19 Black women visual artists to recognize for International Black Women’s History Month
As we enter International Black Women’s History Month, Black art has always been a means of documenting and creating history, putting out powerful stories that depict Black women’s experiences, struggles, and triumphs. BLACK ENTERPRISE has chosen 19 Black women visual artists to honor and recognize their transformative work and re-echo the need for their artistic voices in the broader cultural landscape.
Betye Saar
Faith Ringgold
Barbara Chase-Riboud
Born in Philadelphia and based in Paris for most of her life, African American artist, sculptor, and writer Barbara Chase-Riboud sold her first piece, “Reba,” to the MoMA in 1955. Chase-Riboud is best known for her bronze and fiber sculptures, especially her Malcolm X series. From history, identity, and power, her work strikes a chord. As a celebrated author, Chase-Riboud is best known for “Sally Hemings (1977),” a fictionalized account of the life of the enslaved girl who bore children for Thomas Jefferson.
Howardena Pindell
Augusta Savage
A central figure of the Harlem Renaissance was Augusta Savage (1892-1962), an African American sculptor. “The Harp” was inspired by “Lift Every Voice and Sing” but was later destroyed after its exhibition. Savage trained artists like Jacob Lawrence at the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts she set up in Harlem, making the artist the first person to open a gallery for African American art. Savage was born in Florida but worked primarily in New York, using her stature to fight racism and champion Black artists. Her legacy lives on in her art.
Kara Walker
Lorna Simpson
Simone Leigh
Mickalene Thomas
Latoya Ruby Frazier
LaToya Ruby Frazier is a photographer and visual artist who focuses on racial and economic inequality. In her photography, video, and performance, she documents environmental racism and healthcare disparities in working-class Black communities. Her well-known work, “The Notion of Family,” shows the challenges of her hometown and her own family. Frazier’s artwork has graced the spaces of institutions like MoMA and the Whitney Museum.
Nina Chanel Abney
Nina Chanel Abney’s paintings are bold and graphic. The artist paints themes on race, politics, gender, and pop culture. She makes large-scale, bright-colored paintings with collage, flattened figuration, and abstraction. When consuming Abney’s work, viewers are forced to engage with issues of racial injustice and media influence. She has shown at the Whitney Museum and the Brooklyn Museum.
Tschabalala Self
Julie Mehretu
Julie Mehretu is an Ethiopian-American painter. She was born in Addis Ababa and raised in the U.S. Her large-scale abstract paintings are layered with architectural elements, maps, and expressive marks. Her work addresses themes of history and power, and she uses dynamic compositions to think through questions of globalization and social movements.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a Nigerian-born artist based in Los Angeles. She is known for her painting techniques that combine Nigerian and Western aesthetics. She creates intimate, domestic scenes filled with themes of identity, migration, and cultural blending. Crosby was brought up in Nigeria and has studied in the U.S. and has made her appearance in museums such as the Whitney Museum and Tate Modern. Her work is a testimony to the challenge of African stereotypes, the immigrant experience, globalization, memory, and cultural exchange.
Jordan Casteel
Brittney Leeanne Williams
Brittney Leeanne Williams is an artist from Pasadena, California, best known for painting women contorting. Williams is more than just a painter; she uses her art to tell stories about Black womanhood, trauma, love, and resilience by using the body as an emotional and physical landscape. Major galleries across the U.S. and internationally have displayed her work.
Deborah Roberts
Deborah Roberts is a collagist. Her art features mixed-media collages concerned with race, identity, beauty, and Black youth. Roberts’ work interrogates beauty standards and the pressures on Black bodies, using Black children’s images combined with abstraction. From Austin, Texas, Roberts is recognized for her surreal collage practice, and her art is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Jennifer Packer
Jennifer Packer paints about love, loss, and vulnerability. She combines the traditional techniques of painting people’s portraits and using abstract forms and shapes while painting people’s close moments with their families and friends. She is famous for using color and texture to create emotional pieces. Packer’s art centers the Black body.
Jadé Fadojutimi
Jadé Fadojutimi is a British-Nigerian artist, who paints large-scale, colourful abstract art. Her work addresses identity, emotion, and the complexities of self. Her paintings are a blend of Western and African influences. Fadojutimi’s art touches on personal histories and global influence.
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Source: Black Enterprise
