This is the second program in the Setting Sail: The Story of the Sea Cloud exhibition lecture series. 

In 1942, Marjorie Post lent the Sea Cloud to the United States Coast Guard, where it served as a weather ship during World War II. Artist Jacob Lawrence was drafted into the US Coast Guard in October 1943 and joined the crew of Sea Cloud at the end of that year. Join us for this lecture by Dr. Kimberli Gant, taking us on the travels Jacob Lawrence experienced after his time on the Sea Cloud!

Curator Dr. Kimberli Gant will discuss her 2022-2023 traveling exhibition Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence & the Mbari Club, which brought together for the first time in over fifty years the complete series of Nigerian views that African American painter Jacob Lawrence did between 1964-65. She puts his work in conversation with his contemporaries from across the African continent and the Global South, whose images were published in the international arts and cultural journal Black Orpheus, produced by the Ibadan-based literary and visual collective the Mbari Club. In addition to presenting the research behind the exhibition, she’ll present a virtual tour of the exhibition, discussing her curatorial narrative. 

Please join Dr. Gant for a book signing immediately following the lecture. Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club is available for purchase from the museum store before and after the lecture.

Photo courtesy of Kimberli Gant. 

HYBRID PROGRAM 

This lecture will be presented in the theater in the Ellen MacNeille Charles Visitor Center and will be livestreamed via Zoom. Visitors can submit questions for the speaker from any location. 

IN-PERSON TIMELINE

5:30–6:30 p.m. | Explore Hillwood

• Enjoy Hillwood’s mansion, gardens,  greenhouse, and exhibition, Setting Sail: The Story of the Sea Cloud, on view in the dacha
• Find the perfect memento from your visit at the museum shop

6:30–7:30 p.m. | Lecture 

7:30 p.m. | Book signing. Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club will be available in the museum shop.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Kimberli Gant is the Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum. She was previously the McKinnon Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA, and has also worked as the Mellon Doctoral Fellow at the Newark Museum, and the Director of Exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA). She has curated numerous exhibitions and gallery reinstallations including Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz & Alicia Keys (2024), Spike Lee: Creative Sources (2023), Journeys Across the Border: US & Mexico (2021), Tuan Andrew Nguyen: The Boat People (2021) and Multiple Modernities (2018).