2017
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2013
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Lonnie Holley is an internationally renowned artist and performer whose three decade long career has encompassed drawing, painting, sculpture, and music. Holley’s paintings and found-object sculptures and environments are made of both natural and manmade elements. The densely constructed pieces reference current events and African American History and like his musical lyrics, refer to slavery, the church and universal ecology. Holley’s work is included in numerous museum collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and the High Museum of Art, among others. He is represented by Blum and Edel Asanti in London.

Newsletters

Born 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama.
Lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024
Lonnie Holley, Camden Art Centre, London, UK

2023
The Eyes Were Always On Us, UTA Artist Space, Atlanta, GA
Lonnie Holley, UT Downtown Gallery, Knoxville, TN
If You Really Knew, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, North Miami, FL

2022
Coming From the Earth, Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, TX
The Growth of Communication, Edel Assanti Gallery, London, UK

2021
The Influence of Images, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR
Tangled Up in de Kooning’s Fence, South Etna, Montauk, NY
Everything That Wasn’t White, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY

2019
Somewhere in a Dream I Got Lost, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC

2017
The Weight of Everything, James Fuentes, New York, NY
Lonnie Holley: I Snuck Off the Slave Ship, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA
Lonnie Holley: Which Do We Drop First, the Baby or the Bomb? James Fuentes, New York, NY

2015
Something to Take My Place, Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, College of Charleston, South Carolina

2013
Keeping You Out of Harms Way, James Fuentes, New York, NY

2004
Lonnie Holley: A Twenty-Five Year Survey, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
Do We Think Too Much? I Donʼt Think We Can Ever Stop, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK

2003
Lonnie Holley: Perspectives 8, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL

1994
Sculpture, Luise Ross Gallery, New York, NY

1991
Cultural Recycling: The Work of Lonnie Holley, Gasperi Gallery, New Orleans, LA

1986
Birmingham Public Library, Birmingham, AL

1984
Little House Galleries, Birmingham, AL

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024
Shifting Landscapes, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

2023
Zurich Biennial, Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland
Intimate Confession Is a Project, Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, TX
By Any Means Necessary, Curated by Lonnie Holley, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA
RE-PAIR, Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art, Knoxvillle Museum of Art, Knoxwille, TN, US
Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers: Black Artists from the American South, Royal Academy of Arts, London
Deep Horizons, Middlesbrough Institute of Art, Middlesbrough

2022
Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art, curated by Dr. Leo Mazow, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
At The Rose House: Green River Project LLC and Object & Thing, Ridgewood, NJ
Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
The Relevance of Your Data, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ
The Art of Assemblage, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Living Legacies: Art of the African American South, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH

2021
Trauma and Loss, Reflection and Hope: Selections from the Collection, curated by Alison Amick, Intuit, Chicago, IL

2020
Forms of Life, Morán Morán, Los Angeles, CA

2019
Cosmologies from the Tree Of Life: Art from the African American South, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
Straighten Up the World, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL
Souls Grown Deep: Artists of the African American South, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
In the Hot Seat, KMAC Museum, Louisville, KY

2018
History Refused to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (Upcoming)
Outliers and American Vanguard Art, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

2017
Strange Attractors: the Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Art Vol.1 Life on Earth, Curated by Bob Nickas, Redling Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
Thumbs Up for the Mother Ship (Lonnie Holley and Dawn DeDeaux), MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA
Revelations: Art from the African American South, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (de Young Museum), San Francisco, CA
Animal Farm, The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, CT

2016
Post Black Folk Art in America, 1930-1980-2016, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago, IL

2015
When the Curtain Never Comes Down, The American Folk Museum, New York, NY
Counterpoise, Kingsgate Gallery, London UK

2014
The Body Metonymic, Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester, Michigan
When the Stars Begin to Fall: Imagination and the American South, Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, New York
Prospect 2 Biennial, New Orleans, Los Angeles

2013
Come Together: Surviving Sandy, Industry City, Brooklyn, New York

2012
Pitch, Lonnie Holley, Fabienne Lasserre, Halsey Rodman, Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York,
New York

2006
Mary Lee Bendolph, Geeʼs Bend Quilts and Beyond, Austin Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

2005
Coming Home: Self-Taught Artists, the Bible and the American South, American Bible Museum, New York, New York
The Whole World is Rotten: Free Radicals and the Gold Coast Slave Castles of Paa Joe, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, New York

2004
Dopes, Dupes, and Demagogues: Viewed by Outsiders, Luise Ross Gallery, New York, New York
Gathering, The Dalton Gallery, Agnes Scott College, Atlanta, Georgia

2003
Recycled / Remade: Contemporary Folk Art from the Collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama

2002
Testimony: Vernacular Art of the African-American South – Selections from the Collection of Ronald and June Shelp, AXA Gallery, New York, New York
Street Savvy, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Jamaica, New York

2001
Singular Visions, University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, Virginia
WET!, Luise Ross Gallery, New York, New York

2000
Four Outsider Artists: Holley, Mr. Imagination, Norbert Kox, Charlie Lucas Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Ogun Meets Vulcan: Birminghamʼs African American Men of Metal, Ruth Hall Hodges Art Gallery, Morris Brown University, Atlanta, Georgia

1999
Uncommon Bonds: Expressing African-American Identity, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware

1998
Winter Group, Luise Ross Gallery, New York, New York
Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas (Traveled to: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

1997
Material Dialogues – Contemporary Arts: The New Jersey Context, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey
Bearing Witness: African-American Vernacular Art of the South, Schomburg Center, New York, New York
Drawing on the Spiritof 9: Drawings and Paintings on Paper by Contemporary African-American Self-Taught Artists, Atrium Gallery, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut
Obsession With Line, Archer Locke Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia
Bill Traylor and Thornton Dial, Minnie Evans, Lonnie Holley, Louis Monza, Luise Ross Gallery, New York, New York
Tragic Wake: The Legacy of Slavery and the African Diaspora in Contemporary American Art, Spirit Square Center, Charlotte, North Carolina
Let It Shine: Self-Taught Art from the T. Marshall Hahn Collection, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
Souls Grown Deep, Emory University, Michael C. Carlos Museum, Atlanta, Georgia

1995
Civil Rights Now, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), Winston- Salem, North Carolina
Contemporary Folk Art: A View from the Outside, Nathan D. Rosen Museum Gallery, Boca Raton, Florida
Dust Tracks on a Road: Four Southern Artists, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia

1994
Outsider Art by Southern Folks, Hunterdon Art Center, Clinton, New Jersey

1993
ASHE: Improvisation and Recycling in African-American Visionary Art, Diggs Gallery at Winston Salem State University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Figurines, Luise Ross Gallery, New York, New York
Passionate Visions of the American South: Self-Taught Artists from 1940 to the Present, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana
Collectorʼs Show, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, Arizona
Dream Singers, Storytellers: An African-American Presence, Fukui Fine Arts Museum, Fukui, Japan
Not By Luck: Self-Taught Artists in the American South, Hunterdon Art Center, Clinton, New Jersey
Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars: Death, Reverence, and the Struggle for Equality in America, Betty Rymer Gallery at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

1992
Give Me A Louder Word Up: African American Art, Metropolitan State College Center for the Visual Arts, Denver, Colorado
Montgomery Biennial, Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, Alabama

1991
The Legacy of Africa in the New World, Waterloo Museum of Art, Waterloo, IA 1990 The Next Generation: The Southern Black Aesthetic, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Another Face of the Diamond: Pathways Through the Black Atlantic South, INTAR Latin American Gallery, New York, New York
Southern Outsider art II, American Primitive, New York, New York

1989
The Figure Redefined, Primitivo, San Francisco, California
Art from the African Diaspora, Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, New Jersey
Outside the Mainstream: Folk Art in Our Time, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia

1987
Voices in the Wilderness, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama
The Bloodline, Howard University, Washington, DC

1981
More than Land and Sky: Art from Appalachia, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS
2014
Rauschenberg Residency, Captiva, FL

2006
Joan Mitchell Fellowship, New York, NY

Lonnie Holley

Newsletters

Lonnie Holley

Black in the Midst of the Red, White and Blue

Lonnie Holley

Born Into Colors

Lonnie Holley

From the Lines of the Brain

Lonnie Holley

It Starts with the Blood and Ends with the Water

Lonnie Holley

My Three Mothers (Mama, Mother Earth and Mother Universe)

Lonnie Holley

Coming Out of the Redwoods

Lonnie Holley

Pieces

Lonnie Holley

So About the Solar

Lonnie Holley

Obstacles Before the Goal II

Lonnie Holley

Our Journey

Lonnie Holley

The Things of Life (to See or Not to See)

Lonnie Holley

The Music Lives

Lonnie Holley

After Spears and Spheres