Renée Stout and Brittany Webb

Join us for the last Rising Sun Artist and Curator talk of the year featuring Renée Stout, whose arresting works like "Hoodoo Assassins" 2021, and "Sketchbook, with Foreboding", 2019, are on view at the African American Museum in Philadelphia.

Renée Stout will present her work and then be joined in conversation with Dr. Brittany Webb, curator of the current exhibition Determined to Be: The Sculpture of John Rhoden, and the Evelyn and Will Kaplan Curator of Twentieth Century Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Renée Stout (b. 1958) grew up in Pittsburgh and received her B.F.A. from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1980. Originally trained as a painter, she moved to Washington, D.C. in 1985 where she began to explore the spiritual roots of her African-American heritage through her work. She became the first American artist to exhibit in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art and is also the recipient of the Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award (2018), the David C. Driskell Prize (2010), a Joan Mitchell Award (2005) and The Pollock Krasner Foundation Award (1991 & 1999). Her work is included in such collections as The Afrika Museum, The High Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, among others.

Dr. Brittany Webb is the Evelyn and Will Kaplan Curator of Twentieth Century Art and the John Rhoden Collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). Her most recent exhibition, Determined to Be: The Sculpture of John Rhoden, is a retrospective featuring 70 sculptures by artist John Rhoden (1916-2001) and is on view at PAFA through April 7, 2024. Before joining PAFA, Dr. Webb was a member of the curatorial staff of the African American Museum in Philadelphia. Dr. Webb holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Temple University and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Southern California.