Washington, DC | Curator-Led Tour of “Vivian Browne: My Kind of Protest” with Adrienne L. Childs

We are excited to present a Curator-Led Tour of Vivian Browne: My Kind of Protest at the Phillips Collection with Adrienne L. Childs!

Drawing upon previously unknown works and archival findings, this exhibition recovers the depth and variety of the more than three-decade career of Vivian Browne (b. 1929, Laurel, FL; d. 1993, New York, NY). The exhibition features paintings, prints, and works on paper across seven bodies of work, as well as ephemera that highlight Browne’s pioneering activism and influential teaching career. Browne was a founder of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, an organization that fought for Black representation in New York museums; a founder of SoHo20, one of the first women’s art cooperatives in Manhattan; and a professor at Rutgers University (1971–92). Her signature approach to color and form challenged the neatly defined categories of abstraction and figuration, and art and politics, revealing a more nuanced approach to art-making that is part of Browne’s unique contribution to 20th-century art of the US.

Adrienne L. Childs is an independent scholar, art historian, and curator. She is Senior Consulting Curator at The Phillips Collection. Her current book is an exploration of Black figures in European decorative arts entitled Ornamental Blackness: The Black Figure in European Decorative Arts, publshed by Yale University Press. She is currently co-curator of Vivian Browne: My Kind of Protest for The Phillips Collection. She recently co-curated The Colour of Anxiety: Race, Sexuality and Disorder in Victorian Sculpture at The Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, England. She was the guest curator of Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition at The Phillips Collection in Washington DC, 2020.

In April 2022 The High Museum of Art awarded Childs the 2022 Driskell Prize in recognition of her contribution to African American art and art history.

Program Admission:

• ArtTable AND Phillips Collection Members – $20 (You must be a member of both ArtTable and the Phillips to receive this price. Phillips Member ID number must be provided)
• ArtTable Member – $30
• General Admission – $40

Not a member? Join today!

All program registration fees go toward event expenses and administrative costs for the organization.