To the East

Join curator Cory Lee Stowers and public historian and cultural preservationist Kimberly Springle for a conversation about To The East: The Rise of Murals East of the River, on view at Phillips@THEARC. 

Over the past 20 years the popularization of public murals has changed the landscape of major cities and rural neighborhoods on a global scale. To the East is a retrospective exhibition curated by Cory Lee Stowers, Executive Director of DC Murals, that dives into the roots and purpose of the movement. The exhibition presents 40 photographs that feature the work of the artists who created the earliest documented murals on the east side of Washington, DC. To the East draws from the extensive archives of DC Murals, Anacostia Community Museum, and DC Public Library. Personal stories from DC-based artists who played a critical role in bringing large-scale public murals into Wards 7 and 8 during the 1970s-90s highlights the group of creative culture workers who sought to use their gifts of artistry to uplift their community.

To the East is accompanied by a book of the same name by Stowers that presents one of the first distinct timelines to the origins of the contemporary public mural movement in the US. Set against the backdrop of early 1900’s DC and the formation of the Howard University Art Department, the story follows art and culture scholars Alain LeRoy Locke and James V. Herring who shaped Black identity in the arts from the 1920s-50s. During the following decades, heightened by the arrival of pioneering mural painter and activist Jeff Donaldson at Howard in 1970, Black figurative art began spilling out of galleries and community art workshops onto the streets of urban America in the form of public murals. To the East reveals important context to the purpose and practice of mural-making in Washington, DC, and beyond.