Colorstruck!: Painting, Pigment, Affect
Richard J. Powell presents *Colorstruck!: Painting, Pigment, Affect* in conversation with Tope Folarin. Powell’s book explores how Black painters use color to create meaning, revive memory, stir emotion, and uplift the spirit, while also examining the historical and cultural forces that shape the way color is seen and experienced.
Drawing on the term “colorstruck,” a twentieth-century expression referring to prejudice against people with darker complexions, Powell offers a new history of Black American art. He considers the use of blue, green, yellow, orange, black, red, brown, and blended hues in the work of artists including Jacob Lawrence, Alma Thomas, Raymond Saunders, Sam Gilliam, Hervé Télémaque, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Nina Chanel Abney, and Henry Taylor. The discussion will address how pigment, artistic action, and viewers’ responses intersect with race, freedom, reclamation, and emotional experience.
Powell is the John Spencer Bassett Distinguished Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University and the author of books including *Going There: Black Visual Satire*, *Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture*, and *Homecoming: The Art and Life of William H. Johnson*. Folarin, a Nigerian-American writer based in Washington, D.C., is director of the Institute for Policy Studies and a Lannan Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at Georgetown University. He has received the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Whiting Award for Fiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.
When: Saturday, September 5, 2026
Showtimes: 6:00 p.m.
Venue: Politics and Prose at Union Market, 1324 4th Street NE, Washington, DC 20002
Lineup: Richard J. Powell, with Tope Folarin
Tickets: Free
Seating: First come, first served.
Accessibility: To request accommodations or ask accessibility questions, email events@politics-prose.com, ideally at least one week before the event. Requests will be accommodated when possible up to the event time.
Related book: *Colorstruck!: Painting, Pigment, Affect* is available for preorder as a $65 hardcover, published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Its listed publication date is September 1, 2026.
Run time: Not specified.
Age guidance: Not specified.