Black Lives as subject Matter III

February 1-May 17, 2026

Curated by Willis “Bing” Davis

Building upon the award-winning exhibition presented five years ago, Black Life as Subject Matter III brings together exceptional works by over twenty state and regional Black artists. Curated by Willis “Bing” Davis and organized by the Springfield Museum of Art, the exhibition centers Black life as both subject and framework, examining contemporary lived experience through diverse artistic practices and perspectives. 

Exhibiting artists: Delora Buchanon, Karen Brame, Breanna Cole, Abner Cope, Nathan Conner, DonCee Coulter, Dwayne Daniel, Bing Davis, Clifford Darrett, Gregory DeGroat, Horace Dozier, Sr., Erin Smith Glenn, Morris Howard, Thomas Hudson, Jimi Jones, Wendy Kendrick, James Pate, Craig Screven, Taliaferro Sebastian, Frances Turner, and Joshua Whitaker.

This exhibition was developed by Willis “Bing” Davis in partnership with Shango: Center for the Study of African American Art and Culture. The curator acknowledges AES Ohio Foundation for support of the project’s curatorial development, with additional support from Black Palette Art Gallery and EbonNia Gallery.

The Springfield Museum of Art gratefully acknowledges its partnership with Willis “Bing” Davis and participating artists in presenting Black Life as Subject Matter III.

Image: Joshua Whitaker, Sanctum, Mixed media assemblage with photo transfer on wood, 58″ x 35.

Land of Opportunity: Landscape, Labor, and the American Dream

As the nation approaches 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Land of Opportunity reflects on the promises and contradictions that shape the American landscape. Drawn from SMoA’s permanent collection, this exhibition explores how artists have portrayed land and labor as central to our national identity—symbols of freedom, prosperity, and progress, but also of inequity and struggle. From pastoral farms to industrial scenes, these works invite us to consider how the ideals of liberty and equality are reflected in the American landscape—and for whom they are truly possible

Imprinting: Charley Harper, Edie McKee Harper, and Brett Harper

Imprinting celebrates the joyful artistic legacy of the Harper family: Charley Harper, Edie McKee Harper, and their son Brett Harper.

Their playful minimalist-modernist prints have shaped generations in how we see, feel, and relate with the natural world. By making fauna and flora approachable, even lovable, the artists invite us to look a little longer, to care deeper, and ultimately, to understand that these beings are not other— they are kin.

The exhibition draws its name from the biological phenomenon of imprinting: the instinctive way animals form deep, lasting bonds with those they spend time with early in life. In much the same way, the Harpers’ artwork imprints upon us by fostering feelings of connection to wild beings.

The Harpers’ prints offer more than observation— they invite humor and empathy. Through geometry, line, color and pattern, animals and plants are reduced to their most basic shapes yet radiate emotional clarity.

Despite their simplicity, these artworks speak to viewers of all ages. Full of playful puns, flattened forms, and joyous geometry, the Harpers’ way of seeing the world bridges the gap between scientific observation and artistic imagination. Their playful puns and visual vocabulary delight, but the result is quietly transformative.

Imprinting reminds us that the bonds we form to people, places, and the living world shape who we are. These artworks invite us to reconnect: to feel wonder, to laugh, to care, and to feel at home in nature.

Unearthing: Searching Through Strata

May 24, 2025 - March 1, 2026

Opening May 24, 2025, the Springfield Museum of Art presents Unearthing: Searching through Strata, a survey of work by artist Anita Cooke. This exhibition traces a 20-year creative journey beginning when Hurricane Katrina buried her clay studio in the Louisiana mud.

Before the storm, Cooke was a ceramic sculptor and functional potter. In the wreckage of Katrina, she unearthed her Aunt Genie’s 1950s Singer Featherweight sewing machine. This discovery sparked a profound shift in her artistic medium and method. Using the sewing machine, Cooke began stitching together intricate textile constructions, embedded with evidence of her time and labor.

Cooke is a process artist. Her primary goal is in the making, and the effort of her work is visible. She paints canvases, tears them apart, pins, organizes, gathers, layers, stitches, and compresses. Cooke’s complex work evokes loss and finding, chaos and order, and searching for meaning in what remains.

Anita Cooke is a visual artist living and making work in New Orleans. Formerly from Springfield, Ohio, Cooke took her first pottery class at the Springfield Art Center (now the Springfield Museum of Art) while in high school. Cooke continued in ceramics, earning a BFA in Ceramics from Kent State University. She received an MFA in Ceramics and Sculpture from Newcomb College at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Line | Drawing Meaning from the Mark

July 20, 2024 - Ongoing

Curated from the museum’s permanent collection, this is the first of a new series of exhibitions exploring the big ideas of visual art.

Line is language. Line is expressive. It can whisper, shout, proclaim.
Line can be bold, certain, searching, delicate.
Line can be quick, clipped, staccato.
Line can be sinuous, curving, undulating.

Line can build stability through structure and scaffolding.
Line can convey movement and energy by changing direction.
Line can be an edge, a contour, a border.
Line can mark a boundary between what is and what isn’t.

Line can be an index of where the artist’s mind–or the artist–has traveled, a record of moving, searching, observing, measuring.
Line is a point traveling through space.
Line is a path.

ZZ (detail image), Jack Moulthrop, ceramic, 2009

Celebrating Women: Female Artists from the Permanent Collection

Jul 15, 2020 – Current

Historically, female artists have been underrepresented in museum collections and are shown at significantly lower rates than their male counterparts. During the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, the Museum is highlighting female artists whose works are in the permanent collection. These works of art showcase the wide range of media, subject, and technique with which female artists have traditionally worked and demonstrate how women continue to conceptually advance the art world today. Featuring work by well-known and lesser known artists alike, this show explores artistic contributions of female artists, not only regionally, but nationally and internationally as well. Artists in the show include Davira Fisher, Frances Hynes, Helen Bosart Morgan, Aminah Robinson, Alice Schille, Kara Walker, and Stella Waitzkin, to name a few.

In addition to new art on display, the Museum has been awarded a grant from Smithsonian Affiliations. Funding for this project allows us to host a Smithsonian speaker in support of their American Women’s History Initiative taking place this year.

Girl with Cigarette (The Model’s Break) (detail), n.d., Harriet Woodfin Titlow, Oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. John Westcott