Felrath Hines (19131993), the first African American man to become a professional conservator for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, was born and raised in the segregated Midwest. Leaving their home in the South, Hines's parents migrated to Indianapolis with hopes for a better life. While growing up, Hines was encouraged by his seamstress mother to pursue his early passion for art by taking Saturday classes at Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis. He moved to Chicago in 1937, where he attended the Art Institute of Chicago in pursuit of his dreams.

The Life and Art of Felrath Hines: From Dark to Lightchronicles the life of this exceptional artist who overcame numerous obstacles throughout his career and refused to be pigeonholed because of his race. Author Rachel Berenson Perry tracks Hines's determination and success as a contemporary artist on his own terms. She explores Hines's life in New York City in the 1950s and 60s, where he created a close friendship with jazz musician Billy Strayhorn and participated in the African American Spiral Group of New York and the equal rights movement. Hines's relationship with Georgia O'Keeffe, as her private paintings restorer, and a lifetime of creating increasingly esteemed Modernist artwork, all tell the story of one man's remarkable journey in 20th-century America.

Featuring exquisite color photographs,The Life and Art of Felrath Hinesexplores the artist's life, work, and significance as an artist and as an art conservator.

Floyd Coleman is coauthor ofBasic Design: Systems, Elements, Applications (Prentice Hall, 1984) and contributing author toWalls of Heritage Walls of Pride: African American Murals(Pomegranate, 2000). He is also professor emeritus, Department of Art, Howard University, Washington, DC

Jennifer McComas, PhD, is the curator of European and American Art at the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, Bloomington. A scholar of modern art, she is the author of the exhibition catalogPioneers and Exiles: German Expressionism at the Indiana University Art Museum(IU Art Museum, 2012) and a contributor to the anthologyRe-envisioning the Contemporary Art Canon: Perspectives in a Global World(Routledge, 2017).

Julie L. McGee is associate professor of black American studies and art history, and associate director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center at the University of Delaware. She has written and lectured extensively on African American art and contemporary art in South Africa, and has curated exhibitions for the David C. Driskell Center, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Maine, the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey and Guga S'Thebe Community Arts Centre in Langa (Cape Town), South Africa. With Vuyile C. Voyiya, McGee coproduced the documentary filmThe Luggage is Still Labeled: Blackness in South African Art. In 201112 she held the Dorothy Kayser Hohenberg Chair of Excellence in Art History at the University of Memphis.

Foreword

Acknowledgments

A Sense of Wonderment: The Abstract Paintings of Felrath Hines by Jennifer McComas

1. Pivotal Decision: New York City, 1946-1959

2. Back to Beginning: Indianapolis, 1913-1937

3. Getting the Spark: Chicago, 1937-1946

4. Becoming a Conservator: New York City, 1960-1965

5. Spiral and "Black Art": New York City, 1965-1971

6. Coming into His Own: Chief Conservator and Working Artist, Washington, D.C., 1972-1980

7. Full Time Painter: Washington, D.C., 1980-1993

8. Life After Death: 1993-2017

Epilogue: Perspectives on Felrath Hines by Floyd Coleman with Julie L. McGee

Plates

Appendix 1: Chronology

Appendix 2: Felrath Hines CV

Index