Beyond the Spiral: Amos, Bearden, Lewis, Mayhew, and others

Active from 1963 to 1965, The Spiral Group was a New York–based African American artists’ collective founded by Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, and Hale Woodruff who proposed the name. The Archimedean Spiral is an inclusive circular form which moves outward and upward. It symbolized the group’s common goals to further advance their careers and contribute to the Civil Rights Movement while retaining their artistic individuality.

The group met weekly to discuss their experiences and relationships between art and activism, and included prominent artists such as Emma Amos, Ernie Crichlow, Calvin Douglass, Perry Ferguson, Reginald Gammon, Felrath Hines, Alvin Hollingsworth, William Majors, Richard Mayhew, Earl Miller, Merton D. Simpson, James Yeargans among others.

ACA Galleries has had long associations with several Spiral Artists including Ernie Crichlow who the gallery began exhibiting in the 1940s; Romare Bearden, whose estate was represented from 1988 - 2000 and Richard Mayhew from 1996 to the present.

This exhibition spotlights a group of important collages by Romare Bearden and several major paintings by Richard Mayhew, alongside a rare Norman Lewis painting from 1965, collages by William Majors, a painted fiber tapestry by Emma Amos and paintings and drawings by Ernest Crichlow and others.