EVENTS
Reception with Opal Lee and Sedrick Huckaby
July 1, 2023 at 10am
Talley Dunn Gallery
Ms. Opal Lee, “The Grandmother of Juneteenth,” has been devoted to preserving the history and timeline of the Emancipation of slaves for decades. In 2016, at age 90, she walked over 1,400 miles from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington D.C. to bring awareness of the significance of Juneteenth to Congress and convince lawmakers to recognize Juneteenth as a Federal holiday. Lee walked two and a half miles everyday — a mile for each year Black Texans remained enslaved after the Emancipation Proclamation. In 2021 Ms. Opal Lee’s lifelong dream came true, and legislation passed establishing Juneteenth as a Federal holiday.
Talley Dunn Gallery is proud to unveil renowned artist Sedrick Huckaby’s breathtaking portrait of Ms. Opal Lee. Join us in commemorating this historical moment this Saturday, July 1st from 10am – 12pm at Talley Dunn Gallery with remarks by Sedrick Huckaby at 10:30am.
Both natives of Fort Worth, Texas, the internationally acclaimed artist Sedrick Huckaby and the nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize Opal Lee have been close family friends since Huckaby’s childhood. This portrait represents the only painting of Opal Lee to be painted from life. Through countless sittings at the artist’s studio and at Ms. Lee’s home, the portrait painting was created. Join us in celebrating Opal Lee and her connection to Sedrick Huckaby.
About Sedrick Huckaby
Sedrick Huckaby’s paintings, drawings, and sculpture metaphorically express universal themes of faith, family, community, and heritage. Huckaby focuses on the subjects of quilts and portraits in his quest to glorify everyday people. Huckaby states, “I believe my paintings are done in a language more closely in tune with my soul than the language of my tongue.” Huckaby is known for his monumental scale of painting, with his largest painting thus far being his 80 foot long, four-part painting, A Love Supreme, painted over a period of eight years, for which Huckaby was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Huckaby is also the recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, an honorable mention award winner in the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition and a 2019 finalist. Additionally, he is the recipient of a Joan Mitchell foundation grant, Elizabeth Greenshield Award, and was the Texas State Artist for 2018. After earning a BFA at Boston University in 1997, and an MFA from Yale University in 1999, he participated in the Provencetown Fine Arts Work Center residency and traveled the U.S. and Europe studying old master paintings. When he returned to the U.S. Huckaby settled into his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, where he was born in 1975. Since returning home, he has been invited to participate in a number of residencies and fellowships including a Davison Family Fellowship from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Elaine De Kooning House Residency and the Art for Change Residency in New Delhi, India. Huckaby’s work has entered the permanent collections of numerous museums and institutions including the American Embassy in Namibia; Amon Carter Museum of American Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, CT; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is married to artist Letitia Huckaby and is the father of three children, Rising Sun, Halle Lujah and Rhema Rain Huckaby.
