s history. Dr. Anna O. Marley, PAFA's Chief of Curatorial Affairs and the Kenneth R. Woodcock Curator of Historical American Art, will moderate the conversation.
*This program will be both in-person and virtual.
**In-person attendees are cordially invited to a reception before the program, 5:00 - 6:00 PM, in the Anne Bryan Gallery.
*** Determined To Be: The Sculpture of John Rhoden will be open from 4:00 - 5:30 PM.
Speakers
Since joining the Fisk University Galleries in 2015, Jamaal Sheats has curated 19 exhibitions, established the Fisk Museum Leadership Program, expanded, and nurtured partnerships, and implemented innovative programs to foster access to, and engagement with the collections. Sheats is a Trustee of the Frist Art Museum and Board Member of the HBCU Alliance of Museums and Galleries; Association of Academic Museum and Galleries; and the Maddox Fund. He received an MFA from Tufts University and BS in Art from Fisk University.
Jen Padgett is the Windgate Curator of Craft at Crystal Bridges. In addition to advancing craft across the museum’s collection, she specializes in modern art from the 1900s to 1950s. Padgett has organized multiple reinstallations of the museum’s Modern Art Galleries and numerous exhibitions including Seeing One Another: New Views on the Alfred Stieglitz Collection, currently on view. With Jamaal Sheats, she is co-leading the publication project on the Alfred Stieglitz Collection co-owned by Fisk University and Crystal Bridges. Padgett received her MA and PhD in Art History & Archaeology from Washington University in St. Louis.
Anna O. Marley has curated over 16 exhibitions, including Public Treasures/Private Visions: Hudson River School Masterworks (2009); Anatomy/Academy (2011); "A Mine of Beauty:" Landscapes by William Trost Richards, editing the accompanying catalog, as well as the touring retrospective Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit (both 2012), and editing the acclaimed accompanying catalog, published by the University of California Press. Marley's more recent exhibitions at PAFA include Spiritual Strivings: A Celebration of African American Works on Paper (2014); the 5 venue nationally touring Artists Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887-1920 (2015) and the accompanying catalog published by University of Pennsylvania Press; Thomas Eakins: Photographer (2016); From the Schuylkill to the Hudson: Landscapes of the Early American Republic (2019); Women in Motion: 150 Years of Women’s Artistic Networks at PAFA (2021); and Making American Artists: Stories From PAFA, 1776 - 1996 (2022) which embarks on a six-venue national tour in 2024. Marley is a scholar of American art and material culture from the colonial era to 1945 and holds a B.A. in Art History from Vassar College, an M.A. in Museum Studies from the University of Southern California and a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware.