Nelson Stevens (American, 1938-2022), an artist and educator, is renowned for creating powerful, rhythmic compositions that celebrate Black life and reveal his technical mastery of the figure. His works can be found in private collections and public museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

This remarkable exhibition, spanning more than 50 years of the artist’s career, explores the political, cultural, and socioeconomic messages in Stevens’s art and style of painting. An early member of AfriCOBRA (the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), and a professor at Northern Illinois University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Stevens spent decades alongside leading intellectuals of the Black Arts and Black Power movements. His experiences contributed to a legacy of vivid works that amplify African American culture and achievements.

From 1972 through 2003, while teaching at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Stevens lived in Springfield. In the early 1970s, he initiated a groundbreaking public art project that resulted in the creation of over 30 murals throughout the city. Like Stevens’s colorful paintings, the murals promoted Black empowerment and brought the pride and activism associated with the Black Arts Movement to western Massachusetts. Fifty years later, his message, artwork, and influence continue to be celebrated locally and nationally.