A Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund

Feb. 7 - July 25, 2010

A Force for Change is the first exhibition to explore the legacy of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, created in 1917 by the well known Chicago businessman and philanthropist. The Rosenwald Fund's Fellowship Program was designed to foster black leadership through the arts, literature, and scholarship, and between 1928 and 1948, the program awarded stipends to hundreds of African American artists, writers, and scholars across many disciplines.

A Force for Change presents the artistic products of Julius Rosenwald’s support, and includes more than 60 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by 22 Rosenwald fellows, as well as an original short documentary film. The artists in the exhibition are among the foremost of their era: Elizabeth Catlett, Aaron Douglas,  Jacob Lawrence, Gordon Parks, Rose Piper, Augusta Savage, Charles White, Hale Woodruff, and more. The exhibition was organized for the Spertus Museum, Chicago, by guest curator Daniel Schulman.

The exhibition will be complemented by an installation of approximately 20 works by African American artists from the Montclair Art Museum's permanent collection.

The exhibition was made possible by a generous grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Major project support was also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Righteous Persons Foundation, and The Judith Rothschild Foundation.