Connecticut art museums working to diversify their staff, leadership and collections

When the coronavirus pandemic began, museums closed and projects were put on hold. Now that the health crisis seems on the wane — and in the wake of the racial reckoning that followed the murder of George Floyd — museums are revving up again with a particular focus: diversity, equity and inclusion.

Museums throughout Connecticut have begun or reignited initiatives to diversify their collections, exhibitions, boards of trustees, community programs and other facets of their mission statements.

“It’s quite overdue. I’ve been director here for about seven years and I’ve been thinking about it for about seven years,” said Sam Quigley, director of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London. “We have to make it our business to serve our local community.”

In November, Lyman Allyn’s board of trustees unanimously adopted a Multicultural Action Plan, with the goal of “intentionally effecting measures to address its historic lack of racial inclusiveness,” the plan’s wording states.

According to the most recent figures on census.gov, the City of New London has a sizable nonwhite population: 33.4% Hispanic, 15% Black and 2.4% Asian.

Of the museum’s approximately 20,000-piece collection, the percentage by nonwhite artists is “very small,” and only one piece is on exhibit, Quigley said. The museum’s 18-member board has one Asian member; the rest are white. Moves are afoot, as part of the Multicultural Action Plan, to address both of those inequities, Quigley said.

“This year, we have increased our fundraising goals by $50,000. The money will be specifically earmarked for exhibitions and acquisitions for works by artists in marginalized communities,” he said.

Among those exhibitions will be a 2023 show of work by Barkley Hendricks (1945-2017), a Black New London resident famed for his large-scale portraiture of Black people. Works by Hendricks are in Lyman Allyn’s collection, as well as work by Romare Bearden and recently acquired pieces by Black artists Alonzo Davis, Kara Walker and Yinka Shonibare.

Four positions will be added to the board of trustees, Quigley said, and members of the region’s nonwhite communities will be especially sought out for those posts.

“That will bring us up to 20-plus percent nonwhite,” he said. “For us these are ambitious goals. We’re trying to evolve and really become the institution that we’ve been talking about the last couple of years.”

Other elements of the Multicultural Action Plan are recruiting employees of color, organizing programs on multicultural topics and forging community collaborations with diversity-focused groups.

Fairfield University

Fairfield University Art Museum is focusing efforts on acquisitions. The museum announced in November that it has set up a fund dedicated exclusively to buying works by contemporary Black artists.

“We believe that there is no better way to celebrate the excellence of Black history and culture than through art, so we decided to make it a priority to develop this aspect of our permanent collection,” museum Executive Director Carey Weber said.

The fund has been seeded with $20,000, with a fundraising goal of $40,000. So far, $25,000 has been raised. All money raised by the museum during the recent Giving Tuesday went to the Black Art Fund.

Weber said until now, the museum has had no permanent budget for acquisition, since almost every piece in its approximately 2,000-piece collection was donated.

Acquisitions from the fund already have begun. A “Cardboard Slave Kit, Abolitionist Blend DIY” by Roberto Visani was purchased, as well as “Peaceful Protesters: Nina Simone II,” a ceramic mug by Roberto Lugo.

A focus on acquisitions often turns into a focus on exhibition, as is the case in Fairfield. An exhibit of ceramics by Lugo is on view until Dec. 18, alongside an exhibit by Black photographer Carrie Mae Weems, whose works focus on the killing of Black people by police.

The creation of the Black Art Fund also inspired one donor to donate a piece by a Black artist. On Wednesday, Fairfield received a print by African-American color field painter Sam Gilliam. It became the first print by a Black artist to enter the collection.

Yale

It was announced Wednesday that Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, with Yale University Art Gallery, acquired a 2017 Kehinde Wiley work, “Portrait of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Jacob Morland of Copplethwaite.” It depicts artist Yiadom-Boakye dressed as a huntress in the style of British artist George Romney’s 18th-century portrait of Morland, replacing a white man with a Black woman.

Wylie, one of the most prominent Black artists working today, is known for re-interpreting classic artworks, inserting Black characters. However, he is best known for his official portrait of President Barack Obama, which hangs in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

Another recent acquisition by British Art was a work by Vietnam-born photographer An-My Lê. Both Wiley and Lê are Yale graduates.

These acquisitions follow a re-interpretation of another artwork owned by British Art, which culminated in October 2020 when the museum replaced one painting on exhibit with another.

The removed painting was a 1719 depiction of university benefactor Elihu Yale and other white men, waited on by an enslaved, collared Black child. That painting was replaced with a 2016 re-imagining of that work by New Haven-based Black artist Titus Kaphar. Kaphar’s work, “Enough About You,” shows the boy — uncollared and framed in gold — with the crumpled canvas trailing behind him.

A summary of the research that went into the switch describes Kaphar’s motivation: “By literally reframing [the painting] and depicting the child as a singular individual, defiant and rid of his collar, Kaphar’s work demonstrates how historic depictions of people of African descent in the Black Atlantic intersect with contemporary issues of inequality and the continued lack of representation of Black people today. In his own words, Kaphar ‘wanted to find a way to imagine a life for this young man that the historical painting had never made space for in the composition: his desires, dreams, family, thoughts, hopes. Those things were never subjects that the original artist wanted the viewer to contemplate’.”

The switch and new research into the painting was overseen by Courtney J. Martin, a Black woman who took the helm of the museum in 2019. Kaphar’s work was on the wall for six months. The 1719 painting is again on view, with a new title, “Elihu Yale with Members of his Family and an Enslaved Child.” Previous titles ignored the child or downplayed his juvenile subjugation, calling him “a page” or “an enslaved servant.”

Melissa Parsoff, spokeswoman for Yale University Art Gallery, said the gallery launched a strategic plan this year. “The gallery’s collective belief in equality, inclusion, and racial justice is expressed throughout this plan and much of their work in this area will unfold over the next few years,” Parsoff said.

YUAG works with community organizations in the predominantly nonwhite city to recruit interns, staffers and artists-in-residence, and works with multicultural experts to guide interpretation of artwork and exhibits, she said. Parsoff added that these collaborations will guide exhibits in the future, including “Bámigbóyè: A Master Sculptor of the Yorùbá Tradition,” which will open in fall 2022.

Arts funding

The state’s premier arts-funding administrator, Connecticut Office of the Arts, asks questions about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies from organizations and entities applying for grants. A fiscal year 2022 application supplied by the COA reads “By statute, the information provided cannot be used to evaluate your application. However, it may be used to inform future programming that helps support equity.”

Among the questions on that application are “Does your organization have a board-approved DEI policy that addresses targeted, oppressed populations and/or Black, Indigenous, and People of Color … staff, board members and/or audiences?”; “Has your organization offered its staff, board members and/or volunteers professional development … or other training related to diversity, equity and inclusion?”; “Does your organization allocate funding to organization-wide DEI initiatives?”; and “Indicate the amount of funding allocated to organization-wide DEI initiatives for three … fiscal years.”

The application also requires applicants to specify the ethnicity of members of their board, staff and contractual workers. That section of the application concludes with “What actions are you taking to racially diversify your organization’s board and staff?”

Elizabeth Shapiro, director of arts, preservation and museums for the COA, wrote in an email to The Courant “We are working with CT Humanities to standardize the collection of data from our applicants so that we, as funders, have a better idea of where our grantees are in terms of diversity on the boards, staffs and visitors or patrons. … Once we have a better sector-wide idea of where our organizations are, we can begin to move the needle to foster better more equitable practices across organizations.”

Another major funder, Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, also has begun asking questions about DEI. Its Access Grant program was created “with the intention of supporting organizations that share our strategic goal of dismantling structural racism, including by advancing equitable social and economic mobility by supporting sustainable solutions in Greater Hartford,” the grant’s rubric states.

The grant application asks questions about the ethnic makeup of the organization’s leadership and staff and the communities it serves, as well as “how the proposed work would directly and effectively contribute to the dismantling of structural racism and/or equitable social and economic mobility.”

HFPG spokesman Chris Senecal called the questions “pretty indicative of the type of questions and qualifications we are looking for in all our grantees.”

Florence Griswold

Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme recently has acquired work by Black artists, including an image of cotton-field workers by the late Winfred Rembert of New Haven and a work by Charles Ethan Porter, a 19th- and 20th-century Rockville resident. The museum already had a Porter in its collections.

Amy Kurtz Lansing, curator at the Griswold, said of the approximately 1,500 visual arts items in the museum’s collection, “a very small number, not even 1%” are by artists of color. One of those pieces is by Kaphar. The museum also has worked with jackie summel, a New Orleans artist who creates “solitary gardens” evoking solitary-confinement cells.

Lansing said the Griswold’s history — it is on the site of, and dedicated to the legacy of, a legendary art colony whose members were all white — has dominated its decisions in the past, but the museum wants to expand on that.

“We have a lot of ground to make up. For decades of its existence, it was not a comprehensive collection of American art,” she said.

The Griswold is working with the community organization Public Art for Racial Justice Education (PARJE) to promote the work of artists of color. The Griswold also plans a class about African American art in its upcoming Winter Studies program.

Also working with PARJE is the Slater Museum at Norwich Free Academy. “The museum is also working to realign its collecting and programming goals to bring new visibility and interpretation to artists of color, including Norwich artist Ellis Ruley,” said Slater spokesman Dayne Rugh.

Jessica Kelley, spokeswoman for Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, said “significant” reinstallations of galleries are planned to “to better enable visitors of all backgrounds to see themselves represented.” She said the focus is on historically neglected African, Caribbean, Mexican and Indigenous holdings “to reevaluate their significance and, as warranted, develop plans for their display.”

In 2020 and 2021, Wadsworth Atheneum added to its collection, by gift or purchase, work by artists of color such as Leonardo Drew, Peter Bentzon, M. Hoyris, Todd Gray, Los Carpinteros collective of Cuban artists, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Ali Banisadr and Edgar Heap of Birds, as well as art by women such as Lee Krasner, Ellen Carey, Linda Stark, Liliane Tomasko, Shona McAndrew and Medrie MacPhee.

Women

Another marginalized artistic community — women — has been the focus at New Britain Museum of American Art, which exclusively showed work by women in 2020 and 2021. Lisa Lappe, spokeswoman for NBMAA, said that last summer the board of trustees approved acquisition of 19 works by 13 women artists. No other purchases were made in that period. The focus on women, Lappe said, has overlapped into a focus on nonwhite artists.

“As a result of the acquisitions, we doubled the number of Black … female artists, increased the number of Asian American female artists and tripled the number of Latin American female artists represented in our permanent collection,” Lappe said. “In addition, two paintings by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith were the first works by an indigenous American woman ever to enter our collection.”

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield also plans a focus on women. “52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone,” opening in June, will be the Aldrich’s largest-ever exhibit. It will focus on the evolution of feminist art with work by artists who participated in a landmark 1971 show “alongside a new roster of 26 female-identifying or nonbinary emerging artists,” said Aldrich spokeswoman Emily Devoe.

“Of the emerging artists participating in this exhibition, who were selected in 2021, almost three quarters identify as Black, indigenous or a person of color,” Devoe said.

Alongside its focus on women is a focus on nonwhite artists. Currently on view at Aldrich are exhibits by artists of color, “Hugo McCloud: from where i stand,” “Lucia Hierro, Marginal Costs” and “Adrienne Elise Tarver: The Sun, the Moon, and the Truth.” Coming up next year is the first solo exhibit by indigenous artist Duane Slick, “The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better.”

Mattatuck

Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury is ahead of the game on DEI. “In reviewing acquisitions made from 2012 to today, we found that nearly 70% of the works acquired were by women and/or BIPOC artists,” said museum spokeswoman Stephanie Harris. Among these artists are Faith Ringgold, Elizabeth Catlett, Michael Cummings, Nathaniel Donnett, Nicholas Galanin and F. Luis Mora.

In the same period, Mattatuck has produced 30 solo women artist exhibits, six group woman artist exhibits, 10 solo artists of color exhibits, and 13 group artist of color exhibits, Harris said. The most recent was “A Face Like Mine,” a 100-year retrospective of African American representational art mounted in 2021.

Mattatuck’s latest strategic plan, released in October, lists as one objective to “increase diversity among the museum’s human resources, including staff and board, in an intentional way.” It also includes a land acknowledgment:

“The Mattatuck Museum, so called after the Eastern Algonquin name for the land on which it was built, recognizes that the land we interpret as the ‘Mattatuck Plantation’ through our history mission, is the original homeland of the Tunxis, Paugussett, Pequannock and Potatuck tribal nations. We acknowledge the painful history of forced removal from this territory, and we honor and respect the Indigenous Peoples that were, and are still, connected to this land. We recognize the reverberations of colonialism past and present, and seek healing through this acknowledgment.”

Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.