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Another great library has burned down
Murry N.
DePillars, Ph.D. (1938 - 2008)
Murry N. DePillars . . . artist, educator, historian,
visionary...died May 31, 2008. Art was his
passion. Education was his vocation. Dr. Murry
DePillars devoted his entire life to combining the two
to promote enlightenment, to encourage understanding and
to engender pride in the African-American experience.
Born in Chicago,
DePillars grew up in a family that recognized and
encouraged his interest in visual art, as well as in the
performing arts. The neighborhoods in which he lived
were teeming with jazz and blues clubs, as well as with
gospel and ethnic music which strongly affected him.
This early childhood development provided the foundation
for the man, whose commitment to art and to education
changed the lives of those who were privileged to know
him.
Murry DePillars was
educated in the public schools of Chicago. He earned an
A.A. in Fine Arts from Kennedy-King Community College, a
B.A. in Art Education and an M.A. in Urban Studies from
Roosevelt University, also in Chicago. He received his
Ph.D. in Art Education from The Pennsylvania State
University. Both his master’s thesis, “Housing,
Environment and Children’s Art” and his doctoral
dissertation, “African-American Artists and Students: A
Morphological Study in the Urban Black Aesthetic”
addressed societal issues.
Prior to coming to
Richmond, Virginia, in 1971 to serve as Assistant Dean
of the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth
University, DePillars worked in several educational
settings in Illinois. He also served in the U. S. Army
during the Vietnam War. One of the leading figures of
Chicago’s 1960s African-American Arts Movement, often
referred to as the “Black Arts Movement” and “Chicago’s
Black Cultural Renaissance,” he attracted international
attention for his artistic output.
In 1976, Dr.
DePillars was named Dean of the School of the Arts at
VCU, where he served until he retired in 1995, earning
the title Professor Emeritus. Under his leadership, the
School of the Arts grew to become one of the largest art
schools in the U. S., and attained both national and
international recognition. He was quick to smile when
asked about his time at VCU, saying modestly, “With 2800
students, over 130 full-time faculty in 12 departments,
an art library, an art gallery, two theaters, two
concert halls, and a community music school, it was like
being on an art oasis.”
From 1980 through
1987, with strong support from the (Richmond) City
Manager’s office and other cooperating local companies
and organizations, he produced one of the region’s most
successful Jazz Festivals, featuring highly acclaimed
artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Art Blakey,
Wynton Marsalis, Carmen McRae and The Modern Jazz
Quartet. He laid a solid foundation for VCU’s Jazz
Program. In April, 1985, he was the subject of Style
Weekly’s cover story, and was dubbed “Richmond’s Jazz
Man.”
Professional and
civic commitments left limited time for Dr. DePillars to
pursue his passion. Therefore, when he was invited to
become a member of Afri-Cobra, a group of serious
African-American artists like himself, he eagerly
accepted. Afri-Cobra provided a demanding forum, beyond
the academic setting, through which the members severely
challenged each others’ art as they confronted societal
and cultural issues, not only in America, but also in
other parts of the world.
Through the years,
Dr. DePillars exhibited his artworks in numerous
galleries and museums, in both solo and group
exhibitions, including the Whitney Museum of American
Art and The Studio Museum of Harlem, both in New York;
The Mississippi Museum of Art; The Orlando Museum of
Art; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; the
World Expo in Spokane; the Fay Gold Gallery in Atlanta;
and the Joysmith Gallery & Studio in Memphis.
During the summer,
2002, he exhibited at the Hampton University Museum.
Entitled “Beyond the Fixed Star: The Art of Murry
DePillars” the exhibit was comprised of 42 works from
1960 through 2002, and included a variety of drawings
and paintings. His works are known for their color and
movement. His powerful paintings, layered with
brilliant as well as cool colors, were inspired by
African and African-American history, literature, music,
quilt-making traditions, and other strong cultural
influences. The Institute for Positive Education in
Chicago routinely uses his works as the basis for
lessons in its K-12 curriculum.
In December, 2006,
his painting, From the Mississippi Delta, 1997, was
purchased by the Friends of African and African-American
Art and presented to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
for its permanent collection. Other DePillars works can
be found in public and private collections around the
world.
Dr. DePillars was
the recipient of numerous awards. Articles,
bibliographic entries, book covers, commissioned
illustrations, reviews and photographs of his artworks
attest to his significant contributions to art and
education. In 1989, he was named an Alumni Fellow in
the College of Art and Architecture at The Pennsylvania
State University and in 1996, he was awarded the
Presidential Medallion from Virginia Commonwealth
University.
The public rewards
for his work are evidenced by several grants Dr.
DePillars received from the National Endowment for the
Arts; his appointment as an Academic Specialist by the
USIA with service in Malaysia in 1985; and his travel to
Zimbabwe in 1994 through the support of the USIA’s
University Affiliate Program. At the state level, he
served three governors on the Virginia Arts and
Architectural Review Board.
In 1998, he chose
to devote his full attention to his painting, a luxury
he had never had the opportunity to fully enjoy. His
passing silenced an important advocate for educational
and artistic growth and achievement. His legacy lives
through his work and his students.
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Memorial Services Scheduled
Saturday, June
21, 2008
12 Noon
Virginia Union University
1500 North Lombardy Street
Richmond, VA 23220
Saturday, June 28, 2008
11:00 a.m.
ETA Theater
7558 S. South Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60619
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Painting Image Above: Section of
Queen Candace: Diamond Quilt, 2002 acrylic on canvas,
"40 x 30"
Collection of Hampton University Museum
Artist’s
statement—(Murry N. DePillars)—My approach to painting
has been influenced by the six aesthetic priorities of
early African American quilt makers, and their concept
of “building”
rather than sewing a quilt. The six aesthetic
priorities of these early quilt markers are: (1)
vertical strip organization; (2) bold or high keyed
colors accented by lower keyed or earth tones; (3)
repeated or varied large design elements, motifs
influenced by African and European symbols; (4)
asymmetrical designs; (5) multiple or rhythmic
patterning; and (6) improvisation. These aesthetic
priorities and “building”
quilts influenced me to adopt a flat geometric approach
to “building”
paintings. In my paintings, repeated patterns in a
standardized repeated grid system from top to bottom and
side to side form the foundational design. At varying
intervals, overlays of opaque and transparent flat
motifs are painted or built upon these foundational
designs. This creates two or three layers of smaller
geometric designs. These smaller muted and
multi-colored patterns alter the directional axis of the
foundational design.
http://www.murrydepillars.com/id1.html
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.—WashingtonPost |
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Incognegro: A Memoir of
Exile and Apartheid
By Frank B. Wilderson, III
Wilderson, a professor,
writer and filmmaker from
the Midwest,
presents a gripping account
of his role in the downfall
of South African apartheid
as one of only two black
Americans in the African
National Congress (ANC).
After marrying a South
African law student, Wilderson reluctantly
returns with her to South
Africa in the early 1990s,
where he teaches
Johannesburg and Soweto
students, and soon joins the
military wing of the ANC.
Wilderson's stinging
portrait of Nelson Mandela
as a petulant elder eager to
accommodate his white
countrymen will jolt readers
who've accepted the
reverential treatment
usually accorded him. After
the assassination of
Mandela's rival, South
African Communist Party
leader Chris Hani, Mandela's
regime deems Wilderson's
public questions a threat to
national security; soon,
having lost his stomach for
the cause, he returns to
America.
Wilderson has a
distinct, powerful voice and
a strong story that shuffles
between the indignities of
Johannesburg life and his
early years in Minneapolis,
the precocious child of
academics who barely
tolerate his emerging
political consciousness.
Wilderson's observations
about love within and across
the color line and cultural
divides are as provocative
as his politics; despite
some distracting
digressions, this is a
riveting memoir of
apartheid's last days.—Publishers
Weekly
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 21 June 2008
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