Huey Copeland Receives 2024 James A. Porter and David C. Driskell Award in African American Art History

Huey Copeland, BFC Presidential Associate Professor of History of Art, has received the 2024 James A. Porter and David C. Driskell Award in African American Art History from The Driskell Center for Black Modernisms in the Transatlantic World. Coedited with Steven Nelson, dean of the National Gallery’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the book features essays by nine leading scholars and practitioners. Its aim is to undo hegemonic modernist narratives in the West and move toward art history’s intersectional futures. The Porter/Driskell Award recognizes original research and scholarly writings on historical subjects pertaining to African American visual culture.

Copeland holds a secondary appointment in Africana Studies. His work interrogates African/Diasporic, American, and European artistic practice from the late 18th century to the present, with an emphasis on articulations of Blackness in the Western visual field. An editor of OCTOBER and a contributing editor of Artforum, Copeland has published in numerous periodicals as well as in international exhibition catalogues and essay collections. Alongside his work as a teacher, critic, editor, scholar, and administrator, he has co-curated exhibitions and co-organized international conferences.

Established in 2001, the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora provides an intellectual home for artists, museum professionals, art administrators, and scholars who are interested in broadening the field of African diasporic studies.