Schomburg Center Opens Its Largest Show of Black Women Artists

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture opens the doors today on what it calls its largest show of contemporary Black women artists. Forging Ahead: Recent Acquisitions of Black Women Artists opens to the public on September 24 and runs through March 27, 2027, in the Harlem institution's main and media galleries.

The show brings together paintings, textiles, collages, sculpture, photography and more from 21 artists, including Simone Leigh, Tschabalala Self, Nona Faustine, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Xenobia Bailey, Helina Metaferia and Firelei Baez. Every piece in it is a recent acquisition, which makes the exhibition as much a statement about how the Center collects as about what it shows.

A centennial push to close the gap

The exhibition arrives during the Schomburg Center's 100-year celebration. Founded in 1925, the research library is one of the world's leading institutions devoted to African American, African diasporan and African experiences, and it holds 11 million objects documenting Black diasporic history. It became a National Historic Landmark in 2017. The Home to Harlem Initiative, made possible by the Mellon Foundation, is part of its centennial programming.

For its centennial, the Center's Art and Artifacts Division acquired a porcelain bust, Untitled (2023), by Simone Leigh, while the Photographs and Prints Division acquired Nona Faustine's Mitochondria series and selections from her White Shoes series. La Tanya Autry, associate curator of photographs and prints, said the exhibition calls attention to the Center's efforts to address gender disparities in its collections while celebrating the work of Black women artists. She said the artists insist on Black life while contending with historical erasure, and that holding their work strengthens the institution's ability to support research into Black life past, present and future.

Tammi Lawson, curator of art and artifacts, said the collecting push was deliberate. Despite the disparity across museum collections, gallery representation and auction showings, she said, Black women press on, progress and create, and it has been her intention to fortify the Center's collections with their work.

The works on view

Notable pieces in the show include Leigh's Untitled (2023), the full Mitochondria series (2008-2016) plus selections from White Shoes by Nona Faustine, who died in 2025, Talking Women (1990) by Rosemary Karuga, the oyster world cries out its pearls like tears (2021) by Firelei Baez, and Out of Body (2020) by Tschabalala Self, according to the Center. The acquisition of Leigh's Untitled was made possible by Katharine J. Rayner.

The exhibition was curated by Autry and Lawson, drawing from the Center's Art and Artifacts and Photographs and Prints divisions. The roster also includes Kimberly M. Becoat, Camille Ann Brewer, Afi Nayo, Janet Taylor Pickett, Lynore Routte, Dianne Smith, Lina Iris Viktor, Kandy G. Lopez and the collective SOUDIO.

Why "Forging Ahead"

The title comes from the late scholar and critic bell hooks, who wrote that women artists expressing solidarity across differences must forge ahead, creating spaces where their work can be seen and judged by standards that reflect their own sense of artistic merit. The Center says the exhibition advances its efforts to represent, preserve and share more expansive dimensions of Black culture.

As a research library, the Schomburg Center acquires work so the public can study it. Each piece in Forging Ahead will be available for public study with an NYPL library card. Public viewing begins at 3 p.m. today, with an opening reception at 6 p.m., according to the Center's event listing.

Fall programming at the Center also includes the Conversation in Black Freedom Studies series and the Jean Blackwell Hutson Award and Lecture, which honors Tracie D. Hall, the executive director of the HBCU Library Alliance and the first Black woman to lead the American Library Association. The opening lands in a busy fall for New York culture, from a royal purple takeover of fall fashion to a new streetwear drop from NYC label Awake NY. Centennial support for the Schomburg comes from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and Andreas C. Dracopoulos, with major exhibition support from the MetLife Foundation and additional support from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation and the Ford Foundation, as detailed in NYPL's announcement.