Reginald Gammon (1921-2005)

Reginald Gammon was born in Philadelphia and studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of the Industrial Arts (1941, 1946-1949) , Tyler School of Fine Art and Temple University (1950-1951).  He also served in the U.S. Navy from 1944-1946.

Gammon was a figure painter first and foremost.  His early works, such as Alienation, The Scottsboro Boys, Harlem 66, Scottsboro Mothers, and Freedom Now (which was included in the exhibition Soul of a Nation, Art in the Age of Black Power) are powerful, somewhat angry images; the artist uses color sparingly to accentuate the message and lessen any decorative element.  In fact, the 1965 exhibition of works by artists in the group Spiral (of which Gammon was a member) was titled First Group Showing: Works in Black and White .

Gammon exhibited at Brooklyn College (1968);  Minneapolis Institute of Art (1968); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1970); Studio Museum in Harlem; Martha Jackson Gallery; Philadelphia Civic Center; Flint Institute of Art; Rhode Island School of Art; Everson Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Art; and the Atlanta University Annuals, among other venues.

Gammon’s photomontage titled Harlem on My Mind references the exhibition of the same name, which was held in 1969 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on New York City’s Upper East Side.  Conceived as a tribute to the “social history of the Harlem neighborhood,  the show included “documentary photographs and newspaper texts presented in the form of slide projections photo blowups, audiotapes, text panels, and videos.”  (1) The exhibition quickly became mired in controversy.

Protestors gathered outside, including members of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, which was established by Cliff Joseph and Benny Andrews. Their aims were to "protest the absence of African Americans in curatorial positions at the Metropolitan Museum” and also to reject “the idea that an art museum would have an exhibition of African American culture that contained no paintings or sculpture.” (3). Gammon protested alongside fellow artists which included Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Felrath Hines, Richard Mayhew, and more.

Next, the BECC turned its attention to the Whitney Museum of American Art and its exhibition, Contemporary Black Artist in America.  The day before the exhibition was to open, BECC “held a press conference at the Studio Museum in Harlem to publicly denounce the Whitney show and announce a rebuttal exhibition, which opened the following day at the Acts of Art Gallery.”(4) Gammon’s work was featured, as well as Hale Woodruff, Benny Andrews, Bob Thompson, and Richard Mayhew, among others. In 2018, Hunter College and Art Galleries recreated the exhibition in Acts of Art and Rebuttal in 1971

These protests and others like them “…forced the Black visual arts community to organize against unfair representations of Black culture, the exclusion of Black artists from exhibitions, and discrimination in the hiring of Black museum professionals.” (5)