Emma Amos

Painter, printmaker and weaver Emma Amos examined the place of Black women in art and society. Originally from Atlanta, she studied at Antioch College and in London before moving to New York in 1960. She worked with textile designer Dorothy Liebes and became the only woman in the Spiral collective. A long teaching career subsequently accompanied her socially engaged artistic practice.

Her compositions combine intense colours, figures, autobiographical references and African fabrics. These materials question boundaries between painting and textiles as well as cultural hierarchies. In The Gift, made from 1990 to 1994, Amos brought together forty-eight watercolour portraits of women from her creative circle. Individual encounters become a collective image of exchange across generations. Throughout this work, identity, friendship and the power of representation remain closely connected.