2013 Driskell Prize Recipient

Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, PhD

Andrea Barnwell Brownlee PhD

Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, PhD, is widely recognized for her leadership, ambitious vision, and the significant exhibition agenda she established at Spelman College.

The exhibitions Brownlee has curated or co-curated there include iona rozeal brown: a³…black on both sides (2004), Amalia Amaki: Boxes, Buttons, and the Blues (2005), Hale Woodruff, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, and the Academy (2007), Cinema Remixed & Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970 (2007), María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Dreaming of an Island (2008), Undercover: Performing and Transforming Black Female Identities (2009), and IngridMwangiRobertHutter: Constant Triumph (2011).

During spring 2012 Cinema Remixed & Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970, which Brownlee co-curated with Valerie Cassel Oliver, senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston, earned international recognition when it was featured in the 11th Havana Biennial, an achievement marking the first time a curatorial team from the United States was invited to participate in the official program of the Havana Biennial, the longest running international biennial dedicated to presenting works of art from Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

In 2011 Brownlee spearheaded 15 x 15, an initiative to acquire fifteen works of art in celebration of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art’s fifteenth anniversary. An alumna of Spelman College, Brownlee earned her PhD in art history from Duke University in 2001. Also an alumna of the Getty Leadership Institute, Brownlee is a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors. She has served on the boards of several arts organizations, including the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences and the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund, and has recently joined the board of WonderRoot. In 2008 Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin selected Brownlee to serve as vice chair of the City of Atlanta Arts Funding Task Force.

In addition to the Driskell Prize, Brownlee has earned numerous academic, professional, and scholarly awards, including a MacArthur Curatorial Fellowship in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (1998–2000), a Future Women Leadership Award from Art Table (2005), and the President’s Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art (2005). In 2010 Brownlee received the inaugural Nexus Award from the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.



Learn more about the David C. Driskell Prize and other previous winners.