IN CONVERSATION | “SILKS” by Laura Wheeler Waring

The Arts Council of Princeton presents an intriguing art detective story

October 1 @ 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm Free

Included in the Echoes in Our Bones: The Empowering Legacy of Black Women Artists in American Art and Culture exhibition at the Arts Council of Princeton in celebration of the semiquincentennial is a painting by Laura Wheeler Waring—an African American artist whose portraits of Black Americans are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, the Brooklyn Museum, and several private collections. The recently discovered painting, “Silks” has been hidden in an attic for 110 years.

The painting was given by Waring to the mother of Dr. Lynn Starr who found it when she

Harris with "Silks"

went through her deceased mother’s belongings. Judith K. Brodsky and Rhinold Ponder, curators of Echoes in Our Bones, very much wanted to include a painting by Waring. Most of her work is on permanent display in major museums, and for many months, despite their queries, they could not find one for the exhibition. But they persisted and continued their research hoping to find a loanable piece. They eventually found the Laura Wheeler Waring blog by art historian Valerie Harris about a lost painting by Waring that Harris had located it in Philadelphia.

Thanks to Harris, the curators were able to contact Dr. Starr who agreed to loan the painting. However, the work needed restoration. Once they saw the painting, they realized that it was one of only a few paintings from her early period, last on public view in 1916. At that point, they brought it to the Conservation Center in Philadelphia.

On October 1, Dr. Lynn Starr, scholar Valerie Harris, and a conservator from the Conservation Center will be in conversation with curators Brodsky and Ponder in the Taplin Gallery where the painting will be on view. The audience will see the actual painting whose story of discovery is being told. Harris will talk about Waring’s place in American art history, Starr will explain how her mother came to know Waring and own the painting, and the conservator will talk about how good conservation and restoration takes place.

The Arts Council of Princeton is thrilled to be the first to show this painting in over 100 years! Please join us.

Arts Council of Princeton, The Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, 102 Witherspoon Street, Princeton, NJ 08542