ACP on ACP at Long Gallery Harlem
Nicolas Coleman, Portrait of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (2021), oil on canvas, 72"x48". Behind: Ron Norsworthy, Blackity (2021), wallpaper.
Adam Clayton Powell Jr., November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972, was the pastor of Harlem’s historic Abyssinian Baptist Church for 34 years and represented the Harlem neighborhood in the United States House of Representatives for 26 years. He was the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast. Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, was in line to become the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and considered by many to be the most productive member of congress in US history. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gained independence after colonialism.
Portrait of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (2021) by Nicolas Coleman debuts at Long Gallery Harlem, as part of the Gallery’s presentation of Coleman’s work at the 1-54 Art Fair. Visible from the Gallery’s facade along Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Blvd., and steps from Harlem’s Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Statue, the portrait depicts Powell as singular and inimitable, while simultaneously representative of the Harlem community.
Artist on View
Photo: Courtesy the artist.
Nicolas Lambelet Coleman is a painter based in New York. His work focuses on portraiture, with an emphasis on self-portraiture. "From the time I began painting and drawing, I have made self-portraits. As my style, technique, and medium change, the one constant has been my effort to reimagine my image through my art. It has been my way of understanding my place in the cultures, spaces, and situations that I travel through. Growing up in the South to a blended Black and Swiss family, much of my identity was constructed through a process of self-invention to which my art was central," says Coleman. More broadly, his work aims to be a subversion of the boundaries that we have constructed around identity and the tribal nature of what it means to be human. Nicolas is originally from North Carolina and studied Visual Arts and Political Science at Duke University.
Dates
May 19–22, 2022
Location
Long Gallery Harlem
2073 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr Blvd.
New York, NY 10027
Artist
Nicolas Coleman