Tougaloo Art Collection Receives TLC Through Partnership With Museum of Art and Luce his winter, the Mississippi Museum of Art and Tougaloo College showcased the first exhibit of the Art and Civil Rights Initiative, a multi-layered, multi-year partnership that leverages the art collections of both institutions to foster community dialogue and interpretation about civil rights issues, past and present. The Initiative, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, supports new exhibitions, dynamic programming, and evolving scholarship that is made even more powerful and relevant given quilts, and photography, including Mississippi’s place as ground zero for much of the Civil Rights Move- an Earnest Withers photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “The ment of the mid-20th Century. urgency of what we’re living in right now seems to be on everybody’s mind as much as it was back in the ’60s, so my thoughts were to link to that history,” says Autry. While choosing pieces for the collection, Autry was able to examine art works in the Tougaloo Art Vault, with the help of the Museum & Collector Resource (MCR), a specialty consulting firm out of Boston, MA who offer extensive resource management services for art museums, hisLed by LaTanya Autry, Curator torical museums, private collectors, of Art & Civil Rights at the Misand nature centers. sissippi Museum of Art, the first Valerie Kinkaid, Founder and exhibit is entitled, “Now: The Call Principal of MCR, expounds and Look of Freedom.” This exon the importance of her role in hibit is comprised of a mixture of preserving significant artifacts. 20 American art pieces that con“Our job is to protect the cultural tain prints, drawings, sculptures,
patrimony of our shared American history. Those things need to be physically cared for. We have worked with a number of organizations that have strong African-American history collections. This collection seems to have a lot of depth to it, and it’s nice for a college to have those assets,” she states. The exhibit which is open in the Tougaloo Art Gallery, located in the Bennie G. Thompson Academic & Civil Rights Research Center, uses interactive displays to engage students in meaningful collaborative learning and allow faculty to integrate the works of various scholars and artists in their classrooms and lectures. Pictured (left to right): Katheryn Brown, Leah Whitehead, and Valerie Kinkade of the Museum & Collector Resource. Mississippi Museum of Art Curator LaTanya Autry examining a drawing in the Tougaloo Art Vault. VIEW FROM TOUGALOO | 31