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.

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

What if the Black home could be read as a museum—one filled not with objects behind glass, but with the furniture we inherit, photographs we keep, textiles we make, books we read, and traditions we pass from one generation to the next? That question sits at the center of AfroBohemian Home: An Installation by Zsudayka Nzinga, opening September 2 at the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art at Colorado State University. Curated by Louise Cutler, the exhibition transforms the gallery in

Improvisations in Color” brings new works by the Ethiopian-born painter to Oakland, marking the centennial of jazz legend John Coltrane OAKLAND, CA — Thelma Harris Art Gallery welcomes summer's close with its signature White Linen Afternoon on Saturday, August 22, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m., celebrating the opening of Improvisations in Color: Wosene Worke Kosrof Celebrates Coltrane. The exhibition, on view through October 25, presents a new body of work by the internationally acc

C.O.L.O.U.R.S and Smile Like You Mean It by Edo See His Work This Friday at Revolutionary Among the most intellectually compelling bodies of work in Pigment International's upcoming exhibition Revolutionary, opening July 17 at Vjosa Cafe & Events in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood, is C.O.L.O.U.R.S., a new series of work by Chicago artist Eddie ‘Edo’ Santana White. The exhibition explores the ongoing evolution of Black resistance, identity, and self-determination across Am

Commemorative artwork for this year's Martha's Vineyard Comedy Fest is by artist Paul Branton Artist Paul Branton has created a vibrant commemorative portrait celebrating the 15th Anniversary of the Martha's Vineyard Comedy Fest, honoring longtime host Damon Williams, whose wit and unmistakable stage presence have become synonymous with the festival. Commissioned by festival founder Steve Capers, the painting captures Williams in Branton's signature expressive style, using bo

Work by Jamele Wright, Sr., Preston Sampson, and Gabrielle Torres will be featured in What the Eye Beholds. Curator September Gray brings a landmark group exhibition to Chicago, exploring perception, memory, and the human experience What the Eye Beholds is a compelling group exhibition presented by Atlanta based September Gray Fine Art Gallery opens in Chicago in July. Curated by September Gray, the show brings together seven visionary contemporary artists whose work interrog

The opening of Mickalene Thomas' Beneath the Moonlight at the Shepherd in Detroit. Pigment International recently went to Detroit for the opening of Beneath the Moonlight, a solo exhibition of new work by Mickalene Thomas, presented by Library Street Collective at the Shepherd — a breathtaking arts center carved from a 1912 Romanesque Revival church in Detroit's East Village neighborhood. For more than two decades, Thomas has cultivated a signature visual language rooted in p

Call For Art and Advertisers Two hundred and fifty years. That is the span of American history this nation is marking in 2026 — and Pigment International® is marking it on our own terms. Pigment Magazine Issue VI, our Collector's Edition, arrives this August themed America 250: We ARE The People. At a moment when the contributions of Black Americans risk being minimized or erased from the national record, this issue centers Black artists as essential narrators of where this

Six Featured Artists Bring Depth, Beauty, and Cultural Legacy to Hyde Park Pigment International will again be exhibiting at the 57th Street Art Fair, one of the city's longest-running fairs, on June 6 & 7. Now in its fourth year at this beloved Hyde Park institution, Pigment's exhibition is a celebration of the country's 250th Anniversary — a showcase of the depth and breadth of our artists. The fair runs Saturday, June 6, from 11 am–6 pm and Sunday, June 7, from 10 am–5 pm.

Nathaniel Mary Quinn's A Love Letter to My Mother at the National Public Housing Museum RUN — don't walk — to experience Chicago native Nathaniel Mary Quinn's first solo museum exhibition at the National Public Housing Museum (NPHM). A Love Letter to My Mother is precisely what its title promises: a deeply personal elegy to the woman whose faith made an artist. Quinn grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes, once the largest public housing complex in the country. What opened as an

From top left: Robert Lewis Paige, Monica Haslip, Janell Nelson and Blake Lenoir are the honorees at this year's Black Art Love Affair. As Chicago’s creative community continues to shape global culture, ILA Creative Studio is once again bringing artists, patrons, and advocates together for an evening centered on celebration, sustainability, and collective investment. On June 17, the organization will host the fourth annual Black Art Love Affair (BALA) at Little Black Pearl un

Nick Cave In the company of greatness. Nick Cave at the opening of In Minor Keys — the 61st Venice Biennale, conceived by the late Koyo Kouoh. Cave's Two Points in Time at Once features five works displayed in Arsenale and two of his monumental bronzes installed outdoors. Here he stands with his works Amalgam Meditation and Origin Big Chief Demond Melancon Big Chief Demond Melancon — the first Black Masking Indian to participate in the Venice Biennale — at the opening of In

Installation by A'driane Nieves Review by Ming Joi Speechlessness is seldom experienced by a woman of words like me, but what is there to say when the artworks do all the talking / take the words out of my mouth / speak for the silent moments / phrase it in a way my tongue would never try? In Unbound Narratives: Embodied Language, a group show at Atlanta Contemporary, Bethany Collins, February James, adriene nieves, and Gabi Madrid challenge the unsaid; instead, the inner tho

An artist's depiction of the sewing of the Star Spangled Banner. Grace Wisher is one of the girls in the upper right. Before the Star-Spangled Banner became America's most recognizable symbol, a ten-year-old free Black girl named Grace Wisher helped stitch it into existence. Apprenticed to Baltimore flag-maker Mary Pickersgill around 1810, Grace spent six weeks sewing the flag that would later inspire Francis Scott Key to write the national anthem. When the story was told, ho

Top left - Mama Lae by Lavar Munroe Studio; top right - Big Chief Demond Melancon in ceremonial suit — Photo credit: Sophia Germer / The Times-Picayune; Bottom left - Sammy Baloji, Bottom middle - the late Koyo Kouoh, 2026 Venice Biennale curator Cape Town, March, 2024; bottom right - Neo Ramshu. The 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia opens this week under a title borrowed from music: In Minor Keys. Conceived by the late Koyo Kouoh — the first African

Top left Mother & Child (1944) by Elizabeth Catlett; top right Crowd (1988) by Lee Ungno; bottom left Exodus (1972) by Norman Lewis; bottom right Woman Pounding Grain (1957) by Park Son Keun. Standing inside the Art Institute of Chicago's landmark exhibition Korean National Treasures: 2,000 Years of Art, surrounded by 140 works spanning gilt bronze Buddhist sculpture, Joseon dynasty painting, and late 20th-century contemporary art, something unexpected happened — recognition.

Pigment International artists Marlon Tobias, Brenda Dickerson and Jeff Koonz guided residents through an exercise that will inform creative placemaking in Summit. On Saturday, April 25th, the Summit Community Network's creative placemaking initiative came alive with color, conversation, and community. Approximately 30 Summit residents gathered for a preliminary visioning session — painting, crafting mosaics, and assembling collages that will directly inform the design directi

Pastor John Hannah's New Life Covenant Church is actualizing the creation of Life in Color Gallery in the city's Grand Crossing neighborhood. A House Blessing ceremony marks the beginning of a new cultural chapter on Chicago's South Side Before a single painting is hung or a sculpture placed, the floor of Life in Color Gallery was already carrying something sacred. In a special ceremony, community members gathered at 7644 S. Greenwood Avenue in Chicago's Grand Crossing neighb

Transcend by Salome Jaffe, 18" X 24" (2026) Artist Salome Jaffe enters a new phase of public engagement with her participation in The People’s Artist Award, an initiative led by Johnny Depp in collaboration with The Art of Elysium and Artforum. Distinct from traditional juried competitions, the award is determined entirely by public vote, positioning audience mobilization as the decisive factor in an artist’s advancement. Jaffe’s work stands apart for its materially driven pr