Beverly Buchanan
Today we honor Beverly Buchanan (1940-2015) an African-American artist whose works include painting, sculpture, video, and land art. Buchanan is regarded for her exploration of Southern vernacular architecture in her highly unorthodox and abstract art.
Though she was born in North Carolina, Buchanan grew up in South Carolina and earned several university degrees in the sciences before beginning her professional career in New York as a healthcare educator. In 1971 — about two years after that — she enrolled at the Art Students’ League in Manhattan, where she studied with Norman Lewis (1909-1979), a Black abstract-expressionist painter. From that time on, Buchanan devoted her time to making art.
Beverly Buchanan, Untitled (Double Portrait of Artist with Frustula Sculpture), n.d., Black-and-white photograph with original paint marks, 8 ½ x 11 in, © Estate of Beverly Buchanan.
In 1962, Buchanan graduated from Bennett College, a historically black women's college in Greensboro, North Carolina. Beverly received a bachelor of science degree in medical technology. She then attended Columbia University in New York City, where she earned a master's degree in parasitology in 1968 and a master's degree in public health in 1969. Although she was accepted to a medical school and everyone around her was expecting a successful career as a doctor, Buchanan decided not to pursue such a vocation to dedicate more time to her art, which always took a back seat compared to her medical studies.
In 1971, Beverly Buchanan enrolled in a class taught by Norman Lewis at the Art Students League in New York City. She chose to become a full-time artist in 1977 after exhibiting her work in a show at Betty Parsons Gallery that featured young and upcoming American talents. In the same year, Buchanan moved to Macon, Georgia. Her move to Georgia marked her initial successes as an artist.
Beverly Buchanan with poet Alice Lovelace (b. 1948), 1990. Unpublished handmade book of ink and crayon drawings with watercolor and collage typewritten text, 11 x 8 ½ in. Pivate Collection. © Estate of Beverly Buchanan, courtesy of Jane Bridges.
She became renowned worldwide for her paintings and sculptures of the Shack, a rudimentary dwelling associated with the poor. The artist would use shacks as
“images of endurance and personal history, often using bright colors and a style of childlike simplicity, representing the faith and caring not reserved for privileged classes.”
Her art takes the form of stone pedestals, bric-a-brac assemblages, funny poems, self-portraits, and sculptural shacks. Buchanan’s potent themes of identity, place, and collective memory unite the works uncovering the animus that runs through them. She sought to connect with those around her and reckon with the history that shaped her communities:
"… a lot of my pieces have the word 'ruins' in their titles because I think that tells you this object has been through a lot and survived—that's the idea behind the sculptures… it's like, 'Here I am; I'm still here!"
Beverly Buchanan. Old Colored School, 2010. Wood and paint, 20 ¼ x 14 ¾ x 18 ½ in. © Estate of Beverly Buchanan, courtesy of Jane Bridges.
On July 4, 2015, Buchanan died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the age of seventy-four.