Jun 20, 2024, 6 PM – 8 PM

Opening Reception: Frank Walter: To Capture a Soul and Josh Smith: Life Drawing

Join us to celebrate the exhibitions Frank Walter: To Capture a Soul and Josh Smith: Life Drawing.

The opening reception is free and open to the public. Registration is not needed for entry.

Frank Walter: To Capture a Soul will be the first solo museum exhibition in the United States to focus on the work of Antiguan artist Frank Walter (1926–2009). A polymath with a keen intellect and thirst for knowledge, Walter created a body of work that encompasses a variety of mediums, subject matter, and styles. During his lifetime Walter produced over 5,000 paintings, 1,000 drawings, 600 sculptures, 2,000 photographs, 468 hours of recordings, and a 50,000-page archive. Organized by The Drawing Center’s Chief Curator Claire Gilman, To Capture a Soul will provide insight into not only Walter’s artistic practice but also his relationship to issues of race and identity, the legacy of slavery, the colonial and postcolonial experience, and the history and politics of Antigua, Barbuda, and beyond.

On the occasion of Frank Walter: To Capture a Soul, The Drawing Center will also present Josh Smith: Life Drawing, the first exhibition of drawings by acclaimed contemporary artist Josh Smith. Josh Smith: Life Drawing will be the artist’s homage to Antiguan artist Frank Walter, a testament to a shared commitment to approaching their subjects with honesty, curiosity and humble dedication. The exhibition will include approximately thirty drawings by Smith that span the artist’s career. Known for his vibrant paintings and prints ranging from abstractions to subjects such as leaves, fish, birds, “Grim Reapers”, and palm trees, Smith has also been making simple pen and pencil sketches of these subjects for more than two decades.

Claire Gilman
Josh Smith

Josh Smith (b. 1976 Okinawa, Japan) is a New York-based artist who works with painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, printmaking, and artist’s books. He first became known in the early 2000s for a series of canvases depicting his own name, a motif that allowed him to experiment freely with abstraction, figuration, and the expressive possibilities of painting. His work has since given way to varied imagery including grim reapers, leaves, fish, streetscapes, and palm trees that the artist has explored in series. Smith’s work engages in a celebratory and prolific project of experimentation and refinement—upending the conventions of painting while simultaneously commanding a deep awareness of its history.
Frank Walter

Frank Walter was born Francis Archibald Wentworth Walter on Horsford Hill, Antigua. A descendant of enslaved persons and plantation owners and burdened with the distinction of being the first person of color to be a manager of a sugar plantation on the island of Antigua, Walter struggled with his identity and place in the world. He was torn between his Black Caribbean ancestry and his Northern Europe heritage, embarking on a tour of Europe and the UK between 1953 and 1961 in search of his familial roots. Unprepared for the racism he experienced, he returned to Antigua where he worked as a photographer, frame maker, and artist before designing and building a home, art studio, and garden in a remote location on Bailey’s Hill in Antigua in 1993. There he took refuge, depicting the fertile landscape and the people he encountered as well as envisioning and rendering imagined universes.