Benny Andrews (1930 - 2006)
Benny Andrews was born in Madison, Georgia in 1930. He is a painter, writer,
printmaker, sculptor, book illustrator and teacher. His art, like his
background, is complex and multi- faceted.
Andrews grew up in the rural south, one of ten children in a sharecropper's
family. Always a visionary, Andrews studied at Fort Valley State College and
later received his BFA from the school of the Art Institute of Chicago. From
1968 to 1997, he taught at Queens College and from 1982 to 1984, Andrews
served as Director of the Visual Arts Program at the National Endowment for
the Arts.
Exhibited nationally and internationally for over forty years, Andrews' work can
be found in the permanent collections of numerous museums including The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art and The Brooklyn Museum
in New York; The Hirshhorn Museum, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago and
The Detroit Institute in Illinois and The Museum of Contemporary Art in San
Diego, California.
The work of Benny Andrews is narrative and passionate and always carries a
message. He is a storyteller at heart. Collage has always been a sustaining
umbilical medium for the artist and it is somewhere between surrealism and
social realism that his work resides. A master draftsman, Andrews imbues his
line drawings with a rare vitality and fervor.
Benny Andrews always works in series: "The Southland," "America," "Cruelty and
Sorrows," "Revival," "Music," "Langston Hughes" and "Critic." His work tells
the story of his life and touches the viewer with a universal appeal.
Using social realism as a departure point, the artist depicts the light and
dark aspects of the hereafter. These extremely different visions are woven
together by the concept of a force greater than who we are and what we see.
It is social realism blended with spirituality.
