Photo credits to Isadore Howard and Vanessa Hobson Pigment International participated in the inaugural Spectrum Chicago Art Fair held at the Merchandise Mart, and came away with Spectrum’s 2026 Inaugural Partner Award. Many thanks to the amazing creatives who showcased their work - Steve Bravo, Edo, Jesse Howard, Candace Hunter, Salome Jaffe, Max Sansing and Howard Simmons. Photo credit to Isadore Howard and Vanessa Hobson Students from Gary Comer Youth Center (GCYC) attend

Next up Pigment International’s hosts Chicago To The World, October 23rd at the Logan Center. This powerful half day convening brings together arts groups from across the Midwest to discuss the state of Black art. Featured speakers include Pamela Cullerton, Chicago Sculpture Exhibit, Jon Ott, The Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation, Janice Bond, Chicago Public Art Group, Ra Joy, Bronzeville Center for the Arts, Lisa Coleman, Adler University, and Monique Brinkman-Hill, South Side

Pigment International™, the multimedia platform dedicated to Black contemporary art, is proud to serve as a media partner for the premiere of the North Shore Fine Art Expo, a boutique, curated, original-art-only event arriving at The Orrington Hotel, steps from Northwestern University, November 13–15, 2026. The Expo brings together an eclectic group of contemporary artists from across the United States, many of them exhibiting exclusively in Greater Chicagoland. Every artist

Pigment International dedicates Black Fine Art Month 2026 to the sculptor whose work reached the world and never left home. Richard Hunt with artist Chris Devins who recently completed the hunt mural in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. [photo credit Chris Devins] It is fitting and proper that we dedicate Black Fine Art Month 2026 to Richard Hunt. His influence on art was profound and international, yet he remained devoted to his hometown of Chicago, the South Side where he w

Every October, Black Fine Art Month turns a national spotlight on Black artists, galleries, and collectors, honoring a legacy of creative excellence that Pigment International has championed since founding the observance. Throughout the month, look for exhibitions, artist talks, studio visits, and collecting opportunities across Chicago and beyond, each one a chance to support working artists and deepen the public's connection to Black visual culture. Join us for the events

Top row left Ra Joy, Executive Director of BCA, artists Della Wells and Evelyn Patricia Terry, Pigment's Patricia Andrews-Keenan, curator Phoenix Brown, artist and art advocate Freida High W. Tesfagiorgis, and artist Mutópe Johnson; Works from the exhibit Building Bronzeville. Bottom row middle Brad Pruitt, Executive Director Milwaukee African American Holocaust Museum and Tina Johnson, President African American Art Alliance at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Bronzeville Center fo

Marquette University's fall exhibitions trace African art and diaspora identity across centuries This fall, the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University opened The Otherworld Is Home, a museum-wide presentation exploring personal reclamation, cultural identity, and spiritual passage across Africa's many diasporas. Inspired by the Yorùbá proverb “Life is a journey, the otherworld is home,” the exhibition unfolds across three simultaneous shows: African Art: Ancient Roots

Candace Hunter's Intentionality opens September 24th The Dan Ryan Expressway carries Chicagoans across the city every day. For artist Candace Hunter, it also marks a rupture. On September 24, Hunter opens Intentionality 1960, Whose Dreams?, an exhibition that asks viewers to look past the familiar story of urban development and confront the communities erased to make it possible. The project begins with a number: 50,831. It represents the estimated number of African Americans

Artist Kari Blak's work appears on the east side of the Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC) On the east garage doors of the Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC), a flower with a face is crying while a bumblebee moves to console it. It is a small gesture inside a large question, and it sits at the heart of Nature of Reality, the mural series by Chicago artist Kari Blak. Blak merged five distinct vignettes into one cohesive narrative, each addressing a different facet of the relationship betwee

Decadence Deux opened during Third Friday in Bridgeport. Top top middle: work by Eric Stephenson. Top row right: September Gray with work by Preston Sampson. Bottom row left: Marryam Moma and work by Kevin Okeith. Decadence Deux is open. September Gray Fine Art, in partnership with Pigment International, launched the second chapter of Decadence of Another Kind at the Bridgeport Art Center during the building’s Third Friday Open Studios. The exhibition brings together an inter

From top row middle - Artists Howard Simmons, Candace Hunter, Edo, Salome Jaffe and Jesse Howard. The inaugural fair opens at THE MART, October 7–10 Pigment International will exhibit at the first-ever Spectrum Chicago Show, October 7–10 at THE MART (formerly the Merchandise Mart) — a new fair joining Chicago's fall art calendar with an opening night preview and three days of public programming. Pigment's presentation features five artists, listed alphabetically: Edo, Jesse H

Top row middle D. Lamar Preston and Patricia Andrews-Keenan. Right - Gwen Yen Chiu and D. Lamar Preston, past Richard Hunt Award winners, in conversation with Christie's Steven Zick. Bottom row - Gwen Yen Chiu, Steven Zick of Christies and D. Lamar Preston. Middle: a maquette of Preston's work Gifted to Me. Right - Sculptor Eric Stephenson and Naomi Davis, Blacks in Green. Anniversary gala honored Richard Hunt Award winners at Theater on the Lake Chicago Sculpture Exhibit (CS

Middle row right - President of Columbia College Chicago Shantay N. Bolton. Bottom row - Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr., foreground; background curator Sarah Elizabeth Lewis. An exhibition that imagines a life, not a loss Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago opened "If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground" with an emotionally moving convening. The exhibition imagines the life Emmett Till might have lived had he safely returned home to Chicago,

2025-26 Richard Hunt Awardee D. Lamar Preston A significant new opportunity for sculptors has officially launched. Chicago Sculpture Exhibit (CSE), in partnership with the Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation, is accepting applications for the 2027 CSE Richard Hunt Award, honoring one of Chicago’s most influential and internationally acclaimed artists. The award will support an emerging or mid-career sculptor in creating a new work for installation at a prominent Chicago location.

French artist Frank Schroeder's work will be included in Decadence Deux at Bridgeport Art Center opening September 19th. This fall, Pigment International joins September Gray Fine Art for Decadence Deux, the highly anticipated second iteration of Decadence of Another Kind, opening at the Bridgeport Art Center. On view from September 19 through November 6, the exhibition brings together an intergenerational and international group of artists whose work moves across memory, mig

Top Row: Cultural Impact Award was given to Lavett Ballard; work by Dwight White and Marryam Moma. Middle Row: Pigment’s Allison Casselberry and Patricia Everett with Norman Teague; Cow Horn Sculpture by Teague, Paul Bacardi Smith’s Watermelanin. Third row: Chicago in Indy; Work by Lavett Ballard and Nyzere Dillon. The 6th Annual BUTTER Fine Art Fair returned to Indianapolis Labor Day Weekend, continuing its evolution as one of the country’s most consequential artist-centere

Issue VI of Pigment International's award-winning magazine issue lands this September, and it is one of our most ambitious editions yet. Inside, readers will find a profile of designer Norman Teague, whose furniture and architectural work continues to reshape how Chicago sees Black craftsmanship. The issue also spotlights Chicago artists connected to the Obama Presidential Center, tracing how the campus is emerging as a new anchor for the city's creative community on the Sout

Stephen Marc, Untitled, from Changing Chicago Project, 1988. Gelatin silver print. Courtesy: Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago. The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) invites the public to a day of programming marking the opening of If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground, an exhibition curated by Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Lewis and Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr., Emmett Till's cousin, close friend, and last surviving witness to his 1955 k

Jane Carpenter Rock, Deputy Director, Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State continues its tribute to Betye Saar with a curator talk by Jane Carpenter-Rock, Deputy Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery. Carpenter-Rock wrote her doctoral dissertation on Saar's work and is the author of Betye Saar, part of the David C. Driskell Series of African American Art. Her talk arrives weeks after Saar's passing on July

Heads/Hearts/Hands by Candace Hunter and In the Land of the Free by Reggie McFly. Both works are headed to museum exhibitions. Flag reinterpretations from Candace Hunter snd Reggie McFly move to museum exhibitions Two artists whose work has moved through Pigment International's galleries are now commanding national attention. Candace Hunter, whose piece Heads/Hearts/Hands from Glory! Glory! — Pigment's exhibition reimagining the American flag through Black artists' eyes — has