Philadelphia Museum of Art Custom Prints
The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure
Special Exhibition

The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure

This exhibition features 28 Black and African diasporic contemporary artists who use figurative painting, drawing and sculpture to illuminate and celebrate the nuance and richness of Black contemporary life.

Curated by British writer and curator Ekow Eshun, The Time Is Always Now takes its title from an essay on desegregation by American writer and social rights activist James Baldwin. It highlights a sense of urgency around contemporary artistic expression, while acting as a reminder that Black artists exist within an always-evolving artistic lineage.

Traveling to the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the National Portrait Gallery in London, The Time Is Always Now is on view at the museum November 9, 2024–February 9, 2025.

ORDER EXHIBITION POSTERS
Henry Ossawa Tanner, Portrait of the Artist's Mother, 1897
Henry Ossawa Tanner
Horace Pippin, The Park Bench (Man on a Bench), 1946
Horace Pippin
Annie E. Pettway, Flying Geese Variation Quilt, c. 1935
Annie E. Pettway
Claude Monet, Poplars, End of Autumn, 1891
Impressionism
Utagawa Hiroshige I, Motoyanagi Bridge and the Ekoin at Ryogoku, 1857
Japanese Woodblock Prints
Kay Sage Tanguy, Unicorns Came Down to the Sea, 1948
Surrealism

Collection Highlights

Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation, 1898
Tanner
The Annunciation
Claude Monet, Japanese Footbridge and the Water Lily Pool, Giverny, 1899
Monet
Japanese Footbridge
Henri Matisse, Yellow Odalisque, 1937
Matisse
Yellow Odalisque
Horace Pippin, The Getaway, 1939
Pippin
The Getaway
Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888 or 1889
van Gogh
Sunflowers
Dorothea Tanning, Birthday, 1942
Tanning
Birthday
Vasily Kandinsky, Circles in a Circle, 1923
Kandinsky
Circles in a Circle
Eduard Charlemont, The Moorish Chief, 1878
Charlemont
The Moorish Chief
Georgia O'Keeffe, From the Lake No. 3, 1924
O'Keeffe
From the Lake No. 3