The Gift: Emma Amos with Friends

Tags For: The Gift: Emma Amos With Friends
  • Special Exhibition
Sunday, September 20, 2026–Sunday, January 24, 2027
Location:  230 Photography
Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz Photography Galleries
Free; No Ticket Required

About The Exhibition

Emma Amos (American, 1937–2020) was a groundbreaking artist who worked in paint, print, and textiles to celebrate the lives of women, particularly women of color. The Gift: Emma Amos with Friends centers on Amos’s monumental portrait series The Gift (1990–94), recently acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art. This suite of 48 watercolor portraits, painted from life, depicts women artists, writers, and curators in Amos’s intergenerational community. Ranging from renowned figures—Elizabeth Catlett, Anna Deavere Smith, bell hooks, Lucy Lippard, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Lorna Simpson, and Kay WalkingStick—to lesser-known individuals, the evocative paintings are united in a vast grid whose scale radiates the force of its subjects. “The Gift is not possible to negate,” Amos stated. “Those women are too powerful to ignore.” Made as a birthday present for her daughter India, The Gift animates the importance of creative community as a source of strength, support, and inspiration, which Amos learned from her mother. 

Marking the first time The Gift has been displayed in nearly 20 years, The Gift: Emma Amos with Friends reveals the context for this work’s production and its legacies. Alongside The Gift, earlier portraits by Amos in the CMA’s collection as well as the artist’s own notebooks, manuscripts, and film footage documenting The Gift’s production highlight how kinship—biological and elected—was an enduring motivation for her art. This exhibition also features selected works by Amos to further contextualize The Gift within the artist’s decades-long practice. 

The Gift: Emma Amos with Friends is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue inspired by a book proposal that Amos drafted but never realized during her lifetime. This catalogue includes essays by Carmen Hermo, Key Jo Lee, Emily Liebert, and Gabriella Shypula, as well as a reprinted essay by bell hooks. The intersection of portraiture and community is explored through a roundtable discussion with contemporary artists Jordan Casteel, Aliza Nisenbaum, and Amy Sherald, moderated by Rhea L. Combs. The catalogue also features never-before-published archives, as well as biographies for each of The Gift’s 48 sitters. In tandem, the CMA is expanding the exhibition’s reach through a complementary digital resource rooted in The Gift.

Sponsors

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, the John and Jeanette Walton Exhibition Fund, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson. Major annual support is provided by the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm and the Frankino-Dodero Family Fund for Exhibitions Endowment. Generous annual support is provided by two anonymous donors, Gini and Randy Barbato, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Gail and Bill Calfee, the Leigh H. Carter family, Dr. William A. Chilcote Jr. and Dr. Barbara S. Kaplan, Mary and Jim Conway, Joseph and Susan Corsaro, Ron and Cheryl Davis, Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, Florence Kahane Goodman, Martha H. and Steven M. Hale, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Linda Harper, Robin Heiser, the late Marta and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., the estate of Walter and Jean Kalberer, Jane and Doug Kern, the late Mrs. Nancy M. Lavelle, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Roy Minoff Family Fund, Lu Anne and the late Carl Morrison, Mrs. Peta and the late Dr. Roland Moskowitz, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Sarah Nash, Courtney and Michael Novak, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, Dr. Nicholas and Anne Ogan, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, the Pickering Foundation, Frank and Fran Porter, Christine Fae Powell, Peter and Julie Raskind, Michael and Cindy Resch, Marguerite and James Rigby, in memory of Dee Schafer, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, Elizabeth and Tim Sheeler, Saundra K. Stemen, Paula and Eugene Stevens, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.

    The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

    This exhibition was supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

    logotypes for Cuyahoga arts and culture and the Ohio Arts Council