04/30/2026
David Driskell and the Long Argument for Black Memory
Across canvas, collage, scholarship, and curation, Driskell made a life’s work of showing that African American art was never a footnote. It was always foundational.
David Driskell is often described in a sequence so familiar it risks going flat: artist, scholar, curator, collector, teacher. Every word is accurate. None is sufficient on its own. What made Driskell singular was not that he excelled in several lanes at once, but that he understood those lanes were never really separate. He painted with the eye of a historian. He curated with the urgency of someone fighting for memory. He taught as if art could rescue not only neglected artists, but the historical record itself. By the time he died in 2020 at 88, after decades of making, writing, mentoring, and institution-building, Driskell had helped alter the way American art is taught, exhibited, collected, and understood.
Read the full story at https://www.kolumnmagazine.com/2026/04/29/david-driskell-and-the-long-argument-for-black-memory/
