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November 5, 2025—January 24, 2026

The artist with his painting North Star (1968), c. 1968. As Graham Lock notes, the work’s title references the song ‘Follow the Drinking Gourd’ associated with the Underground Railroad. The Drinking Gourd is another name for the Big Dipper constellation, which points to the North Star that guided runaway slaves to freedom.
Adam Miller: Joe, now you’re West Coast after a long time in New York. What do you think about your experience out here?
Joe Overstreet: Well, I have a lot of mixed feelings. After spending ten years in New York and returning, I was a little disappointed that the art scene hadn’t changed more out here. I don’t find it really broad, the way I had heard that the art world had become in California. I also didn’t see the activity in the arts that I hoped to find. I hope to help impact that if possible.
People are negligent here about responding to art. I had an exhibition last October in New York, and within the first week, I had received about 10 letters congratulating me. That sort of thing always encourages and inspires me. I like communicating with people who enjoy my work. I feel that the art out here is at a low for some reason, probably because of the beauty of the landscape and the leisure time that’s out here.
AM: Do you feel that because the environment itself is so beautiful, artists don’t feel the necessity to translate it onto the canvas?
JO: Something like that. There’s so much beauty in nature out here, and the weather is congenial for everyday living and relaxation, so there isn’t a need to put out a real effort. Everyone knows that making a beautiful work of art requires a lot of energy and effort. You really have to perform. You have to produce. In New York when winter comes along, it sort of bites you, and lifts you up to move. Then spring is a relief. When the trees are green and things are changing, you just feel good all over. California may be suffering that problem. I’d like to spend more time here to get a clearer picture.
AM: It seems that people who work visually need to take time in a new place. A photographer once told me that he had to live in a place long enough to find out what in that space revealed itself to him as a visual entity.
JO: I can see my use of color changing when I look at the paintings I’ve made here. In some, I used earth colors and bright colors. When I first came here, I saw a lot of pinks and blues. That blue sky is marvelous to look at, when it’s not smogged up. That’s one sense of California colors. Now, I’m seeing the greens, the dark blacks, and earth tones here. California projects many, many, many colors.



Space seems to diffuse color in your vision because at one point you can see for miles and miles, then a beautiful mountain will come up and ricochet across the horizon. Then there’s another thing that interferes with all that—it’s like the McDonald’s sign. That big M comes out at you. You’re driving down the street, and then you see all of these spider-looking monsters, sculpture-type commercial signs. It really destroys all of the greenery, I feel. There’s a visual tension in the landscape, between the trees and symbols.
AM: Talking the other night, you were explaining that when you paint, you exhaust yourself. I notice now that the actual visual thing has a force. It has an
energy that seems to either take from you or add to you. I wondered if you’d say a little about that.
JO: It’s about energy. To create with a certain satisfaction, I feel that one must push that thrust out of themselves, into the work. It has to come up, out, over, and into the work. If there’s any interference or distraction, that energy doesn’t quite reach the work and the piece is unsuccessful. I enjoy the draining process of working as an artist. I enjoy the emptiness that’s the contentment you feel when you’ve given everything. Anything less than that is short of what I expect out of my art. When I don’t feel that way after hours of labor, I just don’t feel that the work of art
“A new/old Black aesthetic; a plastic spirit moving with color and tortured form, canvas and rope, evoking gods with canvas as sculpture and space—a magic, an individual Black magic.” †


makes it, no matter how beautiful or spontaneous it may be. The reason I work is to get all those energies and frustrations out of me.
AM: I notice you’ve got various sorts of things around here, like studies that you do for your works.
JO: A lot of times, I make a study, a small sketch in painting to study color, line, movement, and composition.
I believe art works on a triangle: content, emotion, and decoration. By making a study, I can find the content, put it into composition and space, and understand the decorative qualities that the piece
will eventually have. The work might project into eight feet, ten feet, or twelve feet, and from a two-and-ahalf by two-and-a-half feet piece here, I can see the possibilities of the work in space.

Ìgùn Ẹ́rọ̀nwwọ̀n (brass-casting guild) artists, Plaque with Warrior and Attendants, Nigeria, Court of Benin (Edo period), ca. 1540–70, brass, 18 ¾ × 15 × 4 ¼ in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art.


AM: Now we’re at the gallery [at Berkeley Art Center], Joe, why don’t we pick up where we left off at the studio and you can explain some of the stretch paintings?
JO: One of the paintings is about Black people on East 14th Street, where my studio is. I feel that the stretch tension is part of the system, the thing that is happening most to our lives. For instance, everything happening in Vietnam is about pressure and tension. People are pressured and pulling. The world seems to be tugging with this stretch-pull system. It applies to the time that we’re living in. It’s related to the pressure on all the oppressed people who are trying to raise themselves up. I feel that this is the same type of tension that’s tugging away at their
“I made a breakthrough in my painting in 1967 when I began to look at shapes and rectangles. I began collaging these and other shapes to break the picture plane of European rectangular painting. I wanted a different source for a new beginning. This came out of my struggle for selfdetermination, to resist oppression and to free my people and myself from the confinement of a tradition of social stigmas and political and economic restraints.”
Joe Overstreet, Artist Statement in Fukui, Japan, November 1992.




“My sense of structure comes from non-Western cultures. For the last 25 years, the most important sources of my information have been African and Native American nomadic people, the structures of Islamic design, and the concepts of Egyptian rope stretchers.”
Artist Statement, Japan 1992.
souls. That’s how I personally relate to these paintings, although the design can be found in Benin art in Africa, American Indian art, and Latin American art, in the work of artists like Gabriel Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. I relate strongly to all these artists with my work.
I feel that the pressure points that come out in all Black art comes out in my art. Jacob Lawrence is one of my strongest influences. The way he paints Black people, where you see them pointing, and pulling, and tugging, lets you feel their torment. I’m looking for the same reaction with my work. My art is about my time. It’s about tension, dynamics, and what’s happening throughout the painting. It may seem abstract to a lot of people, but I see abstraction in everything.


“Like the geometry in jazz or the geometry in nature. I could take a shape and improvise on it: I could re-design a square, make it an octagon [. . .] The ropes were part of the geometry; and the shadows were too, because these pieces were in relief from the wall, so the shadows and the ropes were part of the space.”
Joe Overstreet, interview by Graham Lock, “Joe Overstreet: Light in Darkness,” The Hearing Eye: Jazz and Blues Influences in African American Visual Art. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 229.

AM: The whole world is an abstraction in a way.
JO: Yeah. I look at a dog, and Iʼve never seen a greater abstraction in my life. Or a person, or a tree. This idea of symbols as abstractions, everything is.
AM: You are now into HooDoo as a way of experiencing the world. What would you like to say about this as a movement in Black art, and yourself in relation to it?
JO: The idea of HooDoo is the only true aesthetic that we can have, because Black art is too broad of a concept for an art movement. HooDoo is something inside every Black man. It’s using anything you have.
Voodoo may be something else, but HooDoo has an American connotation. My ropes are evoking the gods and pulling for forces to work, and that’s how I see the connection to HooDoo.
The Black artist has a dual role. Not only are you trying to make it as an artist, but just being Black means living outside of mainstream American existence. Black artists have the problem of getting shown, even when they are great. Take Aaron Douglas. He never had a one-man exhibition, because there weren’t any galleries or museums that accepted his work. Jacob Lawrence is beginning to get a little acceptance, but in 1938, he made a series on Toussaint L’Ouverture that was probably one of the




Joe Overstreet, Flags and Mirages, 1971, acrylic on unstretched canvas and vinyl, 53 × 80 in.
Jacob Lawrence, The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture #20: General Toussaint L'Ouverture, Statesman and military genius, esteemed by the Spaniards, feared by the English, dreaded by the French, hated by the planters, and reverenced by the Blacks, 1938, tempera on paper, 19 × 11 ½ in. Photo: The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Art Resource, NY. © 2026 Jacob Lawrence / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Joe Overstreet (center, back row) with other artists, including Raymond Saunders, Ed Clark, Camille Billops, Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, and Norman Lewis, at the opening gala for Jacob Lawrence's 1974 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Photograph by Mary Ellen Andrews. Courtesy of the estate of Mary Ellen Andrews.
greatest artworks of his generation, and now it’s just beginning to be publicized. As Black artists, we don’t have opportunities for exposure. I feel that occupying the dual role of a Black artist costs more than a man should have to pay.
AM: You mentioned in an earlier conversation a kind of cultural racism.
JO: In my twenty years of painting, Iʼve heard all sorts of racist comments about my being an artist. Iʼve heard “thereʼs no such thing as a Black artist” from some of the biggest art dealers in New York. Iʼve never really been accepted in the museum. I hope Iʼm not too vain to say that I feel a canvas has never been
presented in this manner before, but Iʼve never been accepted as an artist with these canvases. I feel that they are free. Theyʼre fun to do. Theyʼre pleasant to look at. They fly, they float, they pull, they taunt you. And yet, I show these Flights to museums, and they say “Oh well, what the hell?” But when Jasper Johns or Frank Stella make shaped canvases, they accept them. Iʼm not in competition with these people. Iʼm in competition with myself and my environment. I had to create something that was movable for me, as a Black man. I canʼt afford a truck to come and cart out these paintings, so I just figured out a way I can roll them up on tubing and pick them up in my arm. I can move every one of these paintings within two hours and walk away with them. In order to be an

construction


Frank Stella, Wolfeboro II, 1966, fluorescent alkyd and epoxy on canvas, 160 × 100 × 4 in., Dayton Art Institute. Museum purchase with funds provided by the 1979 Associate Board Art Ball. © 2026 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
artist, I had to eliminate the problems of finance and mobility within the society that has worked against me rather than for me.
Another challenge is space, something I don’t have. People say they’re big. I don’t agree, because there’s a lot of space to hang art. These paintings are small compared to one of Jackson Pollock’s twenty-fivefoot canvases. In this museum, these works are the right size.
AM: Otherwise they’d be lost.
JO: Yes, why put a miniature in this space? It was designed for large, beautiful paintings. The scale of large paintings is fun to look at. You get to move into
them. They’re a part of our culture, like skyscrapers, or Cadillacs, or Rolls-Royces. My paintings have to do with the environmental problems of the outside world, not only of being Black, but living in space.
AM: You said they are fun to look at. I realize that they may not be fun to make. But I think of a circus when I come in, in the sense of color, light, and gaiety. Do you get that sense?
JO: Whatever you feel should be felt. I hope that everyone gets something from viewing them.
I feel that they evoke the gods in a HooDoo sense. It’s my way of reaching the gods and pulling them, and trying to get every bit of pressure that’s in the system

Child swings at exhibition opening for Joe Overstreet, May 15,1972, Institute for the Arts, Rice University, Houston. Courtesy of the Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. Photograph by Hickey-Robertson.

Installation of Joe Overstreet, Institute for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, TX,1972. Courtesy of the Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. Photograph by Hickey-Robertson.
“the paintings fly and live, offer new visions to concepts of space, rectangular and square rooms become alive with sailing images without and meditation points within, truly moving the environment and passively reordering the perceptions of the viewer.”
David Henderson, “Joe Overstreet: Transatlantic Black Artist,” 1972, unpublished manuscript, 8, Box 17, Folder 2, Exhibition History Records (EXHH.03.014), Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston.
out of me, and I feel that it’s a freer way of making paintings. I became frustrated by building stretchers and taking so much time to place the canvas neatly around the stretchers and put the staples in. I found the flat surface limiting. This way I get into a sculptural concept. They move; they are organic. They become alive. The ropes seem to free my soul, my spirit.
◼
* The interview transcription has been edited for length and clarity.
† This publication contains select quotations from outside sources and in the artist’s words.





















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b. Conehatta, MS,1933
d. New York, NY, 2019
EDUCATION
1951–2 Contra Costa College, San Pablo, CA
1953 California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA
1954 California College of Arts and Crafts, Berkeley, CA
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS
2019 Joe Overstreet, Selected Works: 1975–1982, Eric Firestone Gallery, New York, NY
2018 Joe Overstreet: Innovation of Flight, Eric Firestone Gallery, New York, NY
2012 Navigator Paintings, CW Post, Long Island University, Brooksville, NY
2008 The Storyville Series, City Gallery East, Atlanta, GA
2003 Meridian Fields, Wilmer Jennings Gallery, New York, NY
2001 Silver Screens, Wilmer Jennings Gallery, New York, NY
1999 Recent Paintings, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
1996 (Re) Call and Response, Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY
Joe Overstreet: Works from 1957 to 1993, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
Watercolors, Aljira Contemporary Art Center, Newark, NJ
1993 Facing the Door of No Return, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY
1992 The Storyville Series, Montclair State College Art Gallery, NJ
Joe Overstreet, G.R. NʼNamdi Gallery, Birmingham, MI; Columbus, OH
1991 Recent Paintings, Wilmer Jennings Gallery, New York, NY
1990 The Storyville Series, Vaughan Cultural Center, St. Louis, MO
1988 The Storyville Series, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY
1976 Kenkeleba House, New York, NY
1972 Joe Overstreet, Institute for the Arts, Rice University, Houston; The De Luxe Black Art Center, Houston, TX
1971 Joe Overstreet, Living Art Center, Dayton, OH
Joe Overstreet, Ankrum Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Flight Patterns, Dorsky Gallery, New York, NY
1970 Joe Overstreet: Stretch Paintings, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
1969 Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
1965 Hugo Gallery, New York, NY
1961 Spanierman Gallery, New York, NY
1958 International Gallery, New York, NY
Tea Gallery, Miss Smithʼs Tea Room, San Francisco, CA
1956 Cousin Jimboʼs Bop City, San Francisco, CA
1955 Vesuvioʼs, San Francisco, CA
1954 The District, Oakland, CA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 Looking Back / The 16th White Columns Annual, White Columns, New York, NY
2025 Building Models: The Shape of Painting, Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation, New York, NY
Afrofuturism, Ethan Cohen Gallery, New York, NY
Iʼll Build a World of Abstract Dreams and Wait for You, Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, GA
2024 Edges of Ailey, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
A New York Minute, Eric Firestone Gallery, West Palm Beach, FL
Summer Games, Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, NY
Fall Season 2024, Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, NY
2023 It Takes 2: Unexpected Pairings, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY
What Has Been and What Could Be: The BAMPFA Collection, University of California Berkeley, Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA
(Mostly) Women (Mostly) Abstract, Eric Firestone Gallery, New York, NY; East Hampton, NY
That ʼ70s Show, Eric Firestone Gallery and 21 New York City Galleries, New York, NY
2022 51@51: Collected Works, Rennie Museum, Vancouver, British Columbia
2021 Afro-Atlantic Histories, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA
The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, VA
13 American Artists: A Celebration of Historic Work, Eric Firestone Gallery, New York, NY
Off the Wall, Mnuchin Gallery, New York, NY
2020 Unbound, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw State University, GA
2019 Into Form: Selections from The Rose Collection, 1957–2018, Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA
Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, MD
Three Acts: Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Senga Nengudi, Joe Overstreet, Colgate University, Picker Art Gallery, Hamilton, NY
Shape, Rattle & Roll, Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, NY
2018 This Must Be the Place, 55 Walker, New York, NY
Way Bay, University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, CA
2017 Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, Tate Modern, London, UK; Crystal Bridges, Bentonville, AR; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Broad Museum, Los Angeles, CA; De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Picturing Mississippi, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS
Life on the Canal Then by Artists Now, Erie Canal Museum, Syracuse, NY; Schenectady County Historical Society, NY
2016 Abstract Masters of the 1950s. (Where were the Mistresses?), Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, NY
The Color Line, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France
2015 The World Goes Pop, Tate Modern, London, UK
I Got Rhythm; Kunst und Jazz Seit 1920, Stiftung Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany
Art of the 5. Iʼll Take Manhattan, Intra-church Center Gallery, New York, NY
Masters and Pupils, Rye Art Center, NY
2014 Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties, Brooklyn Museum, NY; Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX
The Transverse, An Art Exhibit on Transportation, The Port Authority Bus Station of New York City, NY
2013 Large and Small, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, NY
American Renaissance Art, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, NY
2012 Visual Rhythms, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Reflections of Monk, Images of Music and Moods, Wilmer Jennings Gallery, New York, NY
The Countryside in Art and Southern Literature, Anita Shapolsky Foundation, Jim Thorpe, PA
2011 Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; MoMA PS1, Queens, NY; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA
From the Pageʼs Edge: Water in Literature and Art, Payne Gallery, Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA; Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Vergennes, VT; Albany Institute of Art, NY
2010 Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art, David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD; Georgia Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta, GA; Rice University Art Gallery, Houston, TX; Saint Louis University Museum of Art, MO
African American Contributions to a Shared Vision; Prints From the Cochran Collection, Lamar Dodd Art Center of La Grange College, GA
Rehistoricizing Abstract Expressionism in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1950s–1960s, Luggage Store Gallery and San Francisco Art Institute, CA
Americans at Play, Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
African American Abstract Masters, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, NY; AS Art Foundation, Jim Thorpe, PA; Opalka Gallery, Sage Colleges, Albany, NY
From the Permanent Collection, Brooklyn Museum, NY
2009 Harlem of the West: Jazz, Bebop and Beatnik, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2008 Harlem of the West, Jazz Heritage Center, San Francisco, CA
2007 a point in space is a place for an argument, David Zwirner Gallery, New York, NY
Short Distance to Now: Paintings from New York, 1967–1975, Galerie Kienzle & Gmeiner, Berlin, Germany; Galerie Thomas Flor, Dusseldorf, Germany
2006 Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction, 1964–1980, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
High Times, Hard Times, ICI, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, Mexico; National Academy of Design Museum, New York, NY
Interstellar Low Ways, Hyde Park Community Center, Chicago, IL
2005 Back at Black, Art, Cinema and the Racial Imaginary, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, UK; New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK
2004 Something to Look Forward to, Phillips Museum of Art, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA
Rhythm of Structure: The Mathematical Aesthetic, Wilmer Jennings Gallery, New York, NY
2003 Group Show 2003, Peg Alston Fine Arts, New York, NY
2002 Math Art/ Art Math, Selby Gallery, The Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota, FL
Abstraction: No Greater Love, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
2001 Artists of the 1950ʼs, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, NY
African American Abstraction, City Gallery East, Atlanta, GA
The Act of Drawing, Rush Arts Gallery, New York, NY; Tompkins College Center Gallery, Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA
The Politics of Racism, Fire Patrol No. 5, New York, NY
Public Voices/Private Visions: African American Artists @ 2000, Rockland Center for the Arts, West Nyack, NY
19th and 20th Century African American Artists, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY
Tenacious Beauty, Delaware College of Art and Design, Wilmington, DE
1999 When the Spirit Moves: African American Art Inspired by Dance, National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, Wilberforce, OH Slave Routes, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY
1998 Art by African Americans in the Collection of the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
Space, Time & Object: Black Abstractionists, City University of New York, NY
1997 The Art of Jazz, Dell Pryor Galleries, Detroit, MI
1996 Abstractions, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY
1995 The Fifties, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, NY
1994 Heritage . . . The Dream Continues, Morris County Records & Administration Building, NJ
1993 African-American Artists: Then and Now, Sacks Fine Art, New York, NY
1992 Dream Singers, Storytellers: An African-American Presence, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ; Fukui Fine Arts Museum, Japan; Tokushima Modern Art Museum, Japan; Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya, Japan
A/CROSS CURRENTS: Synthesis in African American Abstract Painting, Dakar Biennale, Senegal; National Center for Art; French Cultural Center, Libreville, Gabon; GRAFOLIE Festival, Abidjan, Cote DʼIvoire
Art is for Everyone III, Museum of African American Art, Los Angeles, CA
The Spirit Made Visible, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
In the Tradition, Part I, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, NY
African American Invitational, St. Louis Artistsʼ Guild, MO
1991 African American Art in the U.S., Museo Nacional des Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile
The Search for Freedom: African-American Abstract Painting, 1945–1975, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY; The Cleveland Institute, OH; The State University of New York, New Paltz, NY
The Nerlino Gallery, New York, NY
1990 The Color of Jazz, The Rye Art Center, NY
1989 The Blues Aesthetic, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC; California Afro-American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, NC; Blaeffer Gallery, University of Houston, TX; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
1988 Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY
1987 Made in the USA, University of California at Berkeley, CA
Evergreen Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Alitash Kebede Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1986 U.S. Art Census ʼ86 Contemporary Afro-American Artists, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Twentieth Century African American Artists, The Newark Museum, NJ
Transitions: The Afro-American Artist, Bergen County Museum of Art and Science, NJ
Choosing: Changing Perspectives in Modern Art, Hampton Institute, VA
A View from Harlem, Smithtown Arts Council, NY
13 Black Artists, Hudson River Guild, NY
In Honor of Greatness, Essex County College, West Cauldwell, NJ




“I have my own brand of abstraction [. . .] that comes directly from African American Jazz music, from the Blues and the ever encouraging, talking African drum beat. These are the abstract rhythms I explore in my paintings. I see the abstract and the figurative in the sense of traditional African sculpture, in the sense of how they used figuration— not as realistic, but as spiritual.”
Artist Statement, Japan 1992.



“When I went to P.S.1 the teacher would take us on tours to the [Metropolitan Museum of Art] and I remember the first tour I went on we went into the Egyptian room. [. . .] The whole idea I think [that] carried me away [was] the Egyptian [. . .] tomb.”
Joe Overstreet, Oral history interview by Judith Olch Richards, March 17-18, 2010. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.


Stela of the Lady of the House, Tabiemmut, Egypt (Kushite Period-Saite Period), ca. 750–525 B.C., wood, paint, and gesso, 16 15/16 × 11 7/16 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Installation view of Ungawa— Black Power in New Black Artists, Brooklyn Museum, 1969. Records of the Department of Photography, Brooklyn Museum Archives.
1985 Tradition and Conflict: Images of a Turbulent Decade, 1963–1973, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Celebration VI, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
Affirmations of Life, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY
Free Expressions, Center for the Arts, Mount Vernon, NY
The Gathering of the Avant-Garde: The Lower East Side,1948–1970, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY
Art Works in City Spaces, the Tweed Courthouse, New York, NY
Images of Jazz, The Wilson Arts Center, Rochester, NY
Jusʼ Jass, The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, MA
Henry Street Arts for Living Center, New York, NY
20th Century Afro-American Artists: Selections from the Collection of the Newark Museum, Newark Museum of Art, NJ
1984 Since the Harlem Renaissance, Center Gallery, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA; Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, The State University of New York, College at Westbury; Museum of Art, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, NY; The Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, MD; The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA; Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
Stereotypes, Balch Institute, Philadelphia, PA
1983 Jusʼ Jass, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY
1982 Artists: New York/Taiwan, The Hatch-Billips Collection, American Institute in Taiwan, Kaohsiung, National Taiwan University, Spring Gallery, Taiwan
1980 Aspects of the 1970ʼs: Spiral, National Center of African American Art, Boston, MA
Summer Show, Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY
Artist of Todayʼs Lower East Side, Islip Town Council, NY
1979 Focus South Africa, New York Public Library, Countee Cullen Branch, NY
New York Artists, 22 Wooster Gallery, New York, NY
Another Generation, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Black Artists/South, Huntsville Museum, AL; Oakland Museum, CA
New York Public Library, Countee Cullen Branch, NY
1977 Henry O. Tanner Gallery, New York, NY
Recreation Pier, Maryland Institute Alumni Association, Baltimore, MD
Richard Allen Center, New York, NY
Fells Point Gallery, Baltimore, MD
1976 Presents with Presence, Fells Point Gallery, Baltimore, MD
1975 Tugboat Show, Fells Point Gallery, Baltimore, MD
1974 West Coast 74: Black Image, Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, CA; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, CA
MIX: Third World Painting/Sculpture Exhibition, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
1973 California State University, Hayward, CA
Berkeley Museum, CA
Fells Point Gallery, Baltimore, MD
1972
Black American Artists, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
1971 Off the Stretcher, Oakland Museum, CA
William Zierler Gallery, New York, NY
Some American History, The DeLuxe Black Arts Center and Rice University, Houston, TX; University of Texas Art Museum, Austin, TX
Black Artists: Two Generations, Newark Museum, NJ
1970 Dorsky Gallery, New York, NY
Columbia University, New York, NY
New York Public Library, Countee Cullen Branch, NY
Afro-American Artists: New York and Boston, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MA
1969
1968
1967
New Black Artists, Brooklyn Museum, NY; The Urban Center, Columbia University, New York, NY
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY
The Real Great Society, Tompkins Square Gallery, New York, NY
The Brooklyn Madau Museum, NY
The New York Public Library, Countee Cullen Branch, NY
Pan American Building, New York, NY
Perls Gallery, New York, NY
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, NY
Contemporary Afro-American Arts, The Brooklyn Museum Community Gallery, NY
St. Markʼs Church of the Bowery, New York, NY
1964 Gordon Gallery, New York, NY
Paintings by Cruz, Cox, Overstreet, Thompson, White, and Whitten, 5 St. Marks Place, New York, NY
The New York Public Library, Countee Cullen Branch, New York, NY
1963 Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY
Tenth Street Aegis Gallery, New York, NY
1962 Tenth Street Aegis Gallery, New York, NY
1960 Gallery A, New York, NY
1959 City College of the City University of New York
1958 Artists Cooperative, San Francisco, CA
Dilexi Gallery, San Francisco, CA
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Art Bridges, Bentonville, AR
Baltimore Museum of Art, MD
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA
Brooklyn Museum, NY
California African American Museum, Los Angeles
The Cochran Collection, LaGrange, GA
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
The Horseman Foundation, St. Louis, MO
Menil Collection, Houston, TX
Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA
Newark Museum of Art, NJ
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton
Oakland Museum of California
Rennie Collection, Vancouver, British Columbia
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
AWARDS
Governorʼs Award for Excellence in the Arts presented by the Mississippi Arts Commission
SELECTED COMMISSIONS
1968 The New Jemima, The Menil Foundation, Houston, TX
1982–7 Tunnels A & C. Environmental Installations, San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, CA
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Madison Powers, “Seven Southern Art Exhibitions to See This Fall,” Garden and Gun. October 10, 2025.
Natalie Dupêcher, ed., Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight. Houston: Menil Collection, June 2025.
Lauren Moya Ford, “Joe Overstreetʼs Activism Through Abstraction,” Hyperallergic. June 29, 2025.
Peter Plagens, “Precision and Progression at the Menil Collection,” The Wall Street Journal. June 4, 2025.
Michelle Brangwen, “Jazz & Joe Overstreet: ʼTaking Flightʼ at the Menil Collection, Houston,” Glasstire. May 14, 2025.
David Rhodes, “Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight,” The Brooklyn Rail. April 2025.
Victoria L. Valentine, “‘Joe Overstreet: Taking Flightʼ Showcases Artistʼs Greatest Hits and Half-Century Connection with Houston Patrons,” Culture Type. March 31, 2025.
Alex Greenberger, “Joe Overstreetʼs Menil Collection Survey Is the Yearʼs First Must See Show,” ARTnews. February 4, 2025.
“The Menil Collection Reframes Joe Overstreetʼs Pioneering Abstract Vision,” Rain Magazine. January 25, 2025.
“2025 Spring Preview: Six Texas Exhibitions to See This Season,” Glasstire. January 16, 2025.
“Whatʼs New at the Menil Collection,” Great Day Houston January 14, 2025.
Okla Jones, “20 Black Art Exhibitions You Canʼt Miss This Winter,” Essence. December 20, 2024.
Michael McFadden, “Abstraction, Power, and Self: Joe Overstreet at the Menil,” Arts and Culture Texas. December 15, 2024.
Alex Greenberger, “40 Museum Shows and Biennials to See This Winter,” ARTNews December 4, 2024.
“Datebook: The Art Worldʼs Winter Happenings to Add to Your Calendar,” Art in America. December 2, 2024.
Elaine Velie, “The ʼ70s Are Back, Baby,” Hyperallergic. May 18, 2023.
Taylor Dafoe, “An Alternative to Frieze? 21 New York Galleries Have Banded Together for a Group Show of Works from the 1970s,” Artnet. May 17, 2023.
Mark Segal, “The Art Scene,” The East Hampton Star. July 7, 2022.
Joe Overstreet, Selected Works: 1975–1982. New York, Eric Firestone Gallery Press, January 2020.
“What to See Right Now,” New York Times. July 31, 2019.
Andrew Russeth, “Joe Overstreet Purposeful Painter Who Made Space for Artists of Color, is Dead at 85,” Artnews June 5, 2019.


Overstreet with Indian Sun, 1969, published in “Object: Diversity,” Time, April 6, 1970, page 86.

Holland Cotter, “Joe Overstreet, Painter and Activist, Is Dead at 85,” New York Times. June 10, 2019.
Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, “Joe Overstreet at Eric Firestone Gallery,” ArtForum. June 1, 2018.
Stephen Maine, “Joe Overstreet, Painter as Aesthetic Nomad,” Hyperallergic. March 31, 2018.
Barry Schwabsky, “Flight or Alchemy,” The Nation. May 24, 2018.
Roberta Smith, “What to See in New York Art Galleries This Week,” New York Times April 18, 2018.
Innovation of Flight: Paintings 1967–1972 New York: Eric Firestone Press, 2018.
Mark Godfrey, and Zoe Whitley eds., “Notes on Black Abstraction,” Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 2017.
Maya Jaggi, “Tate Modernʼs politically charged ‘Soul of a Nation,ʼ” Financial Times. July 14, 2017.
Karen Wright, “Tate Modernʼs exhibition of black art is the show we need in the age of Trump,” The Independent. July 9, 2017.
Babou Cessay, “Inside the Tate Modernʼs powerful new exhibition of Black Power art,” Gentlemanʼs Journal. June 26, 2017.
Susan E. Cahan, Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.
Mary M. Lane, “Tate Modern Traces Pop Artʼs Global Heft,” Wall Street Journal. September 15, 2015.
Lina Džuverović, Artist Biography. London, UK: Tate Modern, September, 2015.
“A Conversation about Pop: Tate asks the Artists,” The World Goes Pop London, UK: Tate Modern, September 2015.
Flavia Frigeri, “Artist Interview, Joe Overstreet,” Tate Modern, September 2015.
Samella Lewis, “Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the 60s,” Examiner. March 7, 2014.
Teresa A. Carbone and Kellie Jones, eds., Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties. New York: Brooklyn Museum, 2014.
“Exhibition Review: Anita Shapolsky,” ARTnews. January, 2014.
Kellie Jones ed., Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980. Hammer Museum, New York: Delmonico Books, 2012.
Karen Gellender, “Abstract Art Comes to LIU Post with Navigator,” Syosset Jericho Tribune. September 14, 2012.
Keith Anthony Morrison, “Art Criticism: A Pan-African Point of View, 1978,” Essential New Art Examiner: 30 Years. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011.
C. R. Holton, African American Contributions to a Shared Vision, Prints from the Cochran Collection. La Grange, Georgia: Lamar Dodd Art Center of La Grange College, 2010.
Bowery Artists Tribute. Vol. 1, New York: The New Museum, 2010.
Charles Donelan, “Americans at Play at Sullivan Goss,” Santa Barbara Independent. July 14, 2010.
Journal of American Studies. 44, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
“African American Abstract Masters,” ArtfixDaily. February 5, 2010.
David Murray and Graham Lock, The Hearing Eye: Jazz and Blue Influences in African American Visual Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
David Murray and Graham Lock, Thriving on a Riff. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Sharon Monteith, American Culture in the 1960s. Edinburgh University Press, 2008.
Lauren Holbrook, Documented Struggles and Triumph: African American Art.
South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD, April 2008.
Debra Wolf, “Abstract Look at Birth of Jazz,” Atlanta JournalConstitution. May 11, 2008.
Robert C. Baker, “Recommends. Best in Show: A point in space is a place for an Argument,” Village Voice. July 24, 2007.
Sheila Pepe, “Art Is Where Itʼs At,” Gay City. April 2007.
Frances Richard, “High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967–1975,” Artforum. 45, no. 8, April 2007.
Jennifer S. Samet, “Rewriting Recent Art History,” in High Times: Hard Times: New York Painting 1967–1995, The New York Sun. February 6, 2007.
M. Marshall, “The Magic of Joe Overstreet and Kenkeleba House,” Valentine New York Magazine. Vol. I, No.4, Summer 2004.
David Carrier, “High Times/Hard Times: New York Painting, 1967–1975,” Artcritical. October 2006.
Michael D. Harris, Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation. Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
Carrie Moyer, “Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction 1964–1980,” Brooklyn Rail. June 2006.
Kellie Jones, ed., Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction 1964–1980. New York: The Studio Museum, 2006.
Katy Siegel, “Another History is Possible,” in Hard Times, High Times: New York Painting 1967–1995. New York: Independent Curators International, 2005.
Dawoud Bey, “The Black Artist as Invisible (Wo)man,” in Hard Times, High Times: New York Painting 1967–1995. New York: Independent Curators International, 2005.
“Art Listings,” New York Times. December 7, 2003.
Carl E. Hazelwood, “Review of Silver Screens,” Journal of Contemporary African Art. Fall/Winter 2002.
Thomas McEvilley, “Joe Overstreet,” Art in America. 90, no. 1, January 2002.
Lisa Ann Meyerowitz, “Exhibiting Equality: Black-Run Museums and Galleries in 1970s New York.” University of Chicago, 2001.
Cathy Byrd, “Color Play,” Arts Atlanta. June 28, 2000.
Jerry Cullum, “African American Abstraction,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution. June 30, 2000.
Thomas Piche Jr., (Re)call and Response. Syracuse: Everson Museum of Art Press, 1996.
Joe Overstreet: Works from 1957 to 1993. Trenton: New Jersey State Museum Press, 1996.
Ann Gibson, “Strange Fruit: Texture and Text in the Work of Joe Overstreet,”International Review of African American Art. Fall 1996.
Sherry Chayat, “African-inspired patterns find expression on canvas,” Syracuse Herald American. September 29, 1996.
Carl Mellor, “Joe Overstreetʼs Everson paintings combine color, light and forms,” Syracuse New Times. October 2, 1996.
Eileen Watkins, “State Museum offers overview of prolific career,” Spotlight, Sunday Star Ledger. March 10, 1996.
Vivien Raynor, “Africa and Ecuador: Three Artistsʼ Views,” New York Times. March 3,1996.
Barry Schwabsky, “The Art of a Lifetime,” New York Times. February 18, 1996.
Janet Purcell, “Getting a Feel for Joe Overstreet,” Trenton Times. February 2, 1996.
N. Pfaff, “Joe Overstreet,” U.S.I. Preview. January 31, 1996.
Thomas McEvilley, “Joe Overstreet,” Art Forum. April 1994.
G. Azon, Downtown. December 22, 1993.
Grace Glueck, “Painting the Door of No Return,” New York Observer. December 1, 1993.
Vivien Raynor, “Bringing Out the Work of So-Called Outsiders,” New York Times.November 28, 1993.
Thomas McEvilley, “Arriverderci Venice, Third World Biennials,” Art Forum. November 1993.
Facing the Door of No Return. New York: Kenkeleba Gallery, 1993.
N. Drake, “Eclectic collection on exhibit at Gibbes,” Charleston Post and Courier. September 19, 1992.
Joy Hakanson Colby, “Voodoo Weaves its magic at the NʼNamdi,” Detroit News. March 27, 1992.
Vivien Raynor, “Seedbeds of Jazz, Captured on Canvas,” New York Times. February 16, 1992.
Roberta Smith, “African American Abstraction, An Exploration,” New York Times. June 28, 1991.
William Zimmer, “Black Artists Record Jazz Scene in a Lively Show of Paintings,” New York Times. November 11, 1990.
Lucy R. Lippard, Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America. New York: Pantheon, 1990.
Judith Wilson, Donald Bogle, ed., “Joe Overstreet: The Storyville Series,” Black Arts Annual 1988–89. New York: Garland Publishing, 1990.
Richard J. Powell, The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism. Washington: Washington Project for the Arts Press, 1989.
Mel Tapley, “Storyvilleʼs Rebirth,” Amsterdam News. December 10, 1988.
Joe Overstreet: Storyville Series. New York: Kenkeleba Gallery, 1988.
Corrine L. Jennings, “Joe Overstreet: Work in Progress,” Black American Literary Forum. Spring vol. 19, No. 1, 1985.
Thomas Albright, Art in the San Francisco Bay Area: 1945–1980. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985.
Michael Brenson, “Art: Studio Museum in Black Art of the 60s,” New York Times. May 31,1985.
Vivien Raynor, “7 Artists in a ʼBrightʼ Mt. Vernon Show,” New York Times. May 31,1985.
C. Archer, The Villager. May 30, 1985.
Ruth Bass, “Telling it Like it Was,” ARTnews. April 1985.
Since the Harlem Renaissance: 50 Years of Afro-American Art. Lewisburg, PA: Center Gallery of Bucknell University, 1985.
New York Times Book Review. March 11, 1984.
Daily News. February 28, 1984.
Daily News. August 5, 1984.
Amsterdam News. November 5, 1983.
April Kingsley, Village Voice. May 14, 1979.
Samella S. Lewis, Art, African-American. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Janovich, 1976.
J. Eugene Grigsby, Jr., Art and Ethnics: Background for Teaching Youth in a Pluralistic Society. Dubuque: William C. Brown, 1977.
Elsa Honig Fine, The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1973.
David Henderson, Joe Overstreet. Houston: Institute for the Arts at Rice University, 1972.
“Black Expo Planned for San Francisco,” Pomona ProgressBulletin. August 29, 1972.
Albert E. Elsen, Purposes of Art. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1972.
“Black Art,” JET: A Johnson Publication. 42, no. 15, July 6, 1972.
Forward Times. June 1972.
Houston Chronicle. May 1972.
Eleanor Freed, “Joe Overstreetʼs Architectonic Icons,” Houston Post. May 21, 1972.
Miriam Dungan Cross, “Museum Shows ʼPaintings Off the Stretcher,ʼ” Oakland Tribune. January 10, 1972.
Eleanor Freed, “Larry Rivers and the Black Experience,” Houston Post. February 14, 1971.
Barbara Rose, “Black Art in America,” Art in America. September/October, 1970.
Jerome Tarshis, “San Francisco,” Artforum 9. no. 4, December 1970.
Ishmael Reed, “Neo-HooDoo,” Los Angeles Free Press. September 18, 1970,
“See ʼHoodooʼ Paintings at Art Center,” Berkeley Post. September 10, 1970.
Thomas Albright, “A Black Artistʼs Search,” San Francisco Chronicle. September 11, 1970.
New Black Artists. New York: Clarke and Way, inc, 1969.
John Canaday, “Art: Scanning America of 19th Century,” New York Times. November 1, 1969.
Frank Bowling, “Joe Overstreet,” Arts Magazine 44, no. 3. December 1969.
Edward S. Spriggs, Ben Jones and Joe Overstreet. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem, 1969.
“Art Notes,” Negro Digest 19, no. 1. November 1969.
Jean-Louis Bourgeois, “Harlem ʼ69,” Artforum 8, no. 3. November 1969.
Peter Schjeldahl, “Alive with the Strength and Variety of Its Passions,” New York Times. August 31, 1969.
Ishmael Reed, “The Black Artist: Calling a spade a spade,” Arts Magazine 41, no. 7. May 1967.
Hugh Wyatt, “Influx of Artists is Changing, Gray, Sad Face of the Bowery.” Daily News. October 15, 1967.
Laurence P. Neal, “The Black Revolution in Art: A Conversation with Joe Overstreet,” Liberator 5, no. 10. October 1965.
Stuart Preston, “Art: Two Esthetic Views,” New York Times. February 6, 1960.
Sidney Tillim, “Joe Overstreet,” Arts Magazine 34, no. 3. December 1959.

I am deeply grateful to Joe Overstreet for his courageous and explosive creations. It was an honor to work with him during his life and a privilege to continue this work in his memory. Thank you to Corrinne Jennings, not only for entrusting us to represent Joe’s estate, but for all of your work to further his legacy and uplift the careers of countless Black artists. At the Joe Overstreet Studio, we also thank Antonia Perez for her hard work to catalogue these paintings and her invaluable assistance. We are grateful to the many scholars and curators who have shared their research with us. We owe a tremendous amount to Natalie Dupêcher and the team at the Menil Collection in Houston, TX for their scholarship and the wealth of primary sources amassed for the exhibition Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight and its accompanying publication. We also thank Kaegan Sparks and Graham Lock, for generously sharing their archival findings with us. An additional thank you is owed to Natalie and Ishmael Reed for participating in a book event for the Menil publication here at the gallery. We thank David Max Horowitz, James Little, and George Nelson Preston for their beautiful conversation on Overstreet’s work and legacy. For their assistance with image and text reproductions, we thank Thomas and Julia Andrews, Monica Park of the Brooklyn Museum, the Dayton Art Institute, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Najuma Henderson, the Karun Collection, Philip Karjeker and Krista Hollis of the Menil Collection, Penn Museums, the Ed Ruscha studio and Gagosian, Tim Noakes and the Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, and the White House Historical Association. Lastly, thank you to the whole team at Eric Firestone Gallery for making all of this happen!
— Eric Firestone
Published on the occasion of the exhibition
Joe Overstreet: To the North Star
November 5, 2025 – January 24, 2026 on view at Eric Firestone Gallery
40 Great Jones Street, New York, NY
ISBN: 979-8-9931807-2-4
LCCN: 2025926280
Cover: detail of Untitled, see pl. 1
Inside front cover: detail of Blue Balls, see pl. 3
Inside back cover: detail of Dance of the Lepers, see pl. 20
Frontispiece: The artist in 1992. Photograph by Arthur Mones. Gelatin silver print, 10 1/2 × 13 1/2 in. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Wayne and Stephanie Mones at the request of their father, Arthur Mones, 2000.89.71.
© Estate of Arthur Mones.
p.16: Portrait of Joe Overstreet published in Laurence P. [Larry] Neal, “The Black Revolution in Art: A Conversation with Joe Overstreet,” Liberator, October 1965.
Interview with Joe Overstreet by Adam David Miller recorded in the artistʼs studio and at Berkeley Art Center on September 14, 1970. Transcript printed with permission of Corrine Jennings and the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.
Publication copyright © 2026
Eric Firestone Press
Exhibition photography © 2025 Sam Glass
All artwork © 2025 Joe Overstreet
Reproduction of contents prohibited All rights reserved
Published by Eric Firestone Press 4 Newtown Lane East Hampton, NY 11937
Principal: Eric Firestone
Managing Partner: Kara Winters
Senior Director: Jennifer Samet
Associate Director: Maddy Henkin
Research Assistant: Alabel Chapin
Photography: Sam Glass
Design: Isabelle Smeall
Printing: GHP

Eric Firestone Gallery
40 Great Jones Street New York, NY 10012
646-998-3727
4 Newtown Lane East Hampton, NY 11937 631-604-2386
Ericfirestonegallery.com
