Ellen Powell Tiberino
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Ellen Powell Tiberino (1937–1992) was an African American visual artist, who was figurative and expressionist in her pastels, oils, pencil drawings and sculptures. Her works were infused with the experiences and history of Black people, women in particular, whom she most often painted in dark and haunting hues. She was a prolific artist, working against time as she battled cancer for the last 14 years of her life.


Early life and education

Ellen Powell was born in Philadelphia in 1937 to William and Queenie Powell, sharecroppers who had moved to Philadelphia from
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, just weeks before she was born. Her father brought his family north seeking better opportunities for his children. "We were looking for the same things as the European immigrants," Ellen said in a 1989 interview. Her father was a truckman for the railroad and her mother was a homemaker. She was the third of seven children who grew up in the
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section of
West Philadelphia West Philadelphia, nicknamed West Philly, is a section of the city of Philadelphia. Although there are no officially defined boundaries, it is generally considered to reach from the western shore of the Schuylkill River, to City Avenue to the n ...
. As a child, she drew pictures of family and friends. She also listened closely to tales of her family from such people as her great-aunt Lita who inspired her portraits and line drawings. Her parents told her that she could accomplish anything that she wanted. They were
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, but Ellen converted to
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around age 13. Her talent for art was acknowledged in junior and senior high school. At Sulzberger Junior High, she received a "small" check as an award for an original poster in a health contest. While a senior at Overbrook High in 1955, she returned to Sulzberger to speak to students about training courses available in senior high school. She brought along some of her
painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...
s and
collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...
s, which featured fabric and materials on
watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...
. She graduated from Overbrook in 1956. As a teenager, she worked as a nurse's aide at
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. Tiberino received a City of Philadelphia scholarship to attend the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1805, it is the longest continuously operating art museum and art school in the United States. The academy's museum ...
(PAFA) and arrived there in 1956. She received honors for her work but faced resistance from some faculty and staffers, she said in a 1988 interview. They resented her awards "or (her) just being there. But I don't like to put things on the basis of color, or sex. People who have problems like that – they stem from their own insecurity," she said. Tiberino had been preceded at PAFA by a handful of Black students in the 20th century -
Laura Wheeler Waring Laura Wheeler Waring (May 26, 1887 – February 3, 1948) was an American artist and educator, most renowned for her realistic portraits, landscapes, still-life, and well-known African American portraitures she made during the Harlem Renaissanc ...
, Morris Blackburn, Raymond Saunders and Louis B. Sloan. In the mid-19th century, John Henry Smythe (Smyth) was the first Black student to be admitted to the academy. Artist Moe Brooker, also a PAFA graduate, recalled her presence at the academy. He was "dazzled" by her, he said in the catalog for
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's 2015 exhibit "We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s." "When she walked down the hall, everyone stopped! ... She was the first student of color I remember when I was at PAFA because I was a couple years behind her." Tiberino was awarded the prestigious
Cresson Traveling Scholarship The Cresson Traveling Scholarship, also known as the William Emlen Cresson Memorial Traveling Scholarship, is a two-year scholarship for foreign travel and/or study awarded annually to art students at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Phi ...
in 1959 and traveled through
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. She was 19 years old and in her third year at PAFA. She told the
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newspaper that she planned to go to
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;
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;
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, Italy, and other countries. She was the second African American woman to win the Cresson; the other was Laura Wheeler Waring (1914). Louis B. Sloan and Raymond Saunders also had been winners. While at PAFA, Tiberino studied under Franklin C. Watkins, Hobson Pittman and Walter Stuempfig. She graduated in 1961 and moved to New York. She remained in that city for six years, returning to Philadelphia to marry Joseph Tiberino, whom she had met at a going-away party for her NY move back in 1961. He was a white Italian-American artist born in Philadelphia who was attending the Philadelphia College of Art. They got married in 1967. Some of her friends tried to talk her out of marrying him, telling her that it would ruin her art and impede her growth. It enhanced her growth, she said in a 1989 interview, because he was supportive of her work. His being of another race didn't bother her, she said, noting that the color of his skin was the least important thing to her. Compatibility was more significant, she said. Tiberino named two of her sons after her favorite 15th-century
Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( ) was a period in History of Italy, Italian history between the 14th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Western Europe and marked t ...
painters: Raphael and Leonardo. Joseph named their daughter after Ellen. The couple had a third son, Gabriel.


Her art

Tiberino was one of Philadelphia's most notable artists, a "major talent with a paintbrush or a pencil", wrote a Philadelphia Inquirer art critic in 1999. Her works were not delicate, the critic noted, but were infused with empathy and tenderness. Another critic described her art as tumultuous and staccato, with menacing and shadowy figures. It was purposefully meant to disturb, the critic stated. She was a figurative, stylized expressionistic artist who produced oils, pastels, pencil drawings and bas-relief sculptures. She also produced prints of some of her works. Among her subjects were young girls becoming aware of their bodies, Black women in pregnancy and motherhood, neighborhood people expressing joy and sorrow, African American life and strife, and her Catholic faith. She chose her subjects from her experiences - stories she heard, photographs she saw and people she observed. Some were people on West Philadelphia street corners, inside New York speakeasies, participating in Sunday High Mass and Baptist funerals. Her husband Joseph noted that her earliest paintings were dark in tone, so much so that her subjects were barely distinguishable. She painted what she felt and observed, she once said, not what others wanted her to portray. She created a painting titled "The Lynching" because she felt a need to do it, she told an interviewer. She didn't expect anyone to buy it, she added, but it sold to a private collector. It is now in the collection of the Museum of African American Art in Tampa, FL.
"When I am asked where I get my inspiration, I say it's all my life, my friends, everything I've seen and known. And I want to make it all come together and make sense and make people see. There's a feeling of joy that comes with it. I don't think enough credit is given to the real things in life, what I base my work on. Many people want only beauty around them, and I record life." ..." I've never sold myself short. I paint to please no one but myself, and I have done more meaningful work because of it. I paint life, and life is not always beautiful."
In 1978, when she was 40 years old and the mother of three children, Tiberino was diagnosed with cancer. She was told that she had six to 12 months to live. For the next 14 years, cancer was a presence in her life. She battled it while she painted, sometimes from her bed at home and in the hospital. Her first painting after the diagnosis was "The Operation," , a busy scene of doctors and nurses surrounding a sick patient as Death awaits alongside them. Her illness had a profound effect on her life and her work. She wrote in a profile in a catalog for October Gallery: "My art and life are intertwined. I cannot divorce Ellen Powell Tiberino the artist from Ellen Powell Tiberino the wife, mother and friend. My work is my way of seeing everything. I relate best through my art. It is both a blessing and a curse. Illness is so much a part of my life with which I have had to come to terms. Respect for time has become so important to me. So many of my drawings (paintings) are in my head, and I worry that I can't get them all done. There is an urgency now that I didn't feel before. Before I finish one piece, I am ready to start another. My creative impulse continues to grow, and I know my work is better." She made the pencil drawing "Farewell to Ethiopia" because she knew that she would never get a chance to visit the African country. For several years, Tiberino signed her works "Ellen Tiberino," but soon began including "Powell" in deference to her father and mother, she told an interviewer. Later, she created a pencil drawing of her mother titled "Queenie."


The MOVE sculpture

Tiberino's most controversial work was a collaboration with Joseph of a seven-foot relief sculpture depicting their interpretation of the MOVE bombing in 1985, which led to the deaths of five children & six adults in Philadelphia. The sculpture—titled "The MOVE Confrontation," created in 1986—depicted people engulfed in flames, Mayor W. Wilson Goode, a Death mask and horrified spectators. It was hung in the
Temple University School of Law The James E. Beasley School of Law (known as Temple Law) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Temple University, a public university, public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1895 and enrolls ...
building as a
Black History Month Black History Month is an annually observed commemorative month originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It began as a way of remembering important people and events in the history of the Af ...
exhibit. It created controversy in the city and produced headlines across the country. She said that they created the piece to express the pain they felt at watching the bombing of the MOVE compound. She speculated that it caused an uproar because Goode was still in office at the time. "I'm not a politician; I'm an artist. I must record what I see," she told an interviewer a few years later. Tiberino also created paintings with brilliant colors and softer themes. These included "Perfect Day" with a huge bouquet of flowers; "Mother and Child," showing the intimacy of motherhood; "Heart of the Day" with soft purples and oranges, and animals. "The Cock Crows (1988) " was included in the 2022 exhibit "Don't Feed the Art: Woodmere's Animal Menagerie" at the Woodmere Art Museum.


Collaborations with artist-husband Joseph Tiberino

In addition to the MOVE sculpture, Tiberino collaborated and exhibited often with her husband Joseph. He specialized in
mural A mural is any piece of Graphic arts, graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' ...
s and
portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...
s. They were considered the "
Frida Kahlo Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by Culture of Mexico, the country' ...
and
Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...
" of West Philadelphia. They created an artistic compound of houses and structures in
Powelton Village Powelton Village is a neighborhood in the West Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It consists of mostly Victorian architecture, Victorian and Twin home, twin style homes. It is a national historic district that is part of Univer ...
in West Philadelphia where they decorated the walls with paintings, murals, relief sculptures and other artwork. They also decorated their living space, patio, gardens and yards with art and sculptures. Begun in the early 1980s, it was a haven and meeting spot for both aspiring and seasoned artists, as well as friends. They held gallery openings on "Second Friday" and gallery walks. A devout Catholic, Tiberino set up a chapel to receive
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from the parish priest. She told an interviewer in 1989 that she got her courage from her faith. Even before the compound, Tiberino and Joseph had converted a drugstore in Powelton Village called "The Building" for workshops led by artists and for group shows. Over the years, she taught art classes in the community, at her son Raphael's school, at her home on Saturdays and at one point, at her studio. In 1991, she exhibited with Joseph, their son Raphael and four other artists at Galerie Nadeau as members of the Rambla Group, which also included Earl Wilkie. It was a group of artists who gathered for support and to share techniques.


Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum of Contemporary American Art

Tiberino died on Feb. 28, 1992. Joseph opened the Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum of Contemporary American Art in her honor in 1999, inspired after he visited the Barnes Museum then in
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. It was a dream of his and her friends, including artist Laura Williams Chassot. The museum is part of the compound in Powelton Village. It hosts exhibits and offers a space for friends, artists and neighbors to drop in to discuss their art or to just hang out.


Early and prominent exhibitions

While still at the academy, Tiberino exhibited at small venues and homes in the Philadelphia area. In 1960, the Citizens Service Committee sponsored an exhibit at a home to show off the city's young Black artists and their contributions to the art world. She was joined by artist/illustrator Robert Jefferson, Arthur Morgan, Gene Reynolds, Bernard Harmon, Eugene Solomon, Irma Wilson, Sandy Moon, Alonzo Perrin, Robert Forrest and sculptor Tony Barber. When she moved to New York in 1961, she painted and exhibited in the city. She participated in a show at the Lynn Kottler Gallery in 1963 that featured oil paintings titled "Two Figures" and "Poochie," which "are attracting much comment", the
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reported. She had a solo show in Goldstein Gallery in Philadelphia in 1963 where she exhibited 16 oils and 19 drawings. Three years later, she was among young Black artists and students chosen to exhibit at William Penn Memorial Museum in Harrisburg by the mayor's Committee on Human Relations. Others included Moe Brooker, Barbara Bullock,
Walter Edmonds Walter "Wat" Dumaux Edmonds (July 15, 1903 – January 24, 1998) was an American writer best known for historical novels. One of them, ''Drums Along the Mohawk'' (1936), was adapted as a Technicolor feature film in 1939, directed by John Ford and ...
, Charles Pridgen, Percy Ricks, Leroy Johnson, John Simpson, Maurice Thompkins, Gwendolyn Joyce Daniels and Tina Lloyd King. In 1963, she was selected to exhibit in PAFA's Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpturing, joining Louis B. Sloan and Raymond Saunders. In 1969, Tiberino was among 100 Black artists from across the country to participate in the exhibit "Afro-American Artists 1800-1969" sponsored by the
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and the Philadelphia Civic Center Museum. It included works by some of the country's top artists, including
Horace Pippin Horace Pippin (February 22, 1888 – July 6, 1946) was an American painter who painted a range of themes, including scenes inspired by his service in World War I, landscapes, portraits, and biblical subjects. Some of his best-known works address ...
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,
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, Avel de Knight,
Barkley Hendricks Barkley L. Hendricks (April 16, 1945 – April 18, 2017) was a contemporary American painter who made pioneering contributions to Black portraiture and conceptualism. While he worked in a variety of media and genres throughout his career (from ph ...
, Paul Keene, Raymond Saunders, Louis B. Sloan, Ed Wilson,
Henry Ossawa Tanner Henry Ossawa Tanner (June 21, 1859 – May 25, 1937) was an American artist who spent much of his career in France. He became the first African-American art, African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, ...
and Joshua Johnson. That same year, she exhibited in Lincoln University's first Black Arts Festival, a major exhibit of Black artists in the
Delaware Valley The Philadelphia metropolitan area, also known as Greater Philadelphia and informally called the Delaware Valley, the Philadelphia tri-state area, and locally and colloquially Philly–Jersey–Delaware, is a major metropolitan area in the Nor ...
. The show included works by
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, Romare Bearden, James Gadson, John Cook, John Wade, John Simpson, Walter Edmonds, Moe Brooker, Simmie L. Knox and Percy Ricks. In 1971, she participated in Percy Rick's "Afro American Images 1971" show at the State Armory in
Wilmington, DE Wilmington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near w ...
. The show by Rick's Aesthetic Dynamics Inc. featured 75 artists from New York to Washington, D.C., with 150 pieces of artwork. The artists included Randall Craig, an organizer of the 1969 exhibition in Philadelphia;
Lois Mailou Jones Lois Mailou Jones (1905–1998) was an artist and Teacher, educator. Her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the ...
, James L. Wells, Charles W. White, Norman Lewis, Samella Lewis and Edward Loper Sr. The exhibit was re-created in 2021 at the
Delaware Art Museum The Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 objects. The museum was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the arti ...
in partnership with Aesthetic Dynamics. In 1977, Tiberino was the first artist to hold a solo exhibition at the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum, showing more than 40 paintings and drawings. The museum described her work as "infused with great emotion and passion. Her paintings and drawings with their soft, dark blustery lines strike the viewer with an immediate sense of the subject's physical and spiritual integrity." In 1986, her works were in the exhibition "U.S. Art Census '86: Contemporary African-American Artists" at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The show accompanied a meeting of the National Conference of Artists in Philadelphia. Other artists featured were Moe Brooker, Walter Edmonds, James Dupree,
Nanette Carter Nanette Carolyn Carter, born January 30, 1954, in Columbus, Ohio, is an African-American artist and college educator living and working in New York City, best known for her collages with paper, canvas and Mylar (archival plastic sheets). Daughte ...
, Deryl Daniel Mackie and Charles Searles. In 1992, she was represented in an exhibit of 19th and 20th-century African American artists at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...
, which featured works from its collection and on loan. Included was her portrait of Sister Geneva, a Black missionary who worked in
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. Titled "Works by African Americans," the museum exhibit also included Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Paul Keene,
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, Betty Saar,
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, William Hawkins,
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, Rev. William Gayles, Ned Cheadham and Furman Humphrey. A few weeks before she died on Feb. 28, 1992, her works were on exhibit in five spaces: October Gallery, Lucien Crump Art Gallery, Heritage Art Gallery, Hahn Gallery and the
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. The Free Library exhibit featured prints by Delaware Valley Black artists from its collection, including
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,
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, Samuel J. Brown Jr.,
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,
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, Benjamin Britt, Reba Dickerson Hill, Tom McKinney, Columbus Knox, Dressler Smith, Cal Massey, Howard N. Watson, Joseph Holston and Sam Byrd.


Posthumous exhibitions

Since her death, Tiberino's works have been exhibited in several solo and group shows. In 2000, the Philadelphia Museum of Art held a group show of prints and drawings by African Americans. Two of her works, which had never been exhibited, were shown: "Ethiopian Dancer" and "Farewell to Uncle Cliff." Other artists represented included Samuel J. Brown Jr., Charles Burwell, Quentin Morris, Howardena Pindell, Charles Searles, Humbert Howard, Raymond Steth and Dox Thrash. Tiberino's works were presented in two exhibits encompassing her family. In 2007, Sande Webster Gallery produced "The Tiberino Family: A Legacy of Art," which included Joseph, and children, Raphael, Ellen and Gabriel. In 2013, the African American Museum in Philadelphia told the story of the family and its connection to the city and the Black community. The show, titled "The Unflinching Eye: Works of the Tiberino Family Circle," was a 50-year retrospective of a family that has been called the "West Philly Wyeths." In 2015, she was represented in the Woodmere Art Museum's "We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia 1920s to 1970s." In 2021, she was included in the re-staging of Percy Ricks' exhibit "Afro-American Images 1971" at the Delaware Art Museum.


Selected exhibitions

* Studio 13, 1962 * Lynn Kottler Gallery (NY), 1963 * Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1963, 1986 * Goldstein Gallery, 1964 * William Penn Memorial Museum (Harrisburg, PA), 1966 * Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1992, 2000 * Lincoln University, 1969 * Philadelphia Civic Center Museum, 1969 * Gallery 252, 1970 * State Armory (Wilmington, DE), 1971 * Custom Frame Shop and Gallery, 1972, 1973,1982 * Acts of Arts Gallery (NY), 1973 * Ile-Ife Museum of Afro-American culture, 1975, 1981 * African American Museum in Philadelphia, 1977, 2004 * Thompson Park Visitors Center (NJ), 1976 * Philomathean Society Art Gallery, University of Pennsylvania, 1978 * Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, 1980 * Alfred O. Deshong Museum (Widener University), 1981 *
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, 1983 * Off The Wall Gallery, 1985 * Temple University School of Law, 1986 * Upstairs Gallery at Bacchanal, 1985, 1987, 1989 * Free Library of Philadelphia, 1988, 1992 * Uptown Visual Arts Complex, 1988 * Uptown Theater, 1989 * 623 Gallery at Try Arts, 1990 * Hahn Gallery, 1991, 1992 * October Gallery, 1990, 1991, 1992 * Woodmere Art Museum, 2009, 2015, 2017, 2022 *
Trenton City Museum The Mansion House (also referred to as Ellarslie and the McCall House) is a historic residence located in Cadwalader Park in the city of Trenton in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. The house was built as a summer residence for Henry M ...
at Ellarslie (NJ), 2015 * Twenty Two Gallery, 2018 *
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) be ...
(NY), 2019 * Delaware Art Museum, 2021


Selected collections

*
Cheyney University Cheyney University of Pennsylvania is a public historically black university in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1837 as the Institute for Colored Youth, it is the oldest of all historically black colleges and universities (HBCU ...
* Delaware Art Museum * Free Library of Philadelphia * Museum of African American Art (Tampa, FL) * Philadelphia Museum of Art * Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Powell Tiberino, Ellen 1937 births 1992 deaths Painters from Philadelphia 20th-century American painters Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni 20th-century American women artists 20th-century African-American painters 20th-century African-American women artists