Motown songwriter Nick Ashford dies

Nick Ashford, who along with wife Valerie Simpson helped set the gold standard for R&B duets, both as songwriters and performers, died of throat cancer Monday in a New Yorkhospital. He was 69. Ashford & Simpson — you can’t think of one without the other — penned and produced almost all of the ’60s hits …

‘Porgy & Bess:’ Tweaking A Classic For The 21st Century

“Summertime,” one of the most recorded songs in music history, has been reinterpreted by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, to Brian Wilson and Janis Joplin. But the lullaby was first heard in “Porgy & Bess,” a 1935 American folk opera by George Gerswhin, his brother Ira Gershwin, and author DuBose Heyward. Now, 76 …

You Must Remember This

Kevin Jerome Everson’s short films about ordinary African-American life are completely unordinary. Yet despite their frequent appearance in film festivals and on museum film programs, they have yet to sink fully into art world consciousness. Even when Mr. Everson’s striking seven-minute “Emergency Needs” was in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, it was sidelined, as biennial films …

‘Runway’ designer right at home on ‘Porgy and Bess’ set

Emilio Sosa is making it work. The 45-year-old “Project Runway”-finalist landed the plum role of costumer for “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” which opened last night at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime production,” Sosa said of the revival opera that will head to Broadway after its fall run. A.R.T.’s controversial production, …

African-American art in Savannah, fests, more in store

Savannah steals a little thunder this fall with the opening of a major showcase for African-American art, but Atlanta doesn’t lack for big cultural events of its own. Here’s a quick sampling: The Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies, adding an exemplary collection of African-American art collected by the retired Savannah surgeon to …

Ohr museum tickets free on holiday

All Mississippi residents with proper identification will be admitted free to the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art on Labor Day, Sept. 5. Come and visit Phase I of the Frank Gehry-designed campus and view the artistic works of mixed media artist and Mississippi native William Dunlap, photographer Herman Leonard and Mississippi potter Brian Nettles. And, of …

Whiff of African heritage in capital’s artscape

The historic stone art of Tengenenge, a region located in northern Zimbabwe, may be barely 40 years old but it is breaching high-end ethnic boutique art and home accessories bastions across the world. A collection of 50 abstract Zimbabwean sculptures crafted in serpentine, high-density hard smooth black stone, spring stone and opal is in India …

‘Material Girls’: 8 African American artists update a tradition

They collect discarded objects, such as tiny glass medicine bottles. One dyes tissue paper and creates floats of color. One goes to a quarry and uses volcanic rock to make sculptures. Another sees beauty in the hardness and blackness of tires. A group of African American women are paying homage to the generations-old tradition of …

Lake Wales Arts Council presents unique show

The Lake Wales Arts Council presents Against All Odds: The Art of the Highwaymen, an exhibit organized by the Orange County Regional History Center in Orlando, opening on Sept. 1 and running through Oct. 13. The exhibit features paintings by all 26 Highwaymen as well as a painting by A.E. “Beanie” Backus, an accomplished Florida …

U.S. Postal Service to honor 20th Century artist Romare Bearden

Romare Bearden, the 20th Century master of collages capturing the African American experience, has long been a popular artist. Now everyone can have a tiny bit of his expressive art with a new series of stamps to be issued by the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Service announced Tuesday the stamps will be available September …

Edith M.S. Ingram, artist, writer concerned with black history; at 89

Edith Marie Stanton Ingram relished meeting people and often incorporated what she learned from their stories in her writing and artwork. Mrs. Ingram, an accomplished artist and writer who published a historical novel in 2004 in tribute to her great-grandmother, a free African-American property holder in the early 1850s, died July 20 at the Metro …

Take Away Project #12, Monroe Reeves speaks with Jeffrey Ratner

What is Art? Ask anyone this simple question and see how many unique answers you will get. I had the opportunity to interview self-taught artist, Monroe Reeves from Baltimore, Maryland on his insights concerning art. With such a broad question, Monroe responded passionately. “Art is the pulse of creation, change, movement that stimulates. It can …

Park Ave Summer Art fest opens

Park Ave Summer Art fest opens View works from more than 300 artisans at the Chrysler Park Avenue Summer Art Fest. The event also features entertainment, food and activities from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday on Park Avenue. Admission is free. For details, go to rochesterevents.com. Heritage …

Women’s Civic Improvement Club celebrating 75 years as anchor in Oak Park Share

Framed by African American art, 18 local poets celebrated women at the Women’s Civic Improvement Club in Oak Park. The “Poetry and Spoken Word Explosion” on Wednesday night was a fitting tribute to the club – the oldest black women’s organization west of the Mississippi River – as it celebrates 75 years of public service. …