Emma Amos (American, 1937-2020)
Take the Plunge, 1987
Monotype, 14 5/8 x 18 in.
Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art, St. Petersburg College, gift of James G. Sweeny in memory of Martha M. Sweeny, 2020.4.1
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1937, Emma Amos was a painter, printmaker, weaver and educator whose bold figurative work challenged inequality in both art and society. She earned Bachelor’s degrees from Antioch University, in Ohio, and the London Central School of Art, where she received a diploma in etching in 1959. While pursuing a Master of Arts degree at New York University, she joined Letterio Calapai and Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshops and was the only female member of Spiral, a collective formed out of the WPA of prominent African American artists that included Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis and Hale Woodruff.
From the 1960s to the 70s, Amos was a designer/weaver in the textile industry and cohosted Show of Hands, a crafts television show in Boston. She taught textile design at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, was a Professor at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University from 1980-2008 and served on the Board of Governors of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the National Academy Museum. Amos’ work is collected by the Museum of Modern Art, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, among others.
As a young African American woman artist in the early 1960s New York art scene, Amos persevered against racism, sexism, and ageism. Amos’ work has helped to redefine the representation of African American women and culture in contemporary art. In the 1980s, she was involved in the feminist groups Heresies and Fantastic Women in the Arts. Taking the Plunge is part of a body of work depicting African American women as heroic figures and as everyday women at leisure, including swimming. Working with master printer Kathy Caraccio, Amos developed monotypes that reflected the same mixed-media elements as her paintings.
Emma Amos Website