In 2023, Dr. Walter and Linda Evans donated a transformational gift of 28 significant works by African American artists to Telfair Museums. The museum is proud to organize an exciting new installation in the former dining room at the Telfair Academy that centers on this collection. It tells stories about the challenges that seminal figures like Robert Seldon Duncanson (1821–1872) and Nelson A. Primus (1842–1916) faced as artists of African descent working in the 19th century. It considers artists’ mobility in the 20th century, from moving from the American South during the Great Migration to finding different hubs of artistic activity in cities through the Northeast and Midwest. Additionally, the installation looks at Telfair’s historic relationship with African American artists through the work of key figures in Savannah like Virginia Jackson Kiah (1911–2011) and Phillip Jewell Hampton (1922–2016), who created spaces for African American artists to exhibit their work and eventually, in 1959, persuaded Telfair to do the same.

The Walter and Linda Evans Gallery of African American Art is an exciting and important addition to the Telfair Academy’s telling of the history of art during the 19th and 20th centuries through works in the permanent collection, as well as a very important lens through which to view African American contributions to art and culture more specifically in the Southeast and Savannah.