Mildred Howard (born 1945) is an

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

artist known primarily for her sculptural installation and mixed-media assemblages.Baker, Kenneth
"Artist Intrigued by Interaction of Materials, Ability to Revise at Will"
, ''San Francisco Chronicle'' Friday, February 9, 2007. Her work has been shown at galleries in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, internationally at venues in

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Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, and

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

, and at institutions including the

Oakland Museum of California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

, the

de Young Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California, named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H. de Young. Located on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of the ci ...

SFMOMA The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art, and has b ...

, the

San Jose Museum of Art The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum in downtown San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1969, the museum holds a permanent collection with an emphasis on West Coast artists of the 20th and 21st cent ...

, and the

Museum of the African Diaspora The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) is a contemporary art museum in San Francisco, California. MoAD holds exhibitions and presents artists exclusively of the African diaspora, one of only a few museums of its kind in the United States. Loc ...

."Mildred Howard: Biography,"
Nielsen Gallery website. Retrieved April 2, 2013.Garchik, Leah
"Counting the ways to say 'I love you'"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', March 24, 2011. Howard's work is held in the permanent collections of numerous institutions, including the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

, the

, and the Ulrich Museum of Art.

Early life and education

Howard was born in 1945 to Rolly and

Mable Howard Mable "Mama" Howard (February 3, 1905 - March 29, 1994, Berkeley, California) was a humanitarian, political activist, union activist, and civic leader. Early life Born Mable Daisy Shrock on February 3, 1905, in Van Vleck, Texas, a small town ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, and raised in South Berkeley, California. Howard's parents had an

antiques An antique () is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely to describe any object that i ...

business and were politically active in

labor unions A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...

struggles and other community issues. Howard has lived in Berkeley since 1949. She was a member of

SNCC The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and later, the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emer ...

and

CORE Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (laboratory), a highly specialized shared research resource * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber ...

and participated as a youth in protests against segregation in Berkeley schools. She received an

Associate of Arts An associate degree or associate's degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of academic qualification above a high school diploma and below a bachelor's degree ...

degree and Certificate in Fashion Arts from the

College of Alameda College of Alameda is a public community college in Alameda, California. It is part of the Peralta Community College District and was opened in 1968. Since 1970 the college has held classes on a 62-acre campus at the intersection of Webster Str ...

in 1977. Howard continued her studies and received an MFA degree in 1985 from the Fiberworks Center from the Textile Arts at

John F. Kennedy University John F. Kennedy University was a private university based in California with offices in San Jose, California. The university was founded in 1965 to offer degrees and certificates for non-traditional higher education students, taught mostly by adj ...

that was located in

Orinda Orinda is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city's population as of the 2020 census is estimated at 19,514 residents. History Orinda is located within four Mexican land grants: Rancho Laguna de los Palos Colorado ...

, California.

Career

Howard began her adult creative life as a dancer, before working in visual art. In the early 1980s, Howard's installations took the form of manipulated windows from storefronts and churches. They later evolved into constructed habitats that provided walk-in environments. For example, in 1990 Howard created a house made of engraved bottles and sand in the atrium of the Afro-American Museum in Los Angeles; this work was inspired by the book '' Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man'' by

James Weldon Johnson James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871June 26, 1938) was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ...

and makes visual reference to the bottle houses that Johnson describes in the book. In 2005, she fabricated and installed a house made of red glass at the

Museum of Glass The Museum of Glass (MOG) is a contemporary art museum in Tacoma, Washington, dedicated to the medium of glass. Since its founding in 2002, the Museum of Glass has been committed to creating a space for the celebration of the studio glass movem ...

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, southwest of Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue, northeast of the state capital, Olympia ...

. In 2019, Howard's work "TAP: Investigation of Memory" was exhibited at the Oakland Museum of California. The exhibit was a powerful multimedia installation that examines themes of identity, church culture, gentrification, dance, activism, and more. https://museumca.org/exhibit/mildred-howards-tap-investigation-memory Howard has created numerous public installation works in the Bay Area, including ''Three Shades of Blue'', a collaboration with poet

Quincy Troupe Quincy Thomas Troupe, Jr. (born July 22, 1939) is an American poet, editor, journalist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, California. He is best known as the biographer of Miles Davis, the jazz musi ...

on the

Fillmore Street Fillmore Street is a street in San Francisco, California which starts in the Lower Haight, San Francisco, California, Lower Haight neighborhood and travels northward through the Fillmore District and Pacific Heights, San Francisco, California, ...

bridge, and ''The Music of Language'' on Glide Memorial's family housing building on Mason Street, both in San Francisco. Howard's work has long dealt with themes of home and belonging. In 2017, a rent increase forced her to move out of the Berkeley (CA) studio where she had lived and worked for 18 years. This made themes of home all the more poignant in her work, and led her to deeper explorations of the effects of gentrification and displacement. Howard is not shy about incorporating activism or politics into her work, though she is conscious of the divide between art and activism. She states, " hanging the worldis up to the people who look at y art I'm hoping they will feel something as a result of looking at the work... It's what the viewer and the spectator brings to the work." Though Howard's pieces most often speak to broader social concerns, she occasionally incorporates autobiographical references into her work. Works such as ''Flying Low'' (2006) and ''Thirty-Eight Double Dee'' (1995) reference the death of her son. In her installation titled ''In the Line of Fire,'' she utilizes an old photograph of one of her own relatives to signify young soldiers of color in the early 20th century.

Awards and honors

In 1991, Howard received the

Adaline Kent Adaline Dutton Kent or Adaline Kent Howard, (August 7, 1900 – March 24, 1957) was an American sculptor from California. She created abstract sculptures with forms inspired by the natural landscape. Early life and education Kent was born on ...

Award from the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

for her installation ''Ten Little Children (one got shot and then there were nine)'', a work representing a cemetery inspired by the Soweto massacre.Whittaker, Richard
"This Larger Thing in the World: Conversation with Mildred Howard"
Interviews and Articles, ''Works & Conversations'', January 28, 2000. Retrieved April 2, 2013. She has been the recipient of two

Rockefeller Fellowship The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller ("Seni ...

s to

Bellagio, Italy Bellagio (; ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Como in the Lombardy region of Italy. It is situated on Lake Como, known also by its Latin name ''Lario'', where the lake's two southern arms branch, creating the ''Triangolo larian ...

(1996 and 2007); the Joan Mitchell Award; an NEA Fellowship in Sculpture; and the Flintridge Foundation Award for Visual Art."Art of Social Change: Mildred Howard visits CSUMB Oct. 25"
, CSU Monterey Bay website. Retrieved April 2, 2013. In 2011, Howard was honored at Berkeley City Hall Chambers where Berkeley mayor

Tom Bates Thomas H. Bates (born February 9, 1938) was the 21st mayor of Berkeley, California, and a member of the California State Assembly. Bates is married to Loni Hancock, another former mayor of Berkeley and State Assembly member who served in the ...

officially declared Tuesday, March 29, 2011 to be Mildred Howard Day."Mildred Howard Day, March 29"
Magnolia Editions Blog, March 24, 2011. Retrieved April 2, 2013. In 2012, Howard received a SPUR Award, described as San Francisco's "largest and most prominent annual civic award", from the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. In May 2023, Howard was awarded an

Honorary An honorary position is one given as an honor, with no duties attached, and without payment. Other uses include: * Honorary Academy Award, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, United States * Honorary Aryan, a status in Nazi Germany ...

Doctorate of Humane Letters by

California State University, East Bay California State University, East Bay (Cal State East Bay, CSU East Bay, or CSUEB) is a public university in Hayward, California. The university is part of the California State University system and offers 136 undergraduate and 60 post-baccala ...

In April 2025, Howard was announced as a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated d ...

Other work

In the late 1990s, Howard was selected by

Alice Waters Alice Louise Waters (born April 28, 1944) is an American chef, restaurateur, food writer, and author. In 1971, she opened Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley, California, famous for its role in creating the farm-to-table movement and for ...

to serve as executive director of The Edible Schoolyard, Waters's garden at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, which offered middle school-aged youth hands-on education in the garden and the kitchen with a focus on sustainable agriculture. Howard has also managed an art and communities program at the

Exploratorium The Exploratorium is a museum of science museum, science, technology museum, technology, and art museum, arts in San Francisco, California. Founded by physicist and educator Frank Oppenheimer in 1969, the museum was originally located in the ...

, where she developed curriculum aimed at integrating art and science for elementary and middle school teachers. She has worked at Alameda County Juvenile Hall and in various Bay Area jails, and has served as a cultural ambassador to

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

, where she gave a series of lectures sponsored by the

U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs ...

. She has taught at

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

and

Brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors Orange (colour), orange and black. In the ...

Universities, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the

California College of the Arts The California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996, it opened a second campus in ...

. In 2018, Mildred and her mother,

, were the focus of a 26-minute documentary titled
Welcome to the Neighborhood
that examined the conditions surrounding an African-American family facing

gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...

and a housing crisis that threatens South Berkeley's diversity.

Related quotes

In ''

Sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

'' magazine, art historian

Peter Selz Peter Howard Selz (March 27, 1919 – June 21, 2019) was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism. Biography Peter Selz was born in Munich of Jewish parents. In 1936, aged 17, ...

writes:

Over the course of four decades, Mildred Howard has created rich and evocative work, taking common objects of daily life and infusing them with a spark that illuminates the underlying significance and historical weight of cultural forms. In freestanding sculptures, wall-mounted musings, graphic explorations, and representations of shelter, she has developed a language to address racism, injustice, need, and compassion. What sets her work apart from much politically engaged art is its grace and elegance.

Art critic Kenneth Baker of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...

'' describes Howard's practice as follows:

Mildred Howard takes full advantage of the latitude that modernism won for artists in the use of materials and expressive idioms. She has used photographs, glass, architecture, housewares and other found objects of all kinds. Because she maneuvers so freely within the conceptually soft borders of 'installation' work, people tend to think of her as a sculptor, but she prefers the vaguer, more open term artist.

'' Art in America''′s Leah Ollman writes:

Howard ... has worked in assemblage,
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 ...
and installation for more than a decade, but her real medium is memory, which permeates her work with vitality and poignancy.Ollman, Leah
"Mildred Howard at Porter Troupe"
, ''Art in America'', March 1998.

Publications

Gallery of artwork by Mildred Howard

File:Mildred Howard inside The House That Will Not Pass for Any Color Than Its Own April 2022.jpg, Mildred Howard inside ''The House That Will Not Pass for Any Color Than Its Own'', April 2022 File:Mildred Howard The House That Will Not Pass for Any Color Than Its Own April 2022.jpg, Howard - 2022

References

External links

* Artist video interview
"Mildred Howard’s houses hold memories"

, 2015. * Article
"Why Mildred Howard wields 130 butcher knives for art"
''

'', March 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:Howard, Mildred African-American women artists African-American contemporary artists American contemporary artists Artists from San Francisco Living people 1945 births American mixed-media artists John F. Kennedy University alumni College of Alameda alumni Artists from Berkeley, California American women printmakers 21st-century American women sculptors 21st-century American sculptors Sculptors from California African-American sculptors African-American printmakers 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American artists 20th-century African-American artists 20th-century African-American women