The Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, in collaboration with the Studio Museum in Harlem, has opened "Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images," a retrospective of the Jamaican-born abstract artist Mavis Pusey (1928–2019). The exhibition spans two floors of Pusey's paintings and archival materials, showcasing her geometric abstractions that translate urban construction and gentrification into fractured planes and rhythmic blocks of color. The show was sparked by Studio Museum director Thelma Golden's discovery of Pusey's work in an online auction catalog a decade ago, leading to a collaboration with curator Hallie Ringle.
The retrospective matters because it recovers the legacy of a significant 20th-century Black female artist whose work had fallen into obscurity. Pusey's career included study at the Art Students League, work at Robert Blackburn's printmaking workshop, and inclusion in the Whitney Museum's landmark 1971 "Contemporary Black Artists in America" exhibition. The show exemplifies the ongoing institutional effort to elevate marginalized voices within art history, as Golden notes that her mission at the Studio Museum has always been to create space for Black artists' visions. The exhibition also highlights how rediscovery can reshape the canon and bring attention to artists who were overlooked during their lifetimes.