Benny Andrews

Benny Andrews (1930, 2006) was an African American painter and printmaker known for his figurative works that combined oil paint with collaged fabric and mixed media to depict the struggles and dignity of rural Black life, poverty, and social injustice. Born in Madison, Georgia, into a sharecropping family, his deeply personal work drew from his Southern upbringing and was infused with a raw, expressive humanity. Andrews was also a prominent arts activist who co-founded the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition in 1969 to advocate for greater representation of Black artists in major institutions.