Skip to Main Content

 Admission is always freeOpen today: 10:00  to 5:00  Directions             Play Artle            

                  -  Visit                      - Visit
                    - Getting Here
                    - Accessibility
                    - Tours, Guides & Maps
                    - Food & Drink
                    - Gallery Shops
                    - Visitor Policies 
                  -  Collection                      - Collection
                    - Highlights
                    - Search the Collection
                    - Artists Search
                    - Acquisition Highlights
                    - Stories
                    - Games 
                  -  Exhibitions                      - Exhibitions
                    - Current
                    - Special Installations
                    - Upcoming
                    - On Tour
                    - Past 
                  -  Calendar                      - Calendar
                    - Films
                    - Performances
                    - Talks
                    - Guided Tours
                    - After Hours
                    - Fun for Kids
                    - Festivals
                    - Workshops 
                  -  Learn                      - Learn
                    - Teachers
                    - Families
                    - Teens
                    - Adults
                    - Learning Resources
                    - Music Programs
                    - Film Programs 
                  -  Conservation                      - Conservation
                    - Projects
                    - Publications
                    - Resources 
                  -  Research                      - Research
                    - The Center
                    - Publications
                    - Make an Appointment
                    - Archives
                    - Library
                    - NGA Online Editions 
                  -  Support                      - Support
                    - Donate Now
                    - National Membership
                    - Circle Membership
                    - Leadership Groups
                    - Planned Giving
                    - Major Giving
                    - Gifts of Art 
                  -  Shop                      - Shop
                    - Books
                    - Jewelry
                    - Apparel & Accessories
                    - Kids
                    - NGA Custom Prints 
                  -  Play Artle

Home>National Gallery of Art Communications Office>Acquisitions Announcements>Acquisitions: 2023>Simone Leigh Sculpture Acquired by National Gallery of Art

August 03, 2023

# Simone Leigh Sculpture Acquired by National Gallery of Art

Proposed installation of Simone Leigh’s *Sentinel* (2022) in the National Gallery of Art’s East Building Atrium. Visualization courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

**Acquisition Press Release**

Acquisition Announcement****

Order Press Images

Artist Spotlight:*Simone Leigh: Acts of Transformation*

**Press Contact**Laurie Tylecphone: (202) 842-6355e-mail: [email protected]

Washington, DC—The National Gallery of Art has acquired *Sentinel* (2022) by Simone Leigh (b. 1967), the first work by the artist to enter the collection. *Sentinel* is a new edition of the sculpture from the US pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, where Leigh was the first Black woman artist to represent the United States in the exhibition’s 127-year history. Her work was also included in the Biennale’s central exhibition, *The Milk of Dreams*, for which she was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Participant. The sculpture will be installed in the East Building atrium in September 2023.The acquisition was made possible through a gift of funds from the Glenstone Foundation.“We are thrilled to bring this exceptional work by one of America’s greatest living artists into the collection of the National Gallery of Art. *Sentinel* will stand tall in the East Building’s spacious atrium, a commanding contemporary presence among other monumental works of sculpture by Alexander Calder, Anthony Caro, Isamu Noguchi, and Richard Serra,” said Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, Washington.Leigh has created a multifaceted body of work that includes sculpture, video, and installations. She describes her work as auto-ethnographic, in which she examines assumptions about the female body, race, beauty, and community. She incorporates materials, forms, and sculptural traditions from West and South Africa to explore Black female-identified subjectivity. Leigh’s work also refers to early African American forms, such as the face jugs of the American South, as well as Americana. Her salt-glazed ceramic and bronze sculptures often employ forms traditionally associated with African art, while her performance-influenced installations create spaces in which historical precedent mixes with self-determination.***Sentinel* (2022)**More than 16 feet tall, *Sentinel* towers over the viewer, suggesting a lookout or guard who keeps watch over the world around it. Leigh has created her own formal vocabulary that involves the abstraction of the female body, often representing it as an architecture, as seen in the scale and columnar form of *Sentinel*. The bronze sculpture creates a long elegant black line, from its fused legs to its attenuated neck. It also features Leigh’s signature formal devices of the faceless figure and vessel-like head. The horizontally placed bowl on top of the figure recalls histories of labor and consumption of the body, while the erasure or elimination of the face suggests the historic anonymity and obscurity of Black women and femmes as well as their withholding of self as a form of protection and self-preservation. *Sentinel* recalls the influence of African forms in modern art, as its abstracted figure also suggests a *nkisi* or African power figure believed to contain divine energy and knowledge.****

**Simone Leigh (b. 1967)**

Leigh was born in 1967 in Chicago and received a BA from Earlham College in 1990. Leigh’s monumental sculpture *Brick House* was the first artist commission for the High Line Plinth in New York. She received the prestigious Hugo Boss Prize in 2018 and has had solo exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum, Hammer Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem in Marcus Garvey Park, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (with Chitra Ganesh), New Museum, Creative Time, and The Kitchen. She has been included in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, New Museum, MoMA PS1, and Dak’Art 11th Biennale of Contemporary African Art. Her work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago, ICA/Boston, among others.**Diamonstein-Spielvogel Lecture: Simone Leigh in Conversation**On August 6 at 2:00 p.m., the Gallery will present a film screening and conversation with artist Simone Leigh and Yasmina Price, PhD candidate in the Departments of African American Studies and Film & Media Studies, Yale University, moderated by Greg de Cuir Jr., cofounder and artistic director of Kinopravda Institute, Belgrade. This program, entitled COMPLETA and curated by de Cuir Jr., presents three films made in the 16mm format as a historical continuum of Black women exploring novel forms in the cinematic arts. The films include *Monangambee* by Sarah Maldoror (1969, 17 minutes); *Diary of an African Nun* by Julie Dash (1977, 15 minutes); and *Conspiracy* by Simone Leigh and Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich (2022, 24 minutes).The lecture is made possible by the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Lecture Series. Held in partnership with the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ Fresh Talk series. Part of the Summer of 16mm: Celebrating 100 Years of Film series.**Black Art at the National Gallery***Sentinel* (2022) by Simone Leigh joins works ranging from 19th-century to modern and contemporary pieces in the collection, including recently acquired works by David Drake, Dindga McCannon, Benny Andrews, Rashid Johnson, and Dread Scott, among others. The National Gallery recently mounted the exhibition *Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South* (2022), featuring 40 sculptures, assemblages, paintings, reliefs, quilts, and drawings acquired in 2020 from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, together with several related gifts as well as the landmark exhibition *Afro-Atlantic Histories* (2022) and *James Van Der Zee’s Photographs: A Portrait of Harlem* (2021). For more information about Black artists in the collection, visit nga.gov/features/black-artists.html.

# Contact Information

**General Information**For additional press information please call or send inquiries to:Department of CommunicationsNational Gallery of Art2000 South Club DriveLandover, MD 20785phone: (202) 842-6353e-mail: [email protected]

**Chief of Communications**Anabeth Guthriephone: (202) 842-6804e-mail: [email protected]

**Newsletters**The National Gallery also offers a broad range of newsletters for various interests. Follow this link to view the complete list.

# Related Resources

Exhibitions

Press Releases

Newsletters

RSS News Feed

### Stay connected

Learn more about our exhibitions, news, programs, and special offers.

About
          - About the National Gallery
          - Stories
          - Press
          - FAQs
          - Contact Us

Plan a Visit
          - Getting Here
          - Accessibility
          - Today's Tours
          - Food & Drink
          - Calendar
          - Downloadable Map

Get Involved
          - Donate
          - Membership
          - Volunteer
          - Opportunities
          - Shop Online

Resources
          - Search the Collection
          - Conservation
          - Library
          - Archives
          - The Center
          - Film Programs
          - Music Programs
          - Audio/Video
          - Open Access Images

Hours: 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily

**West Building**6th St and Constitution Ave NW*Enter or exit from Constitution Avenue, 4th Street, or 7th Street. The Madison Drive entrance is currently closed.*

**East Building**4th St and Constitution Ave NW*Enter and exit from 4th Street.*

**Sculpture Garden**7th St and Constitution Ave NW*Enter and exit from 7th Street, Constitution Avenue, or Madison Drive.*

We are closed on December 25 and January 1.

*The National Gallery of Art serves the nation by welcoming all people to explore and experience art, creativity, and our shared humanity.*

          -  Twitter 
          -  Facebook 
          -  Instagram 
          -  Pinterest 
          -  YouTube 

© 2024 National Gallery of Art   Notices   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy