At the Hammonds House Museum the past is celebrated, the present is shown and the foundation of its future is clearly laid out, says Kevin Sipp.
A longtime curator at the museum, Sipp brought his keen eye back for Foundations and Futures, the definitive exhibit celebrating the museum’s 35th anniversary. It will be on view at the museum October 20 through December 17.
The 35th anniversary celebration will continue with “The Gathering” weekend: a silent auction and benefit concert featuring The Baylor Project at 7 p.m. November 3 at the Ray Charles Performing Arts Center at Morehouse College; and “A Celebration of Artists,” a recognition of every artist who has exhibited at the museum at 6 p.m. November 4 at Atlanta Central Library.
Joining Sipp as curators of Foundations and Futures are Ed Spriggs, the museum’s founding director from 1988 until 2004, and his son Abiose Spriggs.
The exhibit charts the museum’s lifespan, showcasing works by legacy artists such as Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett and Lois Mailou Jones which are in its extensive 450-piece permanent collection. The exhibit will also explore new visual arts directions in the African diaspora.
After the 1985 death of Dr. Otis Thrash Hammond, physician and avid art collector, Ed Spriggs’ vision to preserve his art treasure birthed the Hammonds House Museum.
“Our vision was hard fought,” says Ed Spriggs, 88, who was director of the Studio Museum of Harlem for many years before coming to Atlanta. “We had a strong Black arts community, but we needed something permanent” to showcase and support them.
Sipp began as a Hammonds House resident artist in 1995 and was named curator in 2003. He remembers hanging out with college friends, meeting international artists, and enjoying Sunday afternoons when the likes of Amiri Baraka would recite poetry on the back porch.
“Young artists got the chance to see legends of the Black Arts movement at this small institution in the West End,” Sipp says. “Those kinds of experiences were the foundations” of the museum for the community.
The “Transitions” portion of the exhibition highlights former resident artists, including Sipp, Radcliffe Bailey and Amalia Amaki who became friends under the Hammonds House roof. With each new resident artist came new groups of fellow artists, art lovers and supporters.
“It became a place where young artists were nurtured as well as an exhibition space for master artists who weren’t being shown around Atlanta,” Sipp says.
While the 1990s and early 2000s were a thriving era for Hammonds House and sister organizations like the National Black Arts Festival, many Black artists were still left out of the mainstream art institutions in Atlanta.
“But we had relationships with the artists and we knew what we were capable of,” Ed Spriggs says. “We were able to attract people who had national reputations and we had a level of programming that fit in with what was going on around the country. Hammonds House became a staple in Atlanta and we didn’t have to depend on places like the High (Museum of Art) or Emory.”
Hammonds House has maintained its place in Atlanta’s arts and culture offerings with that level of inclusion and interaction. That sticks with the artists who have worked there.
“I remember going through the museum’s permanent collection for the first time and I was blown away at the range,” said Tracy Murrell, who was curator for six years. “Seeing how those artists were telling our story still influences me when I’m creating my artwork.”
As artists like Murrell and Bailey continue to soar, they make room to support newcomers like Andrea McKenzie, Lola Okunola and David Alston who are represented in the “Futures” portion of the exhibit.
That focus on emerging artists will carry the legacy organization into its next 35 years, Sipp says. “The survival of institutions like Hammonds House is in the hands of new generations.”
Such longevity doesn’t come easy, says Managing Director Donna Watts-Nunn. The museum has been through various phases over the years: decreases in public arts funding overall – although Fulton County Arts Council’s substantial boost of $200,000 to the museum in 2021 was up from the previous year’s $70,000 – changing interests among younger folks, unforeseen challenges like the pandemic shutdown, and a shakeup in artistic and curatorial leadership with the board’s sudden firing of executive director and chief curator Karen Comer Lowe in 2022, followed by a brief closure for restructuring.
“Through all of that, we’ve never stopped moving,” Watts-Nunn says. This is a transitional period, she adds, particularly with staff capacity. The museum leadership wants to get to a place where more people can be hired and each role can be fully attended to. When people look back at this moment in the life of Hammonds House, it will represent a turning point, Watts-Nunn says. “We’ve started the 5-year plan to make sure everything is covered so we can operate in the fullness of a 35-year-old institution.”
Abiose Spriggs sees Hammonds House as a still vital institution and he hopes young people will bring in fresh ideas while staying grounded in community and heritage.
“It’s an institution that my father spent half of my lifetime building, so not only does it hold a personal and sentimental value to me, but I also have grown to understand its importance in Atlanta’s art community,” he says. “Under the right guidance it can be a beacon for Black visual artists across the United States, much like the Studio Museum in Harlem, but in the Black mecca of the South.”
From the museum’s tried-and-true offerings, to new ventures such as outreach to younger audiences through its HBCU Night Kickback, the passion for supporting all artists has remained unchanged.
“We do great work here and it’s an intergenerational community effort,” Watts-Nunn says. “Hammonds House represents a lot of firsts for many artists who are now quite prominent. We’re proud of that. We’ll always be a welcoming place for artists.”
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Angela Oliver is a proud native of old Atlanta who grew up in the West End. A West Kentucky University journalism and Black studies grad, daily news survivor and member of Delta Sigma Theta, she works in the grassroots nonprofit world while daydreaming about seeing her scripts come alive on the big screen.
