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.
“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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