The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 18, 2024

I am Black, I am Black, I am Dangerously Black

I am Black, I am Black, I am Dangerously Black

1973
(American, b. 1939)
etching and aquatint with chine collé on Arches wove paper
Platemark: 30.1 x 43 cm (11 7/8 x 16 15/16 in.); Sheet: 56.5 x 76 cm (22 1/4 x 29 15/16 in.)
Alma and Robert D. Milne Fund 2022.96
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Camille Billops was one of many artists who worked with master printer Robert Blackburn in his New York print shop. She trained there with artist Romare Bearden the year this print was made.

Description

This print is one of many works in which Camille Billops explored the experiences and intersections of Blackness and womanhood. A nude woman appears in an imaginary landscape, evoking the long tradition of this subject throughout art history, but with a geometricized style meant to reference artworks encountered during the artist's travels throughout Africa several years before. Its title suggests Billops’s frustration with power struggles encountered while negotiating a place within the New York art world of the 1960s and '70s.
  • 1969-2019
    Studio of the artist
    2019–22
    Estate of the artist
    2022
    (Ryan/Lee Gallery, New York, NY), sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    September 12, 2022-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 19, 2023-April 14, 2024).
  • {{cite web|title=I am Black, I am Black, I am Dangerously Black|url=false|author=Camille Billops|year=1973|access-date=18 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2022.96