Daniel Minter
Daniel Minter is an American artist known for his work in the mediums of painting and assemblage. His overall body of work often deals with themes of displacement and diaspora, ordinary/extraordinary blackness; spirituality in the Afro-Atlantic world; and the (re)creation of meanings of home. Minter works in varied media – canvas, wood, metal, paper. twine, rocks, nails, paint. This cross-fertilization strongly informs his artistic sensibility. His carvings become assemblages. His paintings are often sculptural.
Minter’s work has been featured in numerous institutions and galleries including the Portland Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, The Charles H. Wright Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Bates College, University of Southern Maine, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, The David C. Driskell Center and the Northwest African American Art Museum. A travel grant from the National Endowment for the Arts enabled him to live and work in Salvador, Bahia Brazil where he established relationships that have continued to nurture his life and work in important ways.
Minter has illustrated over a dozen children’s books, including Going Down Home with Daddy which won a 2020 Caldecott Honor and Ellen’s Broom which won a Coretta Scott King Illustration Honor; Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story, winner of a Best Book Award from the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio; and The Riches of Oseola McCarty, named an Honor Book by the Carter G. Woodson Awards. Minter served on a team of artists commissioned by the City of Seattle Parks Department to create a water park in an urban Seattle neighborhood. He was also commissioned in both 2004 and 2011 to create Kwanzaa stamps for the U.S. Postal Service.
As founding director of Maine Freedom Trails, he has helped highlight the history of the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement in New England. For the past 15 years Minter has raised awareness of the forced removal in 1912 of an interracial community on Maine’s Malaga Island. His formative work on the subject of Malaga emerges from Minter’s active engagement with the island, its descendants, archeologists, anthropologists and scholars. This dedication to righting history was pivotal in having the island designated a public preserve. In 2019, Minter co-founded Indigo Arts Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to cultivating the artistic development of people of African descent. Minter is a graduate of the Art Institute of Atlanta and holds an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from The Maine College of Art.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 “States of ?”, Greenhut Gallery, Portland, ME
2019 “Othered: Displaced from Malaga”, Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2018 “Othered: Displaced from Malaga”, University of Southern Maine Art Gallery, Gorham, ME
2017 “A Distant Holla”, Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2017 “CARVING”, Northwest African American Museum, Seattle, Washington
2015 “Water Road”, Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana
2014 “The Art of Daniel Minter”, Reed Fine Art Gallery, University of Maine, Presque Isle
2012 “A Shallow Home”, Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana
2011 “A Heavy Grace, A Shallow Home”, Hammonds House Museum, Atlanta, Georgia
2010 “Beyond the Waves”, The BackStage Gallery at Deertrees, Harrison, Maine
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2020 “Stories of Maine, Incomplete History”, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
2020 “Queen”, The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI
2019 “New Aquisitions Exhibition”, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
2019 “Framing Maine: Artist’s Perspectives on Place.” University of Maine, Orono
2018 Portland Museum of Art Biennial, Portland, ME
2018 “Our Voice: Celebrating the Coretta Scott King Awards”, NCCIL, Traveling Exhibit
2017 Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
2017 “A Distant Holla”, Abyssinian Meeting House, Portland, ME
2016 8th Biennial Invitational Portland Show, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
2014 7th Biennial Invitational Portland Show, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
2013 “Go Figure” Show, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
2012 “The Material Calls”, The Hedreen Gallery, Seattle, WA
2012 6th Biennial Invitational Portland Show, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
2010 “Painters, Players & Poets” Traveling exhibit, Maine, Canada
PERMANENT COLLECTIONS | PUBLIC ART
Northwest African American Museum, Seattle, WA
Portland Museum of Art, Portland Maine
The David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of the African Diaspora, University of Maryland
2011 Kwanzaa Stamp, United States Postal Service
Malaga Island Freedom Trail, Maine
Portland Freedom Trail, Portland, ME
“Mothers Garden”, Portland, ME
Art That Heals, Seattle Art Museum
Poets Way, Boulder, CO
GRANTS + AWARDS
2020 Caldecott Honor
2019 Recipient Honorary Doctorate of Arts, Maine College of Art
2018 University of Southern Maine Artist In Residence
2016 Residency, Hewnoaks Artist Colony, Maine
2013 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor, Ellen’s Broom
2011 Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, Artist Exchange Project
2010 Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Artist-in-Residence, Sapelo Island, Georgia
TEACHING
Maine College of Art, Portland, ME, 2008 to Present, Adjunct Professor
Colby College/Lunder Institute, Spring 2020, African American Studies Dept. Visiting Artist Instructor
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Spring and Summer 2019 and 2020, Printmaking, Collage, Painting Workshop Instructor
MonsonArts, Summer 2019 Printmaking Artist Residency Instructor
Williams College, Fall 2019, “Ancestors, Art and Black Ritual Diasporas”, a public conversation and workshop
DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, IL
LECTURES | PANELS | ARTICLES
Lunder Institute for American Art: Daniel Minter announced as Visiting Artist in Spring 2020
Lunder Institute for American Art: Guest Speaker Panelist with Theaster Gates, “On Land”
University of Southern Maine Art Department and Galleries, Exhibition Catalogue: Othered: Displaced from Malaga (with multiple essays)
Cove St. Arts, Portland Maine: Daniel Minter and Henry Drewal Othered: Displaced from Malaga The Art of Daniel Minter
Greenhut Galleries, Portland Maine: David Driskell and Daniel Minter In Conversation moderated by Henry Drewal
Maine College of Art Commencement Address
Maine College of Art, Making Migration Visible: Traces, Tracks & Pathways, Panel Discussion 2018
TEDX, Fish and Brooms: Art, Personal Icons and Human Connection
Womankind Magazine, UK Edition: Healing Past Wounds Issue #019
Hyperallergic.com: Coming to Terms with Tradegy Though Art, by Carl Little December 1, 2018
The Boston Globe: Old and New Meet at the Portland Museum of Art Biennial
Black Art in America: Daniel Minter’s “A Distant Holla” Plumbs Richness of African American Life
The Take, New England’s New Culture Magazine: Making Art, Building Connections by Debbie Kane
