The media are awash in tales of young entrepreneurs recounting their stories of how social media helped them develop and grow their businesses. This is a different type of story void of those tools, the entrepreneur classes, and self-help articles. This essay considers the effects that a strong black community and family had on two artist brothers, Alonzo and Dale Davis, enabling them to open the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles in 1967. It contextualizes their young lives in Tuskegee, Alabama, where they were steeped in black history and culture and exposed to faculty and college students from African and Caribbean nations who were in residence on the campus. Historical events that led to the opening of the gallery are woven into the text. Founded during the growth of the Black Arts movement, the Brockman Gallery provided early exposure to a number of artists who are today widely acclaimed, including Betye Saar, David Hammons, and John Outterbridge. As the text continues to unfold, a picture also emerges of the Leimert Park Village and the neighboring “Hills” communities of black wealth, the patrons of art whom the gallery hoped to serve.
Research Article|
May 01 2012
Planting a Seed: The Brockman Gallery and the Village
Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins
Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins is a writer, art historian, and curator. She is completing a book tentatively titled Painting Like a Man: The Art and Life of Mary Lovelace O’Neal. She teaches at Portland State University and is a curatorial consultant to the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, where she curated an exhibition titled Choose Paint! Choose Abstraction! on Bay Area painters in March 2012
Search for other works by this author on:
Nka (2012) 2012 (30): 4–15.
Citation
Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins; Planting a Seed: The Brockman Gallery and the Village. Nka 1 May 2012; 2012 (30): 4–15. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10757163-1496426
Download citation file: