Acrylic on linen canvas, 1978. 1016x1016 mm; 40x40 inches.
Provenance: private collection, Springfield, MA, acquired directly from artist (1978); thence by descent, private collection, NJ.
Stevens told the painting owners that in this work, he painted the inspiration of Nina Simone and her spirit, rather than her portrait. It is part of his representation of the concept of uhuru; the word means "freedom" in Swahili. Stevens first used the title in the 1971 work Uhuru (see lot 103) to signal the collective AfriCOBRA's Afrocentric identity and politically conscious purpose. Nina Simone also was outspoken in her call for freedom and justice - she said famously "I'll tell you what freedom is to me. No fear!" The great singer and songwriter was also a great Civil Rights activist who spoke out against racism and social and political injustice throughout the 1960s and 70s.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Nelson Stevens received his BFA in painting from Ohio University in Athens, OH. He then received a MFA in 1969 from Kent State University in Kent, OH. After brief teaching stints in Cleveland, Stevens was hired as Assistant Professor of Art at Northern Illinois University where he taught from 1969 to 1971. It was at this time that Stevens was invited to join the newly formed art collective AfriCOBRA - the group was founded by Chicago artists Jeff Donaldson, Jae Jarrell, Wadsworth Jarrell, Barbara Jones-Hogu, and Gerald Williams. His work was featured in every AfriCOBRA exhibition since AfriCOBRA II at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1971. Stevens' work was included in exhibitions at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Fisk University Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Cleveland Museum of Art, and others. Well known indoor and outdoor murals by Stevens include installations at the United Community Construction Workers Labor Temple in Roxbury, MA (1973) and at Tuskegee University's administration building (1979-80).
His teaching career continued in 1972 at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he was first an associate professor and then Professor of Art in the Departments of Art and African American Studies. He remained there until his retirement. His artwork was also included in the important traveling museum exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power organized by the Tate Modern, London. Works by Nelson Stevens are in many institutional collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Smithsonian Institution.
