Hampton University in Virginia, a historically-Black institution, is celebrating the “re-grand opening” of its museum which is both the oldest African-American museum in the U.S. and the oldest museum in Virginia.
The Hampton University Museum, which is free and open to the public, opened in 1868, and was the world’s first collection of African American fine art. The collection began with the 1894 acquisition of two paintings by American Impressionist Henry O. Tanner. With over 150 years of existence, the museum has been a guardian of artwork and artifacts spanning the entirety of the African American experience while also showcasing elements of Indigenous and Polynesian cultures as well.
Hampton was the recipient of a gift of hundreds of artworks from the Harmon Foundation in 1967, which includes representation of most of the important artists from the Harlem Renaissance into the early 1960s. The Museum also houses the Countee and Ida Cullen Art Collection; a group of 29 works of art acquired from the widow of the famed Harlem Renaissance poet.
Over the years, as Jim Crow and segregation pushed African-American art and artists out of mainstream knowledge, the museum played an important role in preserving that artistic heritage to the present.
