RYAN LEE is pleased to present a solo presentation of Vivian Browne’s (1929-1993) landmark abstract Africa paintings at Art Basel Miami Beach. This is her first presentation at Art Basel Miami Beach. Made following an influential trip to Nigeria in 1971, the paintings represent an unexplored chapter in the history of 20th century Black abstraction. Browne’s paintings were not widely exhibited during her lifetime, but today, her Africa series paintings have been the subject of renewed curatorial attention. Included in the gallery’s presentation in Miami will be three paintings not seen by the public since 1972, when they were exhibited at Ornette Coleman’s famed Artist House in Soho. Browne’s first museum retrospective is currently being co-organized by the Phillips Collection, DC and the Contemporary Arts Center, OH. This show is slated to open in 2025.

Browne was a founding member of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition and the Where We At womanist collective as well as an active member of the Heresies Collective and SOHO20 Gallery. Her life and career reflects her decades-long struggle to bridge the gap between civil right and feminist spaces. She became known for her culturally critical portraits and abstract work: as an artist, she was driven by content over form, and over three decades her work spanned many interests and impulses. Throughout her career in New York, Browne was closely associated with artists and activists such as Benny Andrews, Ana Mendieta, Lucy Lippard, Lowery Sims, May Stevens, Howardena Pindell, Sylvia Sleigh, Jacob Lawrence, Faith Ringgold, Emma Amos, Romare Bearden, and Norman Lewis, whom she credits as being an important influence on her work.

The Africa series was the subject of a solo exhibition at RYAN LEE Gallery in 2022, which was accompanied by a fully illustrated exhibition catalogue with an essay by Dr. Leslie King Hammond. Hammond cites Vivian Browne’s Africa Series as an important example of the overlooked nature of Black American artists’ vast contributions to the development and establishment of modernist American aesthetics. This particular chapter in African American art history has recently been the subject of renewed curatorial interest: in the last year alone, Browne’s Africa series has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University, Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery at Stony Brook University, Karma Gallery, New York, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her work was featured prominently in the Museum of Modern Art’s recent exhibition, Just Above Midtown: Changing Space, curated by Thomas (T.) Lax. Browne was part of the original roster of artists represented by Linda Goode Bryant. An abstract Africa series painting by Browne was also included last spring in the group exhibition So let us all be citizens too at David Zwirner London, curated by Ebony Haynes.