The African American Art & Culture Complex launched a new exhibit dedicated to Black Panther and graphic artist Emory Douglas yesterday.
Open until October this year, the exhibit, titled “Emory Douglas: In Our Lifetime,” is a two-part retrospective. It highlights Douglas’s artistic growth during moments of societal change and emphasizes the role of political art in inspiring that change. The exhibit revolves around the “Political Artist Manifesto,” an art piece by Douglas that maps out a path for artists who want to use their medium to create a revolution.
“In Our Lifetime” follows Douglas’ career from the beginning of Douglas’ art career as the “Minister of Culture” for the Black Panthers. Although the artist has gone on record to describe his work at the time as “on-the-job training,” his work, combining freehand graphic art with text from other media sources, helped provide a visual style for the movement.
“He is a brilliant visual artist and activist who spreads powerful messages and engages multiple generations of people with his artwork,” said the co-curator of the exhibit, Rio Yañez, per a press release. “It’s an honor to showcase his art and to show that even after a long and storied career, he is still making critical, relevant, and urgent work.”
Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Douglas moved to San Francisco, the city where the Black Panthers ‘ headquarters was based, in 1951. In the early 1960s, as a young adult, he would travel to San Francisco State University to attend protests and hear political speeches from figures such as Stokely Carmichael, Amiri Baraka and H. Rap Brown. Soon after, Douglas began creating art for the Black Arts Movement, marking the beginning of his use of art as a medium for speaking out for Black liberation.
In April 1967, he helped print the first issue of the Black Panthers’ newspaper after meeting founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in January. As the art director, Douglas designed the visuals for approximately 537 issues, starting from the first publication to the last publication in the early 1980s. Throughout his career, he developed his art style by making decisions such as using prefabricated texture materials and markers.
Douglas’ work has continued to inspire artists involved in other political campaigns such as the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Although he has officially retired, the artist continues to speak through his art with freelance designs.
For his impact on political art and history, Douglas has received the AIGA Lifetime Achievement Medal, an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an induction into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. In 2019, the city and county of San Francisco also officially declared May 24 as “Emory Douglas Day.”
