Name: Unshelved: An Artist’s Book Pop-Up Exhibit Celebrating Aminah Robinson
Start: 2025-01-17T17:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-01-17T20:00:00-05:00
Location: 2445 Monroe St, Toledo, OH, United States, Ohio 43620

$Unshelved: An Artist\u2019s Book Pop-Up Exhibit Celebrating Aminah Robinson$

Join TMA for an evening celebrating the work of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson!
Unshelved is an exciting new series at TMA that takes works of art off the shelves and out of storage for a one-night only. The event series highlights TMA’s exceptional collection of artists’ books—works of art inspired by the idea, form, or function of a book. Join us for our inaugural Unshelved: An Artist’s Book Pop-Up Exhibit celebrating the work of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson! The intimate gathering, held in the Hitchcock Gallery, will provide a small group of visitors the rare opportunity to view a selection of Robinson’s books, prints, and textiles up close.
A reception in honor of Aminah Robinson begins at 5:00 PM. Group-led tours of the exhibit and a documentary film screening to follow. All attendees will receive a copy of The Ragmud Collection: Books by Aminah Robinson.
This event is free and open to the public with registration.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1940, Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson (1940-2015) was an extraordinary artist whose work captured, explored, and celebrated the lives of both ordinary and extraordinary African Americans. Raised in the city’s close-knit Pointdexter Community, Aminah grew up surrounded by vibrant African American cultural traditions, which informed her art in important ways. Aminah used needlepoint, ink, clay, paint, and found objects in her work, creating her own rich visual language. Over the course of 20 years, she created The Ragmud Collection of Folkquilt Stories, a 10-volume collection of handmade artists’ books that TMA acquired in 2013. With paper, cloth, shells, and buttons, she shares the stories of African Americans from Pointdexter Village, Ohio, to Harlem, New York. In 2004, she received the coveted MacArthur Fellowship (“Genius Award”) in recognition of her work.
The Toledo Museum of Art boasts over 2,000 modern and contemporary artists’ books and artist-illustrated books in its collection. Toledo’s distinguished collection contains works by some of the most critical artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Marie Laurencin, Martin Puryear, Lousie Bourgeois, Anselm Kiefer, Joan Miro, Howardena Pindell, Suzanne Lacy, and Kara Walker, alongside nationally renowned but regionally located artists whose work has helped to advance the book form as an artistic vehicle, including Aminah Robinson and Lynne Avadenka, among others.