Please join the Delaware Art Museum and Aesthetic Dynamics, Inc. for the opening of Afro-American Images 1971: The Vision of Percy Ricks. There will be light appetizers and a cash bar as well as brief remarks from scholar Dr. James E. Newton and music provided by jazz trumpeter Tony “Big Cat” Smith. This highly anticipated exhibition has been in the works for over seven years, and we are excited to invite you to learn about an important moment in Delaware’s arts and cultural history.
Doors open at 5 pm. There will be opening remarks in the auditorium at 5:30 pm with limited capacity, first come seating with a reception to follow.
Proof of vaccination required; view current COVID-19 policies.
In February 1971, the newly formed Delaware organization, Aesthetic Dynamics, Inc., presented its first major undertaking: the exhibition of over 130 works of art—drawings, prints, photographs, paintings, and sculpture—by 66 African American artists. Numerous factors led to artist Percy Ricks’ founding of Aesthetic Dynamics and their ambitious inaugural exhibition, most notably the trauma suffered from the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the subsequent nine-month National Guard occupation of Wilmington and Ricks’ desire to emphasize the influence of African American artists in Wilmington. Learn more.
Image: Pool Room 11th & Walnut, 1971. Edward Loper Jr. (born 1934). Oil on canvas, 24 × 36 inches. Delaware Art Museum, Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 2019. © Edward Loper Jr.This event is sponsored by Troutman Pepper and the TD Charitable Foundation. This exhibition and its related programming are made possible through a grant from PNC Arts Alive. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. This organization is supported, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes Delaware arts events on www.DelawareScene.com.
