On Our Cover: Professor Robert L. Douglas
ABOUT THE ARTIST: S peed Art Museum presents Louisville’s c June 30 through October 1, 2023, in the 2nd-floor Chellgren Gallery. The first exhibit of a major new series exploring the groundbreaking artists of the Louisville Art Workshop in the 1960s surveys the 60-year-plus career of the late University of Louisville Professor Emeritus Robert L. Douglas and was planned well before his passing on February 8, 2023, at the age of 88. Dr. Douglas was a master draftsman, painter, and sculptor who educated and influenced generations of students and artists. Over 30 paintings, drawings, and sculptures represent themes of Black art, Pan-African studies, beauty standards, feminine expression, art in everyday life, and examinations and reflections of Louisville’s Black community. Dr. Douglas brought his skills and experience in social work and political organizing to the Louisville Art Workshop where its community-focused approach provided a platform
showcasing the work of artists denied career opportunities in the field, including Douglas himself. (In a 2015 interview, he referred to Louisville as “a home of polite racism.”) Dr. Douglas persevered, built a distinguished career in academia, mainly in the disciplines of Pan-African Studies and Art History, and traveled the world. Born in Louisville on August 2, 1934, and raised in the Smoketown neighborhood, Robert Douglas was the last surviving sibling of his eight brothers and sisters. One of his earliest inspirations was a Preston Street barber who would work on his paintings between customers because, according to Douglas, during that time there was no local art community for Black people. In addition to his artistic legacy, Dr. Douglas leaves behind eight children, sixteen grandchildren, twenty-one great-grandchildren, and Laura Green Douglas, his wife of forty-four years. Written by Dawn Anderson
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