There’s a treasure in the heart of the West End.
It’s been amassed over decades, but not hoarded. It isn’t hidden away in some chest or safe but is shown to the public — for free — at the art museums of Clark Atlanta University and Spelman College.
“This is a world treasure and people come from all over,” said Danille Taylor, the director of the CAU Art Museum.
Case in point: a painting owned by the historically Black college — “Woman in Blue” by William H. Johnson — is the featured image for the “Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism” exhibition at New York’s famed Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is one of five pieces from Clark Atlanta that will be in the Met’s exhibit starting the end of February.
Two years ago, Clark Atlanta hosted an incredibly popular week-long exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s early works.
And the history of Black art from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries can be seen through the more than 1,600 objects — paintings, sculptures, textiles, murals and more — in the permanent collections of the Clark Atlanta and Spelman museums.