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Joseph Holston (born Joseph Deweese Holston Jr., April 6, 1944) is an American
painter 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 ...
and
printmaker Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique ...
best known for his portrayals of the
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
experience, using vivid colors and expressive lines in a cubist-abstractionist style. His media include painting, etching, silk screen, and collage.


Life and career

Joseph Holston grew up in the small Black community of Hawkins Lane, in what was then a rural area of Chevy Chase, Maryland, in suburban Washington, D.C. His work reflects the strong sense of Black identity nurtured by his upbringing in that close-knit community. In 1960 the family moved to Washington, DC, where Holston was accepted into the commercial art program at Chamberlain Vocational High School. Holston worked as a commercial artist/illustrator from 1964 to 1970. He also pursued independent study by enrolling in art classes throughout the Washington, DC area. These included classes with the noted portraitist Marcos Blahove (1928-2012). In the summer of 1971 Holston traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico to study with artist, Richard Vernon Goetz (1915-1991), a well-known portrait, landscape, and still-life painter. Within months of returning to Washington, DC, Holston resigned from his job as a commercial artist, to begin painting full-time. The following year his painting ''Ghetto Boy'' was purchased by Texas businessman and former Postmaster General
W. Marvin Watson William Marvin Watson (June 6, 1924 – November 26, 2017) was an advisor to U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson and was Postmaster General from April 26, 1968, to January 20, 1969. Life and career Watson was born in Oakhurst, Texas. He received ...
Jr., and gifted to the collection of the
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, also known as the LBJ Presidential Library, is the presidential library and museum of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the United States (1963–1969). It is located on the grounds of ...
. Inspired by Rembrandt's prints, Holston began creating etchings in 1974. "For Joseph Holston--in every way the embodiment of the contemporary painter-engraver--etching is as integral to his creative output as is painting." Holston incorporates an array of visual effects in his etchings, through the use of hard ground, soft ground and aquatint, as in ''Woman with Pipe'' (1974), one of his first prints, now included in the permanent collection of The Phillips Collection in Washington, D. C. Other prints are included in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among other museum collections. His first solo museum exhibition was at the
Butler Institute of American Art The Butler Institute of American Art (BIAA), located on Wick Avenue in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, was the first museum dedicated exclusively to American art. Established by local industrialist and philanthropist Joseph G. Butler, Jr., the ...
, in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1975. The following year, during a three-month stay in Tanzania, Holston painted and taught workshops at the University of Dar es Salaam. Holston's body of work beginning from that period reflects a gradual transition from the purely narrative and realistic to stronger statements using "bold color, expressive forms, and rhythmic lines". His artistic progression also included collage works. From 1979 to 1990, Holston expanded his knowledge of printmaking, creating etching-collagraphs, as well as screen prints. After 1990, he continued to print his own etchings, and also began working with a master screen printer. A retrospective exhibition of his printmaking, ''Limited Editions: Joseph Holston Prints, 1974 - 2010'' was exhibited at the University of Maryland's
David C. Driskell Center The David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora, known informally as the Driskell Center, is an arts archive and academic research center dedicated to African-American and A ...
, and at the
African American Museum in Philadelphia The African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) is notable as the first museum funded and built by a municipality to help preserve, interpret and exhibit the heritage of African Americans. Opened during the 1976 Bicentennial celebrations, ...
. In 2020, Holston's oil painting ''The Elder,'' and his etching ''Charity'' were included in The Phillips Collection's centennial exhibition ″Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century.″ His solo exhibition ''Joseph Holston: Call and Response,'' was presented in 2024 by the Alper Initiative for Washington Art, at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. Other major solo exhibitions were at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, and the Federal Reserve Arts Program in Washington, D. C. He has been Artist-in-Residence at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, North Carolina A & T State University, and the Experimental Printmaking Institute at
Lafayette College Lafayette College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Easton, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter and other citizens in Easton, the college first held classes in 18 ...
.


Color in Freedom: Journey along the Underground Railroad

In 2008, Holston created a visual narrative of the journey from slavery to freedom—Color in Freedom: Journey along the Underground Railroad. The collection of over fifty paintings, etchings, and drawings is structured in four movements: I. ''The Unknown World'' depicts the stages of the movement of captive Africans through the Middle Passage and to the slave block; II. ''Living in Bondage--Life on the Plantation'' portrays slave life; III. The Journey of Escape, tracks the route to freedom, and; IV. Color in Freedom celebrates achieving the goal and new beginnings. "In embarking on this project, Holston joined the ranks of generations of artists who have created art as a vehicle to witness, reflect on, confront, question, and ultimately deepen understanding of history." Since its opening in 2008 at the University of Maryland University College, the collection has toured museums, galleries and institutions nationally and internationally. In 2010, it was exhibited at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Selections from the suite were included in 2016 in the exhibition ''Black Mechanics: the Making of an American University and a Nation,'' at Brown University, at the invitation of Brown's Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.


Public collections

* Amarillo Museum of Art *
Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of modern art, ...
*
Butler Institute of American Art The Butler Institute of American Art (BIAA), located on Wick Avenue in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, was the first museum dedicated exclusively to American art. Established by local industrialist and philanthropist Joseph G. Butler, Jr., the ...
*
DuSable Museum of African American History The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, formerly the DuSable Museum of African American History, is a museum in Chicago that is dedicated to the study and conservation of African-American history, culture, and art named after Je ...
* Federal Reserve Board Fine Art Collection *
Georgia Museum of Art Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...
* Library of Congress Fine Print Collection *
Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. It has one of the largest single co ...
* Mount Holyoke College Art Museum *
North Carolina A&T State University North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (also known as North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina A&T, N.C. A&T, or simply A&T) is a public university, public, Historically black colleges and universities, historicall ...
*
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 ...
* Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture *
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 ...
, New York Public Library *
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...
* Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art *
The Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughli ...
* United States Mission to the United Nations in Geneva * University of Maryland Global Campus *
Washington County Museum of Fine Arts Washington County Museum of Fine Arts (WCMFA) is an art museum located in Hagerstown, Maryland, United States. The building is located off Park Circle and serves as a centerpiece in Hagerstown City Park. The museum was donated in 1929, by Mr. and ...
*
Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is an art museum in New Haven, Connecticut. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University. Although it embraces all cultures and period ...


References


Further reading

*David C. Driskell Center, ''Limited Editions : Joseph Holston Prints, 1974-2010 : a Retrospective'', College Park, MD : David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland, 2011. *Forbes, Dennis L. ''Collecting Limited Edition Prints: Contemporary African American Printmakers'', pp. 66–69, Cavanaugh Press, 2004, *Hayes, Jeffreen. ″Lifting into the Foreground: A Meditation on Joseph Holston's Charity″, in ''Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century'', Elsa Smithgall, Editor, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, 2020. *Phillips, Stephen Bennett and Joan Banks Mulcahey. ''Joseph Holston: Harmony, Color and Form'', Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 2008 *Stephanic, Barbara. ''Joseph; Holston - Color in Freedom: Journey along the Underground Railroad'', Pomegranate Communications, Inc., 2008, *Woods, Jean; Amy Metzger; Marilyn and Reginald Camphor. ''The Art of Joseph Holston'', Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, MD, 2003,


External links


Official website

Video interview
on YouTube {{DEFAULTSORT:Holston, Joseph 1944 births 20th-century American painters Living people 21st-century American painters 20th-century African-American painters 21st-century African-American artists American printmakers