36 Facts About Howardena Pindell

Howardena Pindell was born on April 14,1943 and is an American artist, curator, critic, and educator.

Howardena Pindell is known as a painter and mixed media artist who uses a wide variety of techniques and materials.

Howardena Pindell began her long arts career working with the New York Museum of Modern Art, while making work at night.

Howardena Pindell's work explores texture, color, structures, and the process of making art; it is often political, addressing the intersecting issues of racism, feminism, violence, slavery, and exploitation.

Howardena Pindell has created abstract paintings, collages, "video drawings," and "process art" and has exhibited around the world.

Howardena Pindell was born on April 14,1943, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was raised in the neighborhood of Germantown.

Howardena Pindell's parents were Mildred and Howard Douglas Pindell; she was an only child.

Howardena Pindell graduated from the Philadelphia High School for Girls, where she acted and designed scenes for the school's stage play.

Howardena Pindell received her BFA degree in 1965 from Boston University, and her MFA degree in 1967 from Yale University.

In 1967, Pindell began working in the Arts Education Department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

In 1969, Howardena Pindell gained recognition for her participation in the exhibition American Drawing Biennial XXIII at the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, and by 1972, had her first major exhibition at Spelman College in Atlanta.

Howardena Pindell concluded her professional experience with the MoMA, by 1979.

At the first meeting, held on March 17,1972, Howardena Pindell suggested naming the gallery the "Eyre Gallery" after the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Howardena Pindell's seminars included "Current American and Black American Art: A Historical Survey" at the Madras College of Arts and Crafts in India, in 1975, and "Black Artists, USA" at the Academy of Art in Oslo, Norway, in 1976.

Howardena Pindell is currently a professor of art at Stony Brook University, where she has taught since 1979.

Howardena Pindell was visiting professor in the Art department of Yale University, from 1995 to 1999.

Howardena Pindell is notable for releasing several articles criticizing diversity of representation within the visual art industry.

Howardena Pindell argued that the lack of female artists was a product of economic and cultural pressures that make female artistic presence a rarity in the nation.

In 1988, Howardena Pindell documented the racial makeup of artist representations in New York City.

The lawsuit sought the return of more than 20 artworks, with Howardena Pindell alleging untimely payments and nondisclosed information about artwork purchases during nine solo shows at N'Namdi Galleries- between 1987 and 2006.

Howardena Pindell has cited discrimination against Black artists as a contributing factor to fiduciary manipulation, joining Al Herbert and Herbert Gentry as a group of artists who have expressed difficulties working with the N'Namdi family.

From working with dots, Howardena Pindell began making use of the scrap circles of oak tag paper that resulted from the production of her pointillist works.

The late 1940s to early 1950s were muses, as Howardena Pindell drew inspiration from a root beer bottle she remembered from a childhood trip while with her parents in Ohio.

Howardena Pindell began work on her "Video Drawings" series in 1983.

At the advice of her doctor, Howardena Pindell bought a television for her studio to encourage her from working long hours on her dot works.

Howardena Pindell became interested in the artificial light from her television monitor, and began to write out small numerals on acetate, which she stuck to the TV screen.

Howardena Pindell then photographed her drawings placed over the monitor.

Howardena Pindell became fascinated by African sculpture exhibited at MoMA and in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and began to mirror the practice of encoding and accumulation in her own work.

Howardena Pindell likened this experience of viewing her paintings to whitewashing her own identity to make it more palatable for the art world.

In 1979, Howardena Pindell was in a traumatic car accident, from which she suffered severe memory loss.

Howardena Pindell's painting Autobiography, used Pindell's own body as the focal point.

Howardena Pindell started collaging postcards from friends and from her own travels into her work.

Howardena Pindell became increasingly aware that she had often been selected for exhibition as a token black among a group of other artists.

Howardena Pindell's work was included in the 2021 exhibition Women in Abstraction at the Centre Pompidou.

Howardena Pindell has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in painting in 1987, the Most Distinguished Body of Work or Performance Award, granted by the College Art Association in 1990, the Studio Museum of Harlem Artist Award, the Distinguished Contribution to the Profession Award from the Women's Caucus for Art in 1996, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and a United States Artists fellowship in 2020.

Howardena Pindell holds honorary doctorates from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and Parsons The New School for Design.