23 Facts About Beverly Buchanan

Beverly Buchanan was an African-American artist whose works include painting, sculpture, video, and land art.

Beverly Buchanan was born on October 8,1940 in Fuquay, North Carolina to Irene Rogers.

Beverly Buchanan's parents divorced when she was young, and she was sent to live with her great-aunt and uncle, Marion and Walter Buchanan, in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Beverly Buchanan spent a considerable amount of time with her adopted father on his trips where he would work with tenant farmers in the Cotton Belt, advising them in their farming processes.

In 1962, Beverly Buchanan graduated from Bennett College, in Greensboro, North Carolina, a historically black women's college, with a Bachelor of Science degree in medical technology.

Beverly Buchanan went on to attend Columbia University, where she received a master's degree in parasitology in 1968, and a master's degree in public health in 1969.

Beverly Buchanan began creating paintings and sculptures in the 1960s, showing her work at exhibitions and fairs in Staten Island and the Bronx.

Beverly Buchanan bumped into Norman Lewis backstage while trying to get the Bearden poster signed, and Lewis took Beverly Buchanan back stage to meet Bearden.

Beverly Buchanan later wrote a letter to Bearden reminding him of that event and Bearden became her mentor and led her to get involved with the Cinque Gallery.

Beverly Buchanan decided to become a full-time artist in 1977 after Jock Truman, the former director of the Betty Parsons Gallery, exhibited her work at his gallery and encouraged her to leave her public health career.

In 1976 and 1977, Beverly Buchanan drew "black walls" on paper.

Beverly Buchanan "wanted to see what the wall looked like on the other side" and put four walls together in three dimensions.

Beverly Buchanan is best known for her many paintings and sculptures on the "shack", a rudimentary dwelling associated with the poor.

Beverly Buchanan cited Nellie Mae Rowe as an inspiration for her work, particularly her shacks.

Beverly Buchanan is noted to have seen viewers sitting on her stone art piece Unity Stones, but let the men remain seated because she did not mind people sitting on her pieces as they contemplated the work and it represented.

Scholar Alex Campbell notes in an essay how Beverly Buchanan worked in a studio on College Street in Macon, Georgia, which served as an unofficial racial dividing line for the town.

In 1981, Beverly Buchanan created Marsh Ruins, a temporal land art sculpture on the coast of Georgia in Brunswick, near a commentated site known as "The Marshes of Glynn".

Beverly Buchanan completed the piece over the course of two days, funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship.

On July 4,2015, Beverly Buchanan died in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the age of seventy-four.

Beverly Buchanan has been represented by the Andrew Adlin Gallery since 2014, and her work was featured at their booth in the 2017 Independent Art Fair.

Beverly Buchanan's work featured among that of twenty African-American artists in an exhibition at the Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent, UK in February 2020, entitled 'We Will Walk-Art and Resistance in the American South'.

Beverly Buchanan was featured in a 2021 exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and a 2023 show at the Nasher Sculpture Center.

Beverly Buchanan's work is in the collection of the Addison Art Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, Georgia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia.