artmappa
Group show

Dawoud Bey and William H. Johnson

12 May 2021 — 5 Aug 2021 at Smithsonian American Art Museum · Washington, D.C.
This 2021 exhibition brought together the work of Dawoud Bey and William H. Johnson, two significant African American artists working across different eras and mediums. The show invited visitors to consider connections between Johnson's boldly expressive paintings and Bey's powerful photographic portraits, tracing shared themes of identity, community, and the representation of Black life in America.

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About the artist

Dawoud Bey
1953

Dawoud Bey is an American photographer, artist and educator known for his large-scale art photography and street photography portraits, including American adolescents in relation to their community, and other often marginalized subjects. In 2017, Bey was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and…

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William H. Johnson
William H. Johnson
1901–1970 · primitivism

William Henry Johnson was an American painter. Born in Florence, South Carolina, he became a student at the National Academy of Design in New York City, working with Charles Webster Hawthorne. He later lived and worked in France, where he was exposed to modernism. After Johnson married Danish…

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About the venue

Smithsonian American Art Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum · Washington, D.C.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's largest and most inclusive collections of art made in the United States from the colonial period to the…

Other exhibitions · Smithsonian American Art Museum

Also in Washington, D.C.