paintings are statements about my observations,
and a couple other major exhibitions like that, so it
too. You can “package” something that you feel
wasn’t that I was unaware of museum involvement.
into music or a painting, but does the viewer or
GOLD: Were you a museum-goer growing up or
listener experience that? Are they seeing or hearing
when you were at PAFA?
what you felt? Maybe. If they do, then you’ve made a connection. That’s the power of being able to
R. WATSON: Yes, particularly at PAFA. We went out
harness a feeling into a product that people can
to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the University
consume. I feel good about that.
of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Rodin Museum—and I also went
GOLD: In addition to your creative work, you
to Woodmere! You go to all those places because
also work at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. When did you get involved with that organization? R. WATSON: In 1986. Its original name was the
Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum
Zoning Board hearing regarding the proposed location of the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum at Sixth and Pine Streets, February 20, 1975. Supporters and protesters of the project gathered to express their opinion in City Hall Annex. Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. (Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA) Photograph by Robert L. Mooney
(AAHCM).
they are what you’re involved with in your life. You want to know as much as you can about the things that came before you. Works by Johannes Vermeer, one of my favorite people, and Salvador Dalí—you don’t get to see those kinds of things very often. But the founding of the AAMP seemed to be
MCCAY: Were you aware of the founding of the
camp youth coordinator. Then I started working
more of a moment for Philadelphia’s social scene
museum, in 1976?
as a part-time exhibits coordinator, and eventually
than it was for the art scene. It told the whole
I was offered a full-time job. I got sucked in—I’ve
story of the African American experience from
been there twenty-nine years now! I became
life in Africa through the migration period. It was
exhibits coordinator, exhibits director, curator, and
not a contemporary art center like the Institute
exhibits manager, and now I’m artist-in-residence
of Contemporary Art. The first CEO and director,
and exhibits manager. I’ve had nine different titles
Adolphus Ealey, brought in some of his own work
and have worked under ten different CEOs and
from the Barnett-Aden Gallery in Washington,
presidents. I have the longest-running history
DC, and that was the core of the museum’s fine
of anybody who’s ever worked there, and I have
art collection for the first several years. But the
maintained a professional career as an artist as well.
art perspective wasn’t written into the institution.
R. WATSON: I was, but I wasn’t interested in
it then. I knew it was happening, or that it had happened, but I didn’t go to the opening. That’s how nebulous the museum was. I got involved because one time I was walking downtown and had paint on all my clothes because I had been working. Irene Burnham, the exhibits director for the museum, happened to see me and asked, “Oh, are you an artist? I wonder if you can help me.”
It took some time to develop into a place where
They were desperate to have some prints and
GOLD: It’s interesting that the AAHCM wasn’t on
drawings matted and framed because they were
artists could consistently show their work. It
your radar when it was founded, and I’m wondering
having an opening on Sunday and they were really
exhibited Ellen Powell Tiberino’s work as its first
why. You mentioned that making it as a commercial
in a crunch. So I called up four other people who
one-person show, in 1977, but only after several
artist was tough, since there weren’t a lot of galleries
could mat drawings, and they paid us to mat and
years did a strong curatorial aspect develop
showing black artists. Did museums and galleries just
frame all weekend, almost around the clock. After
under Deirdre Bibby with shows being carefully
not seem like meaningful platforms for you?
researched and the collections getting more
that, one thing led to another and they got to know who I was as an artist. I told them about my work
R. WATSON: Well, I had already shown in an African
at summer arts camps with young children for the
American art exhibition curated by Barry Gaither
Model Cities Program, so I became their summer
at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1971 or ’72
188
WOODMERE ART MUSEUM
focused. A great number of local artists have shown there—including Benjamin Britt, Paul Keene, Roland Ayers, Barbara Bullock, James Dupree and many other world renowned presenters.
An exhibition at the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum in Philadelphia, August 27. 1976. Published in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. (Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA) Photograph by Sonnee Gottlieb
GOLD: Some people thought that the
establishment of the museum was “too little, too late” in terms of recognizing the black community. How do you respond to that controversy? R. WATSON: There was no one, cohesive black
community that could assess the need for a museum to honor the history of its heritage, so the black community was not “at the table,” so to speak, for the establishment of the museum. There were some major players who were expected to represent the black experience, such as Clarence Farmer, who had some political power along with Philadelphia’s mayor, Frank Rizzo. But it really seemed to have been an “in-house” political deal. The masses of black people in Philadelphia felt that the AAHCM didn’t represent who they really were. There was no inclusion of community members to explain what their needs were, or who some of the greatest people influencing and sustaining their lives
WE SPEAK: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s–1970s
189