Celebrating Important Black Female Artists

This year for Black History Month I wanted to paint a handful of important black female artists. I thought I would maybe do one or two portraits, but the more I researched, the more I fell in love with these amazing women. I picked out 15 important artists overall, and today I’d like to share my first 6 portraits with you.

Selma Burke
(1900 – 1995)

“My mother was very proud of my achievements—she felt that I had delivered the Burkes from the cotton patch to the White House.”

Samella Lewis
(1924-present)
Harriet Powers
(1837-1910)

Faith Ringgold
(1930-present)

I had something I was trying to say and sometimes the message is an easy transmission and sometimes it’s a difficult one but I love the power of saying it so I’m gonna do it whether it’s hard or easy.

Carrie Mae Weems
(1953-present)

The ideas I’m working with are ideas I’m committed to. I don’t know how to soft-shoe them. I don’t know how to make them more palpable. I just never knew how to be one of those girls. I wish I knew how to be that sometimes, but I don’t know how to be that way.

Alma Woodsey Thomas
(1891-1978)

Creative art is for all time and is therefore independent of time. It is of all ages, of every land, and if by this we mean the creative spirit in man which produces a picture or a statue is common to the whole civilized world, independent of age, race and nationality; the statement may stand unchallenged.

Download Coloring Sheets of All 15 Artists

If you’d like to have FREE downloadable coloring sheets for all 15 of my featured artists for Black History month, head on over to my shop. You can download the coloring sheets here .

Featured artists include: Alma Woodsey Thomas, Betye Saar, Carrie Mae Weems, Edmonia Lewis, Elizabeth Catlett, Faith Ringgold, Harriet Powers, Kara Walker, Loïs Mailou Jones, Lorna Simpson, Marilyn Nance, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Renee Cox, Samella Lewis & Selma Burke.