Black History Month Spotlight Talk at Crystal Bridges

Calvin White Jr., director of African and African American studies at the University of Arkansas, and Anne Kraybill, school programs manager at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, will give an interpretative talk at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, of the painting Our Town, by Kerry James Marshall. The talk will be held in front of the painting in the Late Twentieth-Century Gallery.

This highly stylized, allegorical painting challenges notions of the American ideal. The figures depicted are an inky black, confronting the viewer with the visibility of the black subject in American art and culture. With Kraybill and White, patrons can take time to explore Marshall's "almost too perfect" street scene, undercut with abstract white scribbles and tense expressions and postures of the children in the foreground.

There is no fee and reservations are not required. Visit the Crystal Bridges Spotlight Talks page for more information.