It has been nearly sixteen years since my father died. He spent his career working in public service for USAID and the US foreign aid agencies that preceded it. His values were inspired by the New Deal. Coming out of college at the tail end of the Depression, he went to work for the Farm Security Administration in Oklahoma. When World War II came he joined the Office of War Information (intelligence). After the war the State Department sent him to help rebuild a Korea devastated by war and years of Japanese occupation.

The Haitian Art Society conference celebrated the September 29th opening of Spirit & Strength: Modern Art from Haiti at the National Gallery of Art. The first ever exhibition of Haitian art at the National Gallery features 21 paintings recently donated by HAS members, alongside works by African-American artists who visited, worked in and were influenced by Haiti. The exhibition continues through March 5, 2025.

Remembering José Francisco Borges’s Literatura de Cordel

Oliver Basciano

09 September 2024

ArtReview

Will the death of Brazil’s most celebrated exponent lead to the demise of a once-popular vernacular artform?

A moment to remember José Francisco Borges, master of the woodcut. Borges was Brazil’s greatest living folk artist, and Pernambuco's "Living Treasure", when he passed away on July 26th. Born in Bezerros, Pernambuco, in 1935, Borges was a poet as well as an artist. He worked in the tradition of the “folheto”, or chapbook.  He wrote, illustrated, printed and marketed his inexpensive pamphlets which recounted romances, crimes, comedy, tall tales and assorted pulp fiction in verse.

The work of Twins Seven-Seven (Ijara, Nigeria, 1944 – 2011, Ibadan, Nigeria) is included in Foreigners Everywhere, the central exhibit at the Venice Biennale which opened on April 20, 2024, with the following introduction: