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Bill Cosby To Loan His Art Collection To Smithsonian's African Art Museum

September 15, 2014 | In the Press

From dcist.com (http://dcist.com/2014/09/bill_cosby_to_loan_his_art_collecti.php)

Ahead of its upcoming 50th anniversary, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art is about to get a huge loan of never-before-seen artwork.

According to the museum, legendary comedian, actor, Ben's Chili Bowl enthusiast, and supernatural father Bill Cosby, along with his wife, Camille, will loan their private collection of African American art to the museum for a new exhibition.

Bill and Camille's collection, which is "one of the world's preeminent private collections of African American art," will be on display for its first public viewing beginning November 9, and will remain in the museum until 2016. The exhibition, called "Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue,” combines the Cosby's collection with some other pieces in the museum's collection, as part of the museum's 50th anniversary.

With the Cosby's collection, the Museum of African Art will add a number of important, rare works by noted artists such as Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Beauford Delaney, Loïs Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Keith Morrison, Faith Ringgold, Augusta Savage, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and Alma Thomas. Though the Cosby's collection contains more than 300 items, the Museum will only showcase selected pieces. All except for one piece has never been seen publicly or loaned to any museum.

In a statement, museum director Johnnetta Betsch Cole said that "the exhibition will encourage all of us to draw from the creativity that is Africa, to recognize the shared history that inextricably links Africa and the African diaspora and to seek the common threads that weave our stories together and over time as part of the human family.”

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