JOSEPH HOLSTON is an American artist, painter and printmaker, whose fine arts career spans more than 50 years. His media include oil painting, etching, silk screen, and collage.
Holston has a long and distinguished exhibition record, and has received critical acclaim for his paintings and etchings. His work is included in numerous private and public collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum; The Phillips Collection; the Baltimore Museum of Art; the U. S. Federal Reserve Fine Art Collection; the Library of Congress Fine Print Collection; the Honolulu Art Museum; the Yale University Art Gallery; the DuSable Museum of African American History; the Butler Institute of American Art; the Georgia Museum of Art; the Museum of Art of the Rhode Island School of Design; the Amarillo Museum of Art; the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York; the University of Maryland University College; the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland; the Lyndon B. Johnson Library at the University of Texas; and Howard University, among others.
Holston’s painting "The Elder", and his etching "Charity", were included in the 2021 exhibition "Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century," celebrating the centennial of The Phillips Collection, America's first museum of modern art. His visual narrative “Color in Freedom: Journey along the Underground Railroad,” completed in 2008, consists of 50 paintings, etchings and drawings. It has toured nationally and internationally, including an exhibition at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. The eighteen etchings from “Color in Freedom” are included in the collection of the Library of Congress. “Color in Freedom: Journey along the Underground Railroad” is also the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Holston’s work was also included in two additional traveling exhibitions: “African American Art since 1950,” and “Convergence: Jazz, Films and the Visual Arts,” organized by the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland. The screen print of his painting “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” commemorating the dedication of the Martin Luther King National Memorial in Washington, D. C., is in the collections of the Library of Congress and the Federal Reserve Board.
“His work celebrates life in all its phases….And while one can see influences of European and modern masters in Holston’s oeuvre, his art is wholly autographic. In other words, when one sees a Holston one knows it’s a Holston.” —Lisa Hodermarsky, The Sutphin Family Senior Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (2011)
For additional biographical information: Joseph Holston on Wikipedia