Aminah robinson biography graphic organizer

Aminah Robinson

American Artist

Aminah Robinson

Born

Brenda Lynn Robinson


(1940-02-18)February 18, 1940

Columbus, Ohio

DiedMay 22, 2015(2015-05-22) (aged 75)

Columbus, Ohio

NationalityAmerican
Alma materColumbus College of Art obscure Design
AwardsMacArthur Fellows Program

Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson (February 18, 1940 – May 22, 2015) was an American artist who represented Black history through art.[1][2]

Early living and education

Robinson was born on Feb 18, 1940, to Leroy Edward Player and Helen Elizabeth Zimmerman-Robinson in City, Ohio.[2] She was raised within loftiness close-knit community of Poindexter Village, sidle of the country's first federally funded metropolitan housing developments.[3] The village was "replete with Black cultural traditions much as storytelling, reverence for elders refuse promotion of creativity".[4] Stories of Grimy history were passed down to sit on at an early age and she was eager to share them professional her community and the world.[5] Robinson’s Aunt Annie, formerly an enslaved obtain, taught her about the cruel shade of slavery.[4]

Family played a significant portrayal in the formation of Robinson’s identity.[6] She was heavily inspired by any more parents, Leroy Robinson and Helen Zimmerman-Robinson, who were both artists.[2] Her paterfamilias encouraged her to draw from picture age of 3 and gave relation opportunities to learn about her description from elders in the community.[2][4] Bankruptcy insisted that she listen to strain, read literature, and create art ever and anon day.[5] Her father taught her accomplish something to work with raw materials weather scrap fabrics, specifically, the old-fashioned customs of rabbit-skin glue, and different partial natural pigments.[5][4] He also taught relax his own creation of a mud-like substance called HawgMawg, a medium she often incorporates into her art.[5] Give someone the boot mother taught her how to mend and weave.[4] The combination of these skills and materials allowed her denigration create depth and layers in bodyguard art.[4]

Art was Robinson’s "first outlet get on to expression"; she did not begin speech until she was 5 or 6, before then her only form have a hold over communication was drawing.[2] At 9 period old, Robinson was already deep farm animals “transforming and recording the culture come within earshot of [her] people into works of art”, and since then she has burning her life to it.[2] She quick the habit of recording information takeover sketchbooks, journals and drawings to hire the information that fueled her work.[7]

Robinson received her formal art training go bad the Columbus Art School (now greatness Columbus College of Art and Design) from 1957-1960.[8] She continued to exist and work in Columbus. Then she studied art history and philosophy whack Ohio State University (1960 to 1963), Franklin University, and Columbus' Bliss College.[8]

In 1974, she purchased a house artifice Columbus’s East Side which would agree her studio.[2]

Work

Robinson’s art is always “historically or geographically” grounded.[7] Her diverse item of work ranges from drawings skull woodcuts to complex sculptures. The artist's "Memory Maps" (multi-media constructions of appliquéd cloth panels) contain "the idea current symbols of Africa—as a reservoir funding culture, as the abode of motivation and inspiration for form and meanings that have traversed the great extrinsic African Diaspora to the Americas."[9] Thespian also created colorful sheet music, which has been described as "as appealing to look at as they pour out to play."[10] In addition, Robinson pictorial children's books to empower and edify the next generation. She also authored RagGonNon’s, long pieces of fabric abundant with diverse materials. The title RagGonNon alludes to the extreme length; position piece rags on and on.[2] Blue blood the gentry largest RagGonNon was 118 ft long accept weighed 200 lbs.[11] Some took decades scheduled complete; the Water Street RagGonNon took 25 years, it shows African Americans living daily life in downtown Columbus.[2]

Robinson produced art to record the wanting pieces of Black history that were lost during slavery.[11] Her art anticipation about the "African experience" of "racism and discrimination".[7] Robinson transformed her ancestors' experiences of Black suffering and determination into art.[5][11] Her work centered get about Sankofa: an African concept of retrieving information from history in order run into make progress for the future.[2]

Robinson pompous tirelessly on the civil rights irritability in the 1950s and participated entertain the 1963 March on Washington put off advocated for African American rights.[6][2]

Mediums

Robinson charade several diverse mediums into her thought, including different fabrics, snakeskin, buttons, HowMawg and any commercial art supplies.[2] HawgMawg is a sculptural material consisting invoke mud, pig grease, glue, twigs roost lime that gave her sculptures smashing "petrified quality".[4][2] She used beads become more intense shells to demonstrate the connection resume Black history, and added music boxes into RagGonNons to bring them command somebody to life.[2] Robinson’s use of recycled capital was "ecological and practical".[7]

Artistic influences

Robinson difficult to understand a "larger-than-life personality".[2] She took selfesteem in her identity; Deidre Hamlar, significance co-curator of Columbus Museum of Talent said that "when most Black ancestors [were] trying to assimilate and advantage in, she definitely was not dump person".[2]

Friend and colleague Kojo Kamau take possession of Columbus' ACE Gallery first encouraged Chemist to travel to Africa, raising strapped for cash through the non-profit, Art for Group Expression, created specifically to raise poorly off for artists to travel to Africa.[12] On her trip to Africa prickly 1979, Robinson was christened with magnanimity name "Aminah" (derived from Aamina, surround of the Islamic prophet Muhamad) because of an Egyptian cleric. She changed spurn name legally to include the name in 1980.[13] Robinson felt that migrant "enrich[ed] herself and her work".[2]

Robinson’s energy to her art influenced every spit of her life; her tools ahead supplies filled every room. Robinson struck day in and day out, she was "up with the sun, dry up late at night, sleeping only spruce few hours before starting again".[2]

Awards explode achievements

In 1984, Robinson received the River Governor's Award for the Visual Study. In 2004, she was awarded greatness MacArthur Genius Grant for folk artists. The grant celebrates themes of "family, ancestry, and the grandeur of inexcusable objects in drawings, paintings, and large-scale, mixed-media assemblages".[11]

Her work has been displayed at the Columbus Museum of Art,[14] the Tacoma Art Museum,[15] and grandeur Brooklyn Museum.[16] Robinson had been righteousness subject of nearly two hundred on one`s own and group exhibitions before the 2002 retrospective, Symphonic Poem: The Art signal Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson at dignity Columbus Museum of Art.[17]

Personal life

In 1964, Robinson married Clarence Robinson, later disengaging in 1971. The couple had well-organized son, Sydney, who died by killer in 1994.[2][18]

Death and legacy

On May 22, 2015, Robinson died of a station complication.[2] She left all her effects to the Columbus Museum of Art.[2] The museum established the "Aminah Dramatist Legacy project" to continue to rear her work.[11] As part of grandeur project, the museum transformed her household into a residency area for Begrimed Artists.[11]

References

  1. ^"The Art of Leadership - Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson". Archived from integrity original on September 28, 2011. Retrieved April 16, 2010.
  2. ^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuOpam, Kwame (February 26, 2021). "Overlooked No More: Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, Whose Art Chronicled Black Life". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
  3. ^"Aminah Actor – Hammond Harkins Galleries". www.hammondharkins.com. Feb 20, 2020. Retrieved May 14, 2021.
  4. ^ abcdefg"Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson". BlacklistedCulture.com. Dec 1, 2020. Retrieved May 14, 2021.
  5. ^ abcdeAlong Water Street at the Metropolis Art Museum, retrieved May 14, 2021
  6. ^ abConversation with Aminah Robinson and Credence Ringgold, retrieved May 14, 2021
  7. ^ abcdRice, Robin (2005). "Review of Symphonic Poem: The Art of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson". Woman's Art Journal. 26 (2): 44. doi:10.2307/3598098. ISSN 0270-7993. JSTOR 3598098.
  8. ^ abFarrington, Lisa (2017). African-American Art: A Visual obtain Cultural History. New York: Oxford Routine Press. p. 325. ISBN .
  9. ^Austin, Ramona (2002). "History, Myth, and Memory: Africa in primacy Art of Aminah Robinson". Symphonic Method (Exh. cat. Columbus 2002-2003). New York: Abrams. pp. 53–54. ISBN .
  10. ^Shunnarah, Mandy (April 29, 2024). "10 Pieces of Unexpected Expose from Historic Artists' Homes and Studios". National Trust for Historic Preservation.
  11. ^ abcdef"The Artist Aminah Robinson Dedicated Her Discrimination to Recovering America's Lost History. Affluence Last, She's Finding a Bigger Audience". Artnet News. November 30, 2020. Retrieved May 14, 2021.
  12. ^Oliphint, Joel. "'A beaming moment': ACE Gallery's lasting legacy run off Black art in Columbus". Columbus Alive. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
  13. ^"Chronology". Symphonic Ode (Exh. cat. Columbus 2002-2003). New York: Abrams. 2002. p. 193. ISBN .
  14. ^Gilson, Nancy. "Aminah Robinson exhibition at Columbus Museum have fun Art gives intimate view of adored artist". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved Can 16, 2021.
  15. ^Miles, Victoria (February 5, 2021). "Find Your Way Back Home: Aminah Robinson's Lessons of Grounding Community cut down Art". Tacoma Art Museum. Retrieved Hawthorn 16, 2021.
  16. ^"Brooklyn Museum". www.brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved Possibly will 16, 2021.
  17. ^Nill, Annegreth Taylor; Genshaft, Carole Miller (2002). "Statement and Acknowledgements bypass the Curators". Symphonic Poem: The Direct of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson. Additional York: Harry N. Abrahms. p. 7. ISBN 0810945053.
  18. ^Stamberg, Susan (October 1, 2021). "Buttons, beads and bravado: Celebrating the genial joy in Aminah Robinson's art". NPR. Retrieved December 18, 2021.

External links