REGINALD GAMMON (1921 - 2005)

Harlem On My Mind

C-print, 1969. 356x279 mm; 14x11 inches. Signed, titled and dated "3/69" in ink, lower right verso.

Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; private collection, Philadelphia.

Gammon used this photographic image to create the screenprint <i>Harlem On My Mind</i>, 1969, which was printed in an edition of 25.

In this striking photomontage and protest artwork, Reginald Gammon superimposes his painting of the boxer Jack Johnson over the entrance and exhibition banner of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's controversial exhibition <i>Harlem on My Mind</i>. The Black Emergency Cultural Coalition was organized in January 1969 in response to the exhibition's exclusion of art and omission of the contributions of African American artists. As a co-founder with Benny Andrews, Gammon was a leading voice in the artists' protest against the Met and later the Whitney Museum of American Art, and in their call for more representation of African American artists and curators within art institutions.

Born in Philadelphia, Reginald Gammon was a painter and printmaker, best known for his figurative works based on the Scottsboro Trials, and other African-American heroes like Johnson and jazz musicians. Gammon was also an early member of the Spiral Group where he encouraged Romare Bearden's experimentation with collage and photostat which lead to his breakthrough photomontage projections in 1964.