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By Raymond Ward, Chicago Crusader

Chicago’s landmark cultural institution, the DuSable Museum of African American History, will present a very special artist talk, In Conversation with Clifford “Cliff” Joseph, on Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 7:00 p.m.

Noted artist Cliff Joseph’s work is an important visual of the Civil Rights Movement, and has been exhibited in New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as other prominent institutions around the world. As a component of the year-long celebration of Dr. Margaret Burroughs, founder of the DuSable Museum of African American History, the program In Conversation with Clifford “Cliff” Joseph provides the opportunity to discover more about activist artist practices, and the power of social and politically engaged art. As a visual artist and community activist, Joseph like Burroughs, is inspired by social and political movements that address the needs of Black communities.

1In Conversation with Clifford Joseph
“My Country Right or Wrong” painted by Cliff Joseph.

Clifford “Cliff” Joseph is an Afro-Caribbean artist, born in 1927 in Panama, to a Jamaican mother and Antiguan father. Joseph and his family migrated to the United States the following year to Harlem in New York City, where he grew up. As a young adult, formally trained as an artist, Joseph worked in the commercial art sector for some years before realizing that he wanted to pursue a career as an independent artist. Deciding to work for himself, he created a greeting card company geared towards the Black Experience, and began making protest art inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and later the Vietnam War, and began working as an art therapist, then later as an instructor at Pratt Institute. Joseph is a visual artist and community activist who co-authored Murals of the Mind: Image of a Psychiatric Community, in addition to other publications. He was formerly the president of the New York Art Therapy Association and the co-chairman of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition.

In Conversation with Clifford “Cliff” Joseph is free to the public. The event is supported by PNC Bank and for more information on this program please visit www.dusablemuseum.org, or telephone 773-947-0600.

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