24 Facts About Roland Ayers

Roland Ayers was an African American watercolorist and printmaker.

Alice and Lorenzo Roland Ayers gave their son some paper and other materials, and he'd sit for hours and draw.

Roland Ayers drew war planes and jets, and copied the comics.

Roland Ayers graduated from Germantown High School, joined the Army and spent two years in Germany as a cook.

Roland Ayers worked at the Philadelphia Recreation Department as a playground supervisor and sometimes designed for the department.

Roland Ayers occasionally sold some of his works but could not entirely make a living at it.

The experience was a form of meditation and Roland Ayers became a follower of self-awareness teacher Jiddhu Krishnamurti.

In 1960, Roland Ayers opened an art gallery called Waverly Gallery and Workshop in Philadelphia with two other Black artists.

Roland Ayers was a regular at galleries owned by Socrates Perakis in 1963.

Roland Ayers was identified as one of 16 members of the gallery, whose name was eventually changed to the Socrates Perakis Gallery.

Roland Ayers showed watercolors and drawings at the Socrates Perakis Gallery again in the summer and fall of 1968.

Roland Ayers was one of three dozen local artists represented, including Ellen Powell Tiberino.

The aim of "Blackness USA-1973" at the New York Cultural Center was to show off 43 of the country's most talented Black artists, and Roland Ayers was among them.

In 1973, Roland Ayers donated artwork for a worthy cause: the SICKLE-SALETHON sponsored by the Black Caucus of Eastern Airlines at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Roland Ayers was one of 24 artists and private collectors who donated works for this fundraising exhibit and sale.

Roland Ayers exhibited in homes, the most public of which was at the Pennsylvania governor's mansion in 1981.

Roland Ayers participated in a group show at the Woodmere Art Gallery in 1977 that included a retrospective of his pen-and-ink drawings over a 10-year period.

Roland Ayers produced a drawing of Robeson in his many careers: as a football player at Rutgers University, as Othello on stage and as a peace and social activist.

Roland Ayers was represented in a 2015 group exhibition at the Woodmere.

Roland Ayers designed a commemorative poster titled "Originating," again printed at the Brandywine.

Roland Ayers was manager of the Free Library of Philadelphia's used bookstore when he was included in a library exhibit titled "Prints of Black Artists of the Delaware Valley" in 1992.

Roland Ayers was director of the Allens Lane Art Center in 1985 where he taught classes.

Roland Ayers taught at his alma mater, the Philadelphia College of Art.

Roland Ayers's work was featured in the 2015 exhibition We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s at the Woodmere Art Museum.