Emory Douglas
Emory Douglas was born May 24, 1943 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has been a resident of the Bay Area since 1951. Douglas attended City College of San Francisco where he majored in commercial art. He was politically involved as a member of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, from February 1967 until its discontinuance in the early 1980s. His art was featured in The Black Panther newspaper with full-page illustrations that reflected the rhetoric and ideals of the Black Panther Party. Douglas’s art was also widely circulated and published around the world. His skills as a commercial artist were useful to the Black Panther Party’s development of its printed materials. Douglas’s poster art was pasted on the exterior of many buildings, walls, windows, and telephone polls across the United States.

Sam Durant
Sam Durant is a multi-media artist whose work has been widely exhibited internationally. He has had solo museum exhibitions at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Kunstverein Düsseldorf, the S.M.A.K. in Belgium, and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Zealand. His work has been included in numerous international exhibitions including the Whitney Biennial, La Biennale di Venezia, and the Sydney Biennale. Durant works with Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, Galleria Emi Fontana in Milan, and Blum and Poe in Los Angeles, where he exhibits regularly. His work has been the subject of several monographic catalogs and included in numerous books and publications. He has curated and co-organized a number of exhibitions and artists benefits and is a co-founder of Transforma Projects/New Orleans. His work can be found in many public collections including The Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, Tate Modern in London, Project Row Houses in Houston, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Alden and Mary Kimbrough
Alden and Mary Kimbrough have organized numerous exhibitions of important figures of African American history, including Paul Robeson and Emory Douglas.

Center for the Study of Political Graphics
The Center for the Study of Political Graphics collects, preserves, documents and exhibits posters relating to historical and contemporary movements for social change. With more than 60,000 domestic and international posters dating from 1900 to the present, the archive includes the largest collection of post-World War II human rights and protest posters in the U.S. Through traveling and online exhibitions, lectures, publications, and workshops, CSPG is reclaiming the power of art to inspire people to action.

The Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
For over 40 years, the Southern California Library has collected, preserved, and provided open access to the history of community change in Los Angeles. The Library’s collections span the breadth of social and political movements in Los Angeles over the last century and include thousands of books, periodicals, posters, photographs, audiovisual materials, and archival collections. The Library uses art and cultural expression, programs, and collections, to both document and effect social change.

Exhibition Credits
Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas is organized by MOCA Ahmanson Curatorial Fellow Sam Durant for The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

This presentation is made possible by generous support from Catharine and Jeffrey Soros, Janet and Tom Unterman, the Ahmanson Foundation through the Ahmanson Curatorial Fellowship, and Maura and Mark Resnick.

Major support is provided by Alden and Mary Kimbrough and the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.

89.9 KCRW is the Official Media Sponsor of MOCA.

Web Credits
Concept and design by Bret Nicely, web generalist. Research and editorial assistance by Zachary Kaplan, museum educator, Aandrea Stang, senior education program manager, and Cristin Donahue, writer/editor.