Nell Painter

Nell Painter (the painter formerly known as the historian Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People, Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol, and Creating Black Americans and the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, Princeton University) lives and works in Newark, New Jersey. My work carries discursive as well as visual meaning, and I make it in my characteristic manual + digital process. My art conveys visual sense but visual sense not only. Using found images and digital manipulation; I reconfigure the past and revision myself through self-portraits. My work, therefore, carries meaning that isn’t stable, for the viewer makes meaning as well as the artist. After a life of historical truth and political engagement with American society, my artwork represents freedom.

Solo Shows

• Eye Speak, Lederer Lockhart Bridge Galleries, SUNY-Geneseo, September-October 2016
• There! WBGO Gallery, Newark, NJ, April-June 2016
• Activate Market Street, Newark, NJ, October-November 2015
• Art History Dog Fight: Recent Paintings by Nell Painter, San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, San Angelo, Texas, February-April 2015
• 
She Said, She Said, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, NY, June 2014-January 2015
• Four Eyes on Place, Gallery Aferro, Newark, NJ, April-May 2013

Group Shows

• Back Story, Studio Montclair, Montclair, NJ, May-August 2016
• Occupy Art Show@ Newark Open Doors, Newark Arts Council, Newark, NJ, October 2015
• Emerge 11, Aljira Gallery, Newark, NJ, September-December 2014
• In Site, Paul Robeson Gallery, Rutgers-Newark, June-July 2014
• Datascapes, Paul Robeson Gallery, Rutgers-Newark, January-April 2014
• 
Right Here Right Now, Paul Robeson Gallery, Rutgers-Newark, June-July 2013
• 
Call & Re-Call: An Exhibition of Artists Made Books, Yema Gallery, Orange, NJ, May-June 2013
• 
Art Connections 9, Segal Gallery, Montclair State University, January-February 2013
• 
Newark Art, Newark Artists, Newark Public Library, Newark, NJ, January-March 2013
• Books for Art’s Sake, Dana Library, Rutgers-Newark, NJ, May-June 2012
• Through You Into Action, Aferro Gallery, Newark, NJ, May-June 2012
• Celebrating Five Years of the Gallery Aferro Studio Residency, Center for Contemporary Art, Bedminister, NJ, April-May 2012
• 
Small Crowd, Mixed Greens Gallery, Chelsea, NYC, June-July 2011

Public Collections

• Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
• National Museum of African American History and Culture
• Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Yale University
• Robert B. Has Family Arts Library, Yale University
• 
William J. Dane Fine Print Collection, Newark Public Library
• W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University

Bibliography

• Alexandra Hill, The Art of Nell Painter, The Art of Nell Painter-Full Interview, WBGO, May 2016
• One on One with Steve Adubato, NJTV, March 2016
• Essay by Nell Painter, “I Might be Next,” NJ State of the Arts TV, December 2015
• “Historian and Artist, Nell Painter,” Dime and Honey art blog, November 5, 2015
• Blumenbach Symposium, Gottingen, Germany, 04 2015
• Lisa Intrabartola, “Mother of Reinvention Alum Nell Irvin Painter reflects on her late-in-life transition from academia to the art studio,” Mason Gross School of the Arts Spring 2015 Magazine, 2015: 12-13
• “Nell Painter on Beauford”: Les Amis de Beauford Delaney,” November 2014
• Dan Bischoff, “Art Review: Preserving Memories,” Star-Ledger, 28 October 2014: 26
• NJ State of the Arts visits the Emerge 11 exhibition and studios of Emerge Fellows, 24 October 2014
• 
Jorge Rojas, I put this moment…Here. E11: Aljira Emerge Eleven, Newark, NJ, 2014
• Jacqueline Trescott, “Both Sides Now, Historian and Artist. Nell Painter Bridges Her Two Passions,” International Review of African American Art Plus, May 2014
• 
Anonda Bell, Datascapes, Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University-Newark, 2014
• 
Jill P. Capuzzo, “Paintings by Painter,” Rutgers Magazine, Fall 2013, 25-26
• “What’s It Like to Leave Scholarship for Painting?” Perspectives on
 History: Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association, May 2013.
• “Top 10 NYC Artists Now,” Revolt Magazine
• 
Zahra Johnson, “Newark, Nell; Nell, Newark: An Artist to Remember and Support (Photos)” Examiner.com 1 March 2013
• Zahra, “My Conversation With Legendary Historian & Artist Nell Painter: A Must Read Interview For Black Women” Madame Noire, 28 February 2013
• 

“A Historian Bids Farewell to Her Past,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 February 2013
• 
Through You Into Action, 2012 RISD MFA Painting 2011, 2011
• 
“Nell Irvin Painter/Professor of History, Princeton,” Big Think, 2010
• Wesley Brown, “Nell Irvin Painter,” Artists and Influence, James V. Hatch et al, eds. XXVI, 2007: 163-180

Artist Residencies

• 
MacDowell Colony, Peterboro, NH, November-December 2016
• Ucross Foundation, Ucross, Wyoming, October 2016
• Aljira Emerge 11 (professional development for visual artists by Creative Capital), Newark, NJ, February-April 2013
• 
Artist in residence, Newark Public Library, December 2012- January 2013
• Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY, October 2012
• Artist-and-scholar in residence, Yale University Department of African American Studies, January-June, 2012
• Artist residency, Aferro Gallery, Newark, NJ, August 2011-August 2012
• Fulbright scholar in Edinburgh and Newcastle Universities, UK, October 2011
• 
Virtual Artist in Residence of the Creative Research Center of Montclair State University, 2009 –present

Education

• Rhode Island School of Design, MFA painting, 2011
• Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, BFA painting, 2009
• Harvard University, Ph.D., American history, 1974
• 
University of California, Berkeley, B.S., Anthropology, 1964

Selected Honors

• Fulbright Scholar, United Kingdom, October 2011
• Centennial Award, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2011
• Honorary Doctorate, Metropolitan University, New York, 2010
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow, 2008
• 
Honorary Doctor of letters, Yale University, 2003
• 
Honorary Doctor of Letters, SUNY – New Paltz, 1998
• 
Honorary Doctorate of Letters, Dartmouth College, 1997
• 
Honorary Doctor of Letters, Wesleyan University, 1996
• 
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 1992-1993
• 
Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society, 1991
• 1989 Alumnus/a of the Year, Black Alumni of the University of California, Berkeley
• 
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences Fellow, 1988-1989
• Candace Award, National Coalition of One Hundred Black Women, 1986
• Graduate Society Medal, Radcliffe College Alumnae, 1984
• 
Guggenheim Fellow, 1982-1983

Authored Books

• 
The History of White People, New York: W. W. Norton, 2010. Japanese edition, 2011
• Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006
• Southern History Across the Color Line, Chapel Hill: University of North  Carolina Press, 2002
• Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol, New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
 Korean edition, 2005
• 
Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919, New York, W. W. Norton, 1987, 2nd ed., 2008
• 
The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
 1979
• Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction, New York:
 Alfred A. Knopf, 1976

Edited Books

• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, New York: Penguin Classic edition, 2000
• Narrative of Sojourner Truth, New York: Penguin Classic edition, 1998

Employment

• Princeton University, Professor of History, 1988-1991; Edwards
  • Professor of American History, 1991-2005
  • Director, Program in African American Studies, 1997-2000
  • Edwards Professor of
 American History, Emerita, 2005- present
• 
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Professor of History,
 1980-1988
• 
University of Pennsylvania, Assistant and Associate Professor of
  History, 1974-1980