A new exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery honors civil rights activist, author and playwright James Baldwin.
The exhibit — “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon: James Baldwin and the Voices of Queer Resistance” — features a larger-than-life portrait of Baldwin and includes artwork from contemporary artists who Baldwin surrounded himself with.
There are photographs of Baldwin with singer Nina Simone and with Bayard Rustin, a gay civil rights activist who was one of the main organizers of the March on Washington.
It also includes work from his mentor Beauford Delaney, a fellow gay, Black artist.
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“The nexus or genesis of this exhibition was really to think about elements of chosen family, of community, of love,” Director of Curatorial Affairs Rhea Combs said. “Things that I think are really foundational to the ways in which James Baldwin wrote, the way in which he understood the world.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hilton Als consulted on the exhibition, which runs through April.
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