Harlem on My Mind
Artist
Reynold Ruffins
United States, 1930 - 2021
Date1969
Dimensions22 1/2 x 16 in. (57.2 x 40.6 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.6632
DescriptionIn response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the tension in the civil rights movement, the Metropolitan Museum of Art formed a partnership with leaders from Harlem’s Black community to present an exhibition that celebrated the neighborhood’s “achievements and contribution into American life and to the City.” The exhibition was highly controversial, with many contributors removing their work in outrage over the exclusion of important Black artists. By the time the show opened, the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition had been formed to protest the museum’s blatant disregard for the opinions of the community advisors they had originally consulted. Reynold Ruffing's poster reflects the final version of the show, which focused on photographic reproductions of important Black figures rather than on art by Black designers. While Ruffins’s lettering was also used on signage for a multi-part symposium at the Met, the design of the exhibition catalog was granted to Herb Lubalin and Ernie Smith. The book was ultimately pulled from shelves under threat by Mayor Lindsay of withholding funding as he found its essays to contain anti-Semitic, anti-Irish, anti-Puerto Rican, and other racist language.On View
Not on view
