Andrews, Benny

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Benny Andrews

1930–2006

Artist, activist

Benny Andrews, a painter and collage artist, spent his entire career working outside the mainstream of American art. During the 1950s and 1960s, when the art world was dominated by abstract painting, Andrews insisted on pursuing his primary interest: capturing ordinary people on canvas. He continued to create representational artwork throughout his career. "There are not many artists in the twentieth century who have had that kind of concern for simple people, for the dignity of people no matter where they come from, and who manage to communicate that spiritual dignity in a very physical way," Michael Brenson, art critic and curator, said in the documentary video Benny Andrews: The Visible Man.

Found a Place in the Art World

Although originally dismissed as a "regional" artist, Andrews, who was born and raised in Georgia, eventually managed to find a place for himself in the art world. In addition to his success as a painter, Andrews earned a reputation as a political activist, fighting for recognition of African-American artists and culture. "Andrews's themes and techniques identify him as a great Southern African American artist," Grady T. Turner wrote in a review that appeared in Art in America in 1998. "But in a broader sense, his works convey a humanist sensibility that largely skipped the art mainstream of his generation. His social concerns made him hard to place in an era dominated by formal concerns, but today he can be seen as a spiritual predecessor of many contemporary artists."

Benny Andrews was born on November 13, 1930, near Madison, Georgia; he was the second of a family of ten children. His parents, George and Viola (formerly Perryman) Andrews, were sharecroppers, "the lowest form of human work one could ever imagine," Andrews was quoted as saying in World Artists.

Benny was only allowed to attend high school during the winter months, when he was not needed to pick or plant cotton. "My parents … always read and subscribed to newspapers and magazines, and we had a radio, which was rather unusual," Andrews stated in Benny Andrews: The Visible Man. "We also went to the movies a lot, and those were the kind of things that supplemented a very poor education."

While in many ways he had a typical Southern upbringing, the Andrews family placed an atypically high value on creative pursuits. George Andrews was a prolific, self-taught artist—years later, George's and Benny's work appeared together in an exhibit that traveled to several museums—and both parents encouraged the children to draw and paint. "They complimented us on what we did. They encouraged us to do things," Andrews commented in Benny Andrews: The Visible Man. "It was not geared to any career or anything, it was just more or less to express yourself." The encouragement worked; while Benny became a successful visual artist, another brother, Raymond, wrote several acclaimed novels.

Gained Strength through Individuality

After graduating from Burney Street High School in 1948, Andrews received a college scholarship for his work in the local 4-H organization. He spent a summer in Atlanta painting murals, then earned a scholarship to attend Georgia's Fort Valley State College. Two years later, when the scholarship ended, he enlisted in the Air Force. Andrews trained in Texas, then served in Korea until 1954, attaining the rank of staff sergeant.

Returning to civilian life, Andrews enrolled at the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ironically, the South's segregated school system helped to make this advancement possible: rather than admit black students to all-white institutions, Georgia paid partial tuition for them to attend college out of state.

The Art Institute opened his eyes to a world that Andrews had never before experienced. "The first museum I went to was when I went to school at the Art Institute. I was 24-years old," he said in Benny Andrews: The Visible Man. During this period, Andrews began experimenting with collage, a medium that he explored throughout his career. "I started working in collage because I found … I didn't want to lose my sense of rawness," Andrews stated in Folk: The Art of Benny and George Andrews. "I didn't realize it at first but in a sense, I'm really constructing, not painting my work … I needed something both tactile and tangible."

In the 1950s, abstract expressionist painting dominated the art world, and the Art Institute was no exception. Andrews, who insisted on pursuing representational painting with a political sensibility, found little support for his work. "Needless to say, in the eyes of the school, I was a total failure, and I found that very easy to live with—in fact I gained a certain amount of strength from the academics' utter dislike of what I chose to do," Andrews said in World Artists.

Worked Towards Recognition

During his years at art school, Andrews earned money as an illustrator for record companies, creating covers for Duke Ellington and other top musicians. Blue Note, which gained recognition for its innovative cover designs, bought his work regularly. Andrews also drew advertising illustrations for various theater companies in Chicago.

Andrews married Mary Ellen Smith, a photographer, in 1957 (one source says 1959), and earned his BFA in 1958. Soon after graduating, the couple moved to New York, settling on the Lower East Side. During the next seven years, they had two sons, Christopher and Thomas, and a daughter, Julia. His wife took an office job to support the family, while Andrews stayed at home, took care of the children, and painted.

In New York, as in Chicago, Andrews found that most galleries and museums focused on abstract work rather than representational art. As a result, critical acceptance and gallery exhibitions were slow in coming. "He developed a powerful figurative art which was overlooked for some years as regionalist or retrograde," Patricia P. Bladon wrote in Folk: The Art of Benny and George Andrews. "His work was also neglected by galleries and critics, even in the free-spirited sixties."

After years of struggling, Andrews slowly began to achieve some recognition for his art. Between 1960 and 1970, he had eleven solo shows at the Paul Kessler Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and three at the Forum Gallery in New York City. In 1965, Andrews received a John Hay Whitney Fellowship, which was renewed the following year.

At a Glance …

Born Benny Andrews on November 13, 1930, near Madison, GA; died November 10, 2006, Brooklyn, NY; son of George and Viola (Perryman) Andrews, sharecroppers; married Mary Ellen Smith, 1957 (divorced 1976); married Nene Humphrey, 1986; children: two sons and one daughter (first marriage). Education: Fort Valley State College, Fort Valley, GA, 1948–50; School of the Art Institute of Chicago, BFA, 1958. Military service: United States Air Force, staff sergeant, 1950–54.

Career: Artist, 1960s–2006. Queens College, New York, Art instructor, 1969–97; Black Emergency Culture Coalition, co-founder, late 1960s; National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Arts Program, director, 1982–84.

Selected awards: John Hay Whitney Fellowship, 1965–66; New York Council on the Arts fellowships, 1971–81; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1974–81.

Championed Black Artists

In spite of his personal success, Andrews felt increasingly bitter about the art world's lack of recognition for African American artists and culture. In the late 1960s Andrews organized a group called the Black Emergency Culture Coalition, which included over 150 black artists. In 1969 the group held a demonstration against the exhibit "Harlem on My Mind" at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. No black scholars or historians had participated in organizing the show, which Andrews saw as "a continuation of the paternalistic approach" to understanding African American culture (quoted as saying in World Artists). "Though I never enjoyed picketing or being vocal in public forums about obvious racism in cultural institutions, I never had second thoughts about my responsibility to protest," Andrews wrote in the essay "Roads," printed in Folk: The Art of Benny and George Andrews.

The coalition's next target was the Whitney Museum of American Art, also based in New York City. The museum's permanent collection contained only ten works by black artists, and its biennial exhibitions rarely included works by African Americans or women. In 1969 the museum's curators agreed to hold an exhibition titled "Contemporary Black Artists in America," but the coalition objected to the way it was handled and decided to boycott the show. Of the 75 artists scheduled to participate in the exhibition, 15 withdrew in sympathy with the boycott.

In 1971, 50 black artists participated in the show "Rebuttal to the Whitney Museum Exhibition" at the Acts of Art Galleries in New York. Two years later, Andrews curated an exhibition of work by black artists, titled "Blacks: USA: 1973" at the New York Cultural Center. The show was what should have been mounted at the Whitney, Andrews asserted.

Promoted Art through Education, Outreach

In addition to his painting and political activism, Andrews taught art classes in prisons, and headed a volunteer program for the Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Beginning in 1969, Andrews worked as an art instructor at Queens College in New York. The following year, Andrews wrote an essay titled "On Understanding Black Art," which appeared in the New York Times. For years after, Andrews contributed numerous articles to arts publications, including Artworld, Art Papers, and American Visions.

From 1982 to 1984, Andrews held the position of visual arts director at the National Endowment for the Arts. During his tenure, he established many outreach programs throughout the country. "He's just had an incredible leadership role with different groups …," Jane Farver, director of exhibitions at Queens Museum, was quoted as saying in Benny Andrews: The Visible Man. "What he did to open doors for other people can't be overestimated—it's enormous, what he's done."

Andrews received numerous prestigious awards for his art, including fellowships from the New York Council on the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts. His work appeared in the collections of more than 20 museums nationwide. These include the Detroit Institute of Art; the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Philadelphia Academy of Art.

In 1990, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Tennessee, staged the exhibition, "Folk: The Art of Benny and George Andrews." The exhibition, which demonstrated the influence of the folk art of the father on the trained work of the son, later traveled to six other museums. "Both are inexplicably unique; yet, somehow each amplifies and crystallizes the other's voice and vision," wrote Judd Tully in the catalog for the exhibition.

A Lifetime of Creating Art

In his drawings, paintings, and collages, Andrews pursued representational art throughout his long career. His skill as a draftsman was "remarkable" and his work was "characterized by great economy of means," wrote Patricia P. Bladon in Folk: The Art of Benny and George Andrews. But "collage is at the heart of his art …," J. Richard Gruber, deputy director of the Morris Museum of Art, said in Benny Andrews: The Visible Man. Some critics claimed that Andrews' interest in collage referred back to his childhood, when art materials were scarce but the desire to create was too strong to ignore. "He grew up using anything he could, as did his father as an artist, as did his family …," noted Gruber. "Given the seismic shifts in the art world since the late 1950s," wrote Grady T. Turner in an Art in America review, Andrews' career was "striking in its continuity" and his style had come to seem "fresher and more relevant" over the years.

Andrews' pursuit of art stemmed from his genuine interest in expressing himself through it. "Do something you like to do," was the advice he gave in the video Benny Andrews: The Visible Man. "If you like to write, if you like to sing, if you like to dance, do it for the pleasure of doing it…. If you develop your imagination, you can almost do anything." The body of his work revealed that he followed his own advice, and he remained an active artist up until his death. Andrews died on November 10, 2006, in his home in Brooklyn, New York. "Ultimately his art transcended all categories," J. Richard Gruber, director of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, which holds the largest collection of Andrews' work, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Andrews, he said, "was one of the most important figures in American art. Period."

Selected works

Selected solo exhibitions

Paul Kessler Gallery, Provincetown, MA, 1960–70.
Forum Gallery, New York, 1962, 1964, 1966.
Studio Museum, Harlem, 1971.
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, 1978.

Sid Deutch Gallery, New York, 1983.
Brooks Museum, Memphis, TN, 1985.
Studio Museum, New York, 1971, 1988, 1989.
Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR, 1993.
ACA Galleries, New York, NY, 1997, 2001.