- Ph.D., Yale University 1988
- M.Phil., Yale University 1984
- M.A., Yale University 1982
- M.F.A., Howard University 1977
- B.A., Morehouse College 1975
Richard J. Powell is John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art & Art History at Duke University, where he has taught since 1989. He studied at Morehouse College and Howard University before earning his doctorate in art history at Yale University. Along with teaching courses in American art, the arts of the African Diaspora, and contemporary visual studies, he has written extensively on topics ranging from primitivism to postmodernism, including such titles as Homecoming: The Art and Life of William H. Johnson (1991), Black Art: A Cultural History (1997 & 2002), and Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture (2008).
Current Appointments & Affiliations
- John Spencer Bassett Distinguished Professor of Art and Art History, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1999
- Professor of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1998
- Co-Director, From Slavery to Freedom Lab, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, University Institutes and Centers 2018
- Professor in the Department of African and African American Studies, African & African American Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2014
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Powell, R. J. Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture. University of Chicago Press, 2008.
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Powell, R. J. Circle Dance: The Art of John T. Scott. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2005.
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Powell, R. J. Beauford Delaney: The Color Yellow. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, 2002.
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Powell, R. J. Black Art: A Cultural History. London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd., 2002.
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Powell, R. J. To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999.
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Powell, R. J. Jacob Lawrence. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1992.
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Powell, R. J. Homecoming: The Art and Life of William H. Johnson. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991.
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Powell, R. J. From the Potomac to the Anacostia: Art and Ideology in the Washington Area. Washington, DC: Washington Project for the Arts, 1989.
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Powell, R. J. James Lesesne Wells: Sixty Years in Art. Washington, DC: Washington Project for the Arts, 1986.
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Powell, R. J. Rhapsodies in Black: The Art of the Harlem Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press, n.d.
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Powell, Richard J. Going There Black Visual Satire (Accepted). Richard D. Cohen Lectures on A, 2020.
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Powell, Richard. Archibald Motley Jazz Age Modernist, 2015.
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Powell, Richard J. African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond. Washington, DC: Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2012.
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Powell, Richard J. Ras Ishi/Secret Diaries. Miller Publishing Company, Ltd., 2009.
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Powell, Richard J. Who Am I in This Picture? Amherst College Portraits. Amherst College, 2009.