New Publication from Alumnus Michael Bramwell

MFA alumnus Michael Bramwell, Joyce Linde Curator of Folk and Self-Taught Art at the MFA Boston, contributed scholarship to Unnamed Figures: Black Presence and Absence in the Early American North, the catalog accompanying an American Folk Art Museum exhibition that will be on view from November 15, 2023 to March 24, 2024. As a corrective to histories that define slavery and anti-Black racism as a largely Southern issue, this exhibition and catalog offer a new window onto Black representation in a region that is often overlooked in narratives of early African American history. The 300-page publication draws on years of research and archival work and contextualizes the exhibition as well as expanding upon its themes, including how Black representations may have been further marginalized or misconstrued by collectors of early American art and material culture.