Join us for a celebration of the exhibition Dark Laughter Revisited: The Life and Times of Ollie Harrington. Throughout his career, Oliver “Ollie” Harrington (1912-1995) used his voice and artistic talents as a cartoonist to attack racial, economic and social injustice with razor-sharp wit and insight. Speaking from the perspective of a cartoonist of color, his commentary chronicles many of the events and issues that defined the 20th century, from segregation and apartheid to war and poverty. This retrospective exhibition features work from the private collection of Dr. and Mrs. Walter O. Evans as well as the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum’s Oliver Harrington Collection, acquired from his widow, Dr. Helma Harrington.

Come early to see the exhibition and enjoy refreshments. Light snacks and refreshments will be provided before the program.

5:00-8:00 pm — Explore the exhibition. The museum galleries will be open until 8:00 pm

6:00 pm — Program in the Schulz Lecture Hall

• • Curators Talk: Jenny E. Robb and Dr. Kay Clopton present highlights from the exhibition
  • Talk by Dr. Richard Powell, the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art & Art History at Duke University, and author of Going There: Black Visual Satire (2020)

Going There and other books will be available for sale.

Richard J. Powell (M.F.A., M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.) is the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art & Art History at Duke University. Along with teaching courses in American art and the arts of the African Diaspora, he has written on a range of topics, including such titles as Homecoming: The Art and Life of William H. Johnson (1991), Black Art: A Cultural History (1997, 2002, 2021), Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture (2008), and Going There: Black Visual Satire (2020). Powell has also organized numerous art exhibitions, most notably Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance (1997), To Conserve A Legacy: American Art at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (1999), Back to Black: Art, Cinema, and the Racial Imaginary (2005), and Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist (2014). From 2007 until 2010, Powell was Editor-in-Chief of The Art Bulletin, the world’s leading English language journal in art history.

Art by Ollie Harrington. Bootsie, June 29, 1963. Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Walter O. Evans. © Estate of Oliver W. Harrington. “Here Brother Bootsie, take this extra hammer I got here in case the gentlemens of the law decides that this demonstration is TOO Peaceful!”