Rice University is pleased to announce its Centennial Exhibition, Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art, on view at Rice University Art Gallery September 13 – November 18, 2012.  Larry and Brenda Thompson, parents of 1998 Rice alumnus Larry Thompson Jr., have collected works not only by acknowledged masters but also by those artists outside the canon including emerging, outsider, vernacular, and regional artists. The opening celebration on Thursday, September 13 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm will feature a gallery talk by the exhibition curator Adrienne Childs, PhD. Complimentary beverages including Pepsi cola and Centenni-Ale from Saint Arnold Brewing Company will be served. The event is free and open to the public.

Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art was curated by Dr. Adrienne Childs for the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Arts at University of Maryland, College Park and presents the breadth of the Thompsons’ art collection, which spans the 1890’s to 2007. Featuring 72 works by 67 artists, the exhibition seeks to redefine the canon of African American art by offering a more in-depth, inclusive understanding of the artists and their aesthetic and social concerns. Represented are many celebrated figures including Romare Bearden, Thelma Johnson Streat, and Henry O. Tanner; recognized  contemporary artists including Radcliffe Bailey, Howardena Pindell, and William T. Williams, and talented artists identified by the Thompsons including Stefanie Jackson, Preston Sampson, and Joyce Wellman. All of the artists in the exhibition have strong ties to Atlanta, Georgia, the center of a long thriving African American arts community and where Mr. and Mrs. Thompson resided for several decades.

Says Rice University President David Leebron, “Rice University is deeply grateful to Larry and Brenda Thompson for the opportunity to host Tradition Redefined, the nationally recognized collection of 20th Century African American Art. Hosting this exhibition during Rice’s Centennial year celebrates an important collection of American art as well as the diversity of both our country and our university.  Art is one of the important ways we seek to understand our society and express the human experience, and this exhibition continues Rice’s increasing commitment to bringing important works of art to our campus.  We are pleased to make available this remarkable collection to the Houston community, and welcome all Houstonians to our campus to enjoy this unique and exciting collection, along with all our campus art.”

Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art is organized by the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland, College Park.

About the Curator Adrienne L. Childs, PhD

Adrienne L. Childs is an independent scholar, art historian and curator. She is a Shelia Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for the Study of African and African American Research at Harvard University. She has written on diverse topics such as Henry O. Tanner in North America, black bodies in Meissen Porcelain, and the prints of David C. Driskell and Margo Humphrey. As curator at the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland she curated many exhibitions including Her Story: Lithographs by Margo Humphrey; Arabesque: The Art of Stephanie Pogue; Creative Spirit: The Art of David C. Driskell and Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art. She is co-editor of The Black Body in European Visual Art of the Long Nineteenth Century: Spectacles of Blackness, forthcoming from Ashgate. Her current proect is an exploration of blacks in European decorative arts entitled Ornamental Blackness: The Black Body in European
Decorative Arts.

About the Collectors, Larry and Brenda Thompson

Having collected over 600 works since their marriage in 1970, Larry and Brenda Thompson nurture great passions for both collecting art and for their beloved city, Atlanta, Georgia.  In addition to recognizing lesser-known African American artists, the Thompsons sought out not only living artists, but artists working from 1900 to 1960. Their collection combines pieces of different media, mirroring the Thompson’s diverse tastes.

Raised in North Carolina, Brenda Thompson earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Saint Louis University in 1980, and following her assistant professorship at Morehouse College, has since focused on child and adolescent mental health. She is now a member of the board of trustees at both the Barnes Foundation and the Bruce Museum.

Larry Thompson developed his eagerness for collecting art during his undergraduate time at Culver-Stockton College. He received his J.D. from the University of Michigan and has served as both the deputy Attorney General of the United States and the senior vice president for government affairs and general counsel at Pepsico. Thompson has also taught at Georgia State University College of Law and the University of Georgia Law School.

SUPPORT AND SPONSORSHIP

Rice University thanks the donors whose generosity made this exhibition possible:

PepsiCo Foundation
H-E-B
Baker Botts LLP
Houston Arts Alliance
With additional support from:
The Kalu Group, LLC

KUHF-FM and Saint Arnold Brewing Company provide in-kind support.

This exhibition is supported, in part, by a special fund from the Office of the President at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council.