Collected Thoughts

If You Go

Memories & Inspiration: The Kerry and C. Betty Davis Collection of African American Art
Taft Museum of Art
316 Pike St.

General admission: free for members, military, youth (18 and under); $12 for adults; $10 for seniors. Non-members save $2 by purchasing tickets online.
Sundays are free!

For more information, visit taftmuseum.org.

One of the world’s richest private collections of African American art from a diversity of Black perspectives is now on view at the Taft Museum of Art.

Memories & Inspiration: The Kerry and C. Betty Davis Collection of African American Art features over 60 works from the personal collection of Kerry Davis—a retired postal worker—and C. Betty Davis—a former television news producer.

Organized and toured by International Art & Artists, Washington, DC, Memories & Inspiration focuses on 20th- and 21st-century approaches to the Black image. The Davises have been guided by a passion for collecting and by their extensive knowledge of art—as well as a desire to preserve cultural memories and provide their community with a source of pride and inspiration.

Together, they have built one of the richest private collections of African American art in the world. Memories & Inspiration features a diverse sampling of their 300-piece collection typically displayed in their modest Atlanta, Georgia home. Many of the works themselves reflect social, cultural, historical, or personal meaning.

In addition cultural significance or beauty, pieces often also reflect connections to the Davises’ childhood memories, deeply held convictions or interests, and friendships with or affinity for the artists. The expansive collection includes paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, sculptures, and mixed media by well-known African American artists with wide-ranging approaches and subject matter.

Works of note include Romare Bearden’s improvisational portrayal of a lively jazz quartet, photographer Gordon Parks’s documentation of racial and economic disparity, and printmaker Charles White’s “images of dignity.” Other key pieces include abstract compositions by Sam Gilliam, Norman Lewis, and Alma Thomas, defiant and heroic portraits by Elizabeth Catlett, and historically and socially conscious works by Jacob Lawrence and Aaron Douglas.

Memories & Inspiration also elevates the profiles of contemporary artists such as Sedrick Huckaby, Alfred Conteh, and Amalia Amaki, honoring the Davises’ goal to gather and preserve a spectrum of approaches to the Black image. The work of these artists—and those throughout the exhibition—offer images from a variety of Black perspectives.

Coming to the Taft Museum of Art, Memories & Inspiration offers an enlightening contrast to Charles and Anna Taft’s own collection, which is on view permanently within the founders' former mansion. The Davises, however, do not fit conventional stereotypes of art collectors and connoisseurs. Neither is from an affluent or academic background, but they built an encyclopedic knowledge of African American art and artists through a lifetime of private study.

Their collection—gathered over decades of otherwise frugal living—is housed in the Davises’ home. But like the Taft’s residence, the Davis home has become an important center for dialogue, exhibition, and inspiration—prompting artist Leon Nathaniel Hicks to refer to it as “a museum in a home.”