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Emma Amos, an acclaimed figurative artist whose high-color paintings of women flying or falling through space were charged with racial and feminist politics, died at the age of 83, on May 20, 2020 at her home in Bedford, N.H.  Although long recognized as an important figure in contemporary American art, and frequently exhibited, Ms. Amos gained mainstream museum notice only within the past few years. In 2017, she was featured in two important surveys: “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power,” organized by the Tate Modern in London, and “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85,” which originated at the Brooklyn Museum. In 2018, she appeared in “Histórias Afro-Atlânticas” at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and the Tomie Ohtake Institute in São Paulo, Brazil.  A career retrospective, “Emma Amos: Color Odyssey,” is scheduled to open at the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, Ga., in 2021, and travel to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, N.Y. Her work is in collections of several American museums. In 2004, she was given a lifetime achievement award by the Women’s Caucus for Art.  Amos taught for over 20 years at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey University.  (This bio is based on an article in the NY Times written by Holland Cotter in May, 2020.)

EMMA AMOS

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