How David C. Driskell’s Painting, Collecting, and Curating Helped Preserve Black Art History

“Two Centuries of Black American Art: 1750–1955,” David C. Driskell’s 1976 survey of more than 200 years of Black art in the U.S., is now considered a landmark exhibition. But when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art began searching for someone to submit a proposal for it, its success wasn’t assured. As Driskell recounted in a 2009 oral history, LACMA’s largely white board approached him last, and the museum’s trustees had qualms about the exhibition, w