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Personal Connections
The Aminah Robinson Legacy Project
Deidre Hamlar reflects on her daily experience stewarding the legacy of one of America’s most prolific artists.
When Aminah Robinson passed away in 2015, she left her art, writings, home, and personal property to the Columbus Museum of Art. In 2020, CMA established the Aminah Robinson Legacy Project to encompass the myriad aspects of her life, proliferate awareness of her work, and place her in the pantheon of the most important twentieth and twenty- first century American artists.
2024 Writer Resident A.J. Verdelle stands in Aminah’s home. You can read A.J.’s story One day, in the history of Columbus, Ohio on CMA’s blog.
I have a dream job. I work every day to preserve the life, art, and legacy of one of America’s most profound and prolific artists of my generation, Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson. Aminah was born February 18, 1940, and this year would be 84 years old. Every day I am a witness to and a re- teller of Aminah’s storied life, anecdotes of her ancestry, and rich family history. Her background served as fodder for the shapes, colors, textures, and tales related through seven decades of sensitive portrayals, intricate drawings, and complex button-laden works of art. Aminah’s generation witnessed a period of profound social change. This era included the Great Migration of Blacks escaping the Jim Crow South, three wars, the American Civil Rights Movement, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, as well as the moon landing, Woodstock, Thurgood Marshall and Sandra Day O’Connor integrating the Supreme Court, and the advent of color TV and the internet.While the world was changing so did her life. She won a MacArthur Fellowship, raised her son, Sydney, then suffered his death.
Towards the end of her life Aminah felt fortunate to see the election of the first Black US President, Barack Obama. She would have been overjoyed to witness the appointment of the first Black woman Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.
These life events and more inspired her vast research, writings, and her art.
I enjoy quick forays through the galleries to visit her on the walls of the Columbus Museum of Art. And when I make it to my desk, I greet her to my right, my left, and over my left shoulder and say, “Thank you, Aminah. I am so happy you chose me to do this work to celebrate you.” Yes, I feel special, and we as a museum community feel special and honored to steward the legacy of Aminah Robinson. We do not take it for granted. She entrusted the museum with this responsibility and we have created a way to see it forward, or, as she would say, “Stay on the path.”
Aminah’s writing room.
Aminah carves into her interior entry door in 2002.
To date, residents and fellows include:
Warith Taha, 2024 Artist Resident A.J. Verdelle, 2024 Writer Resident Jana Cardwell, 2024 Artist Fellow Marla McLeod, 2023 Artist Resident Allie Martin, 2023 Writer Resident Beverly Whiteside, 2023 Artist Fellow Anthony Peyton Young, 2022 Artist Resident Darlene Taylor, 2022 Writer Resident Richard Duarte Brown, 2022 Artist Fellow Wendy Kendrick, 2021 Artist Fellow Johnathan Payne, 2021 Artist Resident DonCee Coulter, 2020 Artist Fellow
—Deidre Hamlar Director of the Aminah Robinson Legacy Project
Aminah’s foyer and interior door as it is seen today.
Impact Report FY24
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