Location: Grand Hall, Speed Art Museum

Cost: Free, register to save your seat

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Artists with Ties to Louisville’s Black Avant-Garde

Join us for an afternoon celebrating the legacies of Old Walnut Street, and the long-lasting impact of Louisville’s Black artistic community in the twentieth century. Bringing together artists and historians involved in this important moment in the city’s cultural history, the program creates space to memorialize the individuals and collectives.

This public program is held in conjunction with the Speed Museum’s Louisville’s Black Avant Garde: Gloucester Caliman Coxe and Cressman Gallery’s Robert Graham Carter: The Art of Reflection. This program is made possible thanks to the Mellon Foundation.

2-2:15 pm

Introductory Remarks

Legacies of Old Walnut Street

Kenneth Clay

2:15-3 pm

Panel with artists Elmer Lucille Allen, Robert Graham Carter, William M Duffy, and Ed Hamilton. Moderated by Jennifer Williams.

3-3:30 pm

Audience Q&A

A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Elmer Lucille Allen (she/her) graduated from Central High School (1949) and Nazareth College (now Spalding University) with a Bachelor of Science in 1953. She became the first African American chemist at Brown-Forman Corporation when she began working there in 1966. After thirty-one years of service at Brown-Forman, she retired from her role as Senior Analytical Chemist. During that time, Allen took classes in ceramics and fiber arts eventually earning an MFA in Studio Arts at the University of Louisville in 2002. In the 1980s, Elmer Lucille Allen was a co-founder who became president of the Kentucky Coalition for AFRO-American Arts, Inc. (KCAAA). This organization received a grant from the Kentucky Arts Council to document African American artists in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Two directories of African arts organization and artists were produced. In 1986, Elmer Lucille was awarded the Governor’s Community Arts Awards for contributions to the creative economy in the Commonwealth of Kentucky by Governor Martha Layne Collins. During her years as President of KCAAA, she held two art conferences, one in Louisville and one in Lexington. Allen has played many critical roles in the regional arts community. She was the curator and director of the Wayside Christian Mission’s Wayside Expression Gallery from 2005-2017 where she exhibited local emerging artists. In 2015, she received the Art and Advocacy Award from the Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts (KMAC). She was the recipient of the 2011 Caritas Medal – Highest Alumnus Award from Spalding University and received an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Spalding in 2024.

Robert Graham Carter has been a celebrated artist and illustrator for more than 60 years. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he was receptive to line, color, and form and had an intuitive feeling for design at an early age, winning the Scholastic Art & Writing Award at age 17. Carter received his Master of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute in New York in 1966 and was an illustrator for McGraw Hill and Simon & Schuster. A retired professor of art at Nassau Community College after over 50 years, he has been a sought-after lecturer and demonstrator at numerous public schools, universities, and private art organizations. His work is in the permanent collection of various institutions/museums across the United States, including the Denver Art Museum, The Heckscher Museum of Art, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, The Long Island Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, The Petrucci Family Foundation, the Speed Art Museum and Yale Law School. A traveling solo museum show opened at The Heckscher Museum of Art on February 1, 2025 and moves to the Cressman Center Galleries, University of Louisville on August 1, 2025.

William M. Duffy is a multidisciplinary artist who was born and raised in Louisville’s West End. A lifelong artist, Duffy first began with painting, silk-screening, and drawing; and then taught himself how to carve and sculpt stone, metal and wood through research, improvisation, and repetition. In addition to building a career as a fine artist, Duffy enjoyed a long and impactful career as an educator in the Jefferson County Public Schools. His work is held in the permanent collection at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY.

Ed Hamilton is a sculptor and long-time resident of Louisville, Kentucky, who specializes in public art. His most famous work is The Spirit of Freedom, a memorial to Black Civil War veterans, that stands in Washington, DC, in the Shaw neighborhood near Howard University. Hamilton has also created monuments dedicated to Booker T. Washington, Joe Louis, York (William Clark’s manservant on the Lewis and Clark Expedition), and the enslaved people who revolted on the ship La Amistad. Hamilton is the author of The Birth of An Artist: A Journey of Discovery, an autobiography reflecting on his life and inspiration, and detailing his creative process. His work is held in the permanent collection at the Speed Art Museum and the Filson Historical Society both in Louisville, KY; the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, LA; and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.