Lovell’s poetical installations invoke the lost voices of African American ancestry

A New York Times 'Best Art Books of 2023' pick

Whitfield Lovell is internationally renowned for his installations that incorporate masterful Conté crayon likenesses of African Americans from between the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Movement. Using vintage photography as his source, Lovell often pairs his subjects with found objects, evoking personal memories, ancestral connections and the collective American past.

Whitfield Lovell: Deep River compiles stunning likenesses of anonymous African American citizens from Lovell’s celebrated Deep River installation, which pays homage to “Camp Contraband”—a Union Army site near Chattanooga, Tennessee, that served as a refuge for runaway slaves escaping the Confederate South during the Civil War. The book includes a preface by Kellie Jones and an accompanying essay by the scholar Julie L. McGee, which provides the historical context for these deeply resonant portraits highlighted in this publication. McGee writes: “Lovell’s artistry is a vessel for those ancestral spirits that remain near and communicate with those who are able to make the past tangible, accessible and acutely meaningful.”

The work of New York–based artist Whitfield Lovell has been exhibited and collected worldwide. The current traveling exhibition, Whitfield Lovell: Passages, will open on June 17 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, in Richmond, Virginia, and will travel to four additional venues. Major installations have been featured at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC; the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York; University of Wyoming in Laramie; the Columbus Museum in Georgia; and the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, among others. His work is in museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art; the Brooklyn Museum; Whitney Museum of American Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.