Mavis Pusey Receives First Major Museum Survey At ICA Philadelphia
Mavis Pusey resisted pressures to create figurative, overtly socio-political work, remaining committed to abstraction, to the detriment of her career.
July 27, 2025
Female.
Black.
Abstractionist.
Three strikes and you’re out.
Out of art history.
Patriarchy and racism explain the first two. The third strike needs extra context.
In the few occasions when a Black woman broke through art history’s glass ceiling, their work was figurative. Think Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) and Lois Mailou Jones (1905–1998).
African American artists working in the 20th century, and to a smaller extent since–both men and women–were expected by the art establishment–museums, curators, galleries, collectors–to make overtly representational artwork related specifically to the Black experience. Take Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) or Romare Bearden (1911-1988) for example. African American artists who broke through in a big way depicting the Black experience in America using figures. Norman Lewis (1909-1979) was a talented contemporary, a Black man; he painted in an Abstract Expressionist style to only marginal acclaim compared to Lawrence or Bearden or other white AbEx painters despite the high caliber of his work.