Alvin C. Hollingsworth: And All That Jazz

And All That Jazz brings together never-before-seen paintings, prints, and illustrations recently donated to the Museum by Marjorie Hollingsworth Mitchell, as well as loans from local collectors. Themes that run through Hollingsworth’s long and influential career include his fascination with jazz, his celebration of Black women, and his origins in illustration.

Hollingsworth had a noteworthy start as a comic-book artist during the Golden Age of Comics in the 1940s and 1950s before turning to other mediums. His subsequent paintings retained some of these graphic elements while also branching out into figurative expressionism and abstraction. Hollingsworth was a member of the influential Spiral artist collective during the civil rights era of the 1960s. He and other members of the collective, such as Romare Bearden and Richard Mayhew, questioned African American artists’ obligation to engage artistically in political activism as opposed to pure aesthetics. This formative experience led to a lifelong interest in social concerns and gave him the freedom to explore different styles.

A committed educator, Hollingsworth taught at the Art Students League, through a 1970s TV show You’re Part of Art on NBC, and for thirty years at Hostos Community College as a professor of art. Born in Harlem, he lived in Hastings-on-Hudson until his death in 2000, though he continued to maintain a studio in Lower Manhattan. This museum exhibition, the first in over fifty years, presents an intimate look into a slice of Hollingsworth’s prodigious career through sixteen paintings, prints, comics, and related ephemera.

And All That Jazz is curated by Shilpi Chandra, Assistant Curator at the Hudson River Museum.

Exhibitions are made possible by assistance provided by the County of Westchester.

Special thanks to Marjorie Hollingsworth Mitchell and the Hollingsworth Family.