Adolphus Ealey

Adolphus Ealey (February 22, 1941 – November 11, 1992) was an American artist, curator, educator, writer, and entrepreneur. He was African-American and a noted Black art authority, and he was the longtime curator of the Barnett–Aden Collection of Black art.

Early life and education Adolphus Ealey was born on February 22, 1941, in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended Howard University (B.A. degree 1963) and studied under James V. Herring. and a Ph.D. in art from the University of Wisconsin.

Ealey was a longtime curator of the Barnett–Aden Collection of Black art starting in 1969; the collection was formerly associated with Barnett-Aden Gallery and bequeathed to Ealey by James V. Herring. Later the collection was located at the Museum of African American Art in Tampa, Florida (which has since closed). He took an anthropological approach to the collection of objects, emphasized culture and organized them around a village concept.

Ealey was a professor at Washington Technical Institute (now University of the District of Columbia) from 1969 to 1971.

He was the president of Heritage Noir Inc. in 1983. He has artist files at the National Gallery of Art Library; and he is included in the public museum collection at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Exhibitions

1972, Reflections: the Afro-American Artist: an Exhibit of Paintings, Sculpture, and Graphics, group exhibition, Benton Convention Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 1973, Exhibition 73 (the D.C. Art Association), group exhibition, Anacostia Museum, and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture 1977, Black American Art from the Barnett Aden Collection, group exhibition, Frick Fine Arts Museum at the University of Pittsburgh 1979, Reflections of a Southern Heritage: 20th Century Black Artists of the Southeast, group exhibition, Gibbes Art Gallery, Charlestown, South Carolina

Publications