Explore more with the African American Art History Initiative at the Getty Research Institute.
Celebrate Black History Month with Artists in their Own Words
Listen to luminaries on legacy, craft, and what it takes to be creative
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Portrait of Betye Saar, 1970. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California
Photo: Bob Namamura
Body Content
What makes someone an artist?
In 1975, artist Betye Saar talked about controlling her destiny, to become “a true, free, creative person.” In 2018, historian, artist, and educator David Driskell said that art was, for him, “a very special gift…very serious business.”
In interviews and oral histories, these artists talked about their gifts, their art, and what it took to break through racial barriers to find creative freedom.
In celebration of Black History Month (and Black art history), here’s a short list of oral histories, podcasts, and videos that showcase iconic artists in their own words.
Explore Oral Histories
Ulysses Jenkins When I was a little younger, one Sunday afternoon my dad was doodling on a scratch piece of paper, and I noticed it. I thought, Wow, that's fantastic! I want to try doing that myself. And so that introduced me to starting to learn how to draw. As a very young child, when there were so many of us kids, we'd see a lot of—they were starting to put a lot of cartoon characters on the TV set. Of course, the one particular show that people would—used to watch all the time was Disneyland, and The Wonderful World of Disney would come on. And you know, as kids would do, you'd fall into this thing about the characters in the shows. So I started drawing them and making cutouts, and we'd use them in our play—I didn't realize at the time I was making mini-installation works—so that we could use these characters and create our own storylines, little dramas, whatever, you know?
Read more from Jenkins's oral history.
Howardena Pindell When I was in the third grade, my teacher, Mrs. Ozer, told my parents that I had a talent for art, and suggested that they take me—I was eight years old—they put me in a Saturday program for children, and that they take me to art galleries and museums and to meet other artists, which they did. And I met both Black and white artists, both female and male artists. So it was a big shock for me when I came to New York, finding how segregated it was, the profession, and also that women weren't necessarily welcome. And if you criticized a white male artist, that was considered censorship; but having no people of color and very few—if any—white women, was not considered censorship. Read more from Pindell's oral history.
These were created as part of a joint endeavor between the Getty Research Institute's African American Art History Initiative and the Oral History Center at UC Berkeley. Find more oral histories here.
Listen to a Podcast
Betye Saar The burdens that my mother had, my aunt had, my grandmother, my great grandmother, all the way back to like people that I don’t even know. Things that happen in their lifetime that they pass on to their children. But all of those things that become part of us that we transmit to our children. And as my daughters became women, I could see my hang-ups, my mother’s hang-ups, my grandmother’s hangups. And I said, ‘Wait a minute, I can do something about that. Because if I change and I am their model, then they change too.’ It’s like, at one point, taking the responsibility of your life. There is the hope of being able to control my destiny. To move it from previous points where it was, where I was locked into that, getting rid of all that programming, into becoming a true, free, creative person. Listen to Recording Artists: Radical Women
Watch Videos
Fred Eversley The genesis of my work is energy, energy being the sole contributor for all life on Earth. Without energy, none of this exists. Especially living here in Venice Beach all these years, where you're surrounded by the ocean and the sun and the wind, you became even more aware of how the natural energy around makes people very, very happy. Watch Fred Eversley: The Shape of Energy
Kamoinge Workshop “I consider photography alchemy. I really consider the magic of it. The fact that you stop time and take a part of time,” says photographer Shawn Walker in a video of interviews with the artists of the Kamoinge Workshop, a Black photography collective formed in New York in 1963.
Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop was on view at the Getty Center in 2022. But you can watch interviews with the artists here:
