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SMITHSONIAN DIRECTOR TO PRESENT AFRICAN ART LECTURE AT IUPUI

INDIANAPOLIS - Out of Africa came Picasso's inspiration for "Les Demoiselles d'Avigon." Out of Africa also came the visions from which furniture designers launched the art deco movement of the 1920s and the 1940s.

In observance of Black History Month this February, the IUPUI Afro-American Studies Program and Department of History at IUPUI, in conjunction with the Indianapolis Museum of Art and Mays Chemical Company, will sponsor an expert guest lecturer on the African origins of such familiar objects of art.

Roslyn Adele Walker, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art, will present "African Art: Inspiration and Celebration," at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 15 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1200 W. 38th St. The event is free and open to the public.

African visual arts have been a major inspiration for Western artists and designers for hundreds of years, event organizers said. Walker's slide-illustrated lecture will unravel the African imprint on western art forms from Picasso's painting to kente patterns on contemporary apparel and household fashions.

The Black History Month presentation will put the spotlight on artists who traditionally have received a pittance in comparison to the recognition and honor bestowed upon their artistic equals, said William Taylor, acting director of the Afro-American Studies Program at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

"The celebration by Black Americans of the Black artists in the past and the present, (focuses) upon the performing arts - dance, theater and music - and the history of Black writers," Taylor said.

For example, during a recent PBS series on African-American artists, 90 percent of the show was dedicated to writers and performers, Taylor said. Although the names of poets were mentioned in conjunction with their work, drawings and paintings were featured on camera without mention of the artist or the work's title.

"The Black visual artist is still a stepchild," Taylor said.

Both visual and performing artists are important, "but, it is a travesty, the lack of importance that the visual artist has been given in the history of Black Americans," he said. "Dr. Walker's presentation will speak to the importance of the visual artists of both Black Africa and Black America."

Walker holds both a master's degree, and a doctorate of philosophy degree in art history from Indiana University. She was appointed as director of the National Museum of African Art in 1997. Prior to joining the curatorial department at the museum in 1981, she was director of the University Museums at Illinois State University.

She has contributed articles to numerous publications, including "Three Generations of African- American Art," "African Textiles and Decorative Arts," and "Africa: The Art of Continent, 100 Works of Power and Beauty."

In addition to her prolific writings on art, Walker was invited to represent the United States Information Agency as a cultural specialist in Nigeria to conduct museum administration and conservation workshops in 1999.

She has organized several exhibitions on African art at the National Museum and served as guest curator for exhibitions sponsored by the Lakeview Museum in Peoria, Ill., and the African-American Institute in New York.

Walker is one of the few African-American women to be honored as director of a major museum in the Smithsonian grouping. She also serves on the board of overseers of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and has served on the board of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association and on the visual arts and crafts advisory panel of the Washington, D.C. Commission on the Arts.

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