[1][2] "Relying on a series of volunteers, Cinque hosted solo, group, and touring exhibitions," and sponsored an artist-in-residence program, which was inaugurated with collagist Nanette Carter.

[7] The gallery's foundation was propelled by New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art's "infamous 1969 show Harlem on My Mind, which consisted of 'documentary photographs,'" but failed to include any Black fine artists.

[8][9][10] Its name was inspired by Sengbe Pieh, aka Joseph Cinqué, the leader of the 1839 rebellion on the Spanish slave ship La Amistad.

"[5] That group, which mounted a single exhibition and then disbanded, included two of Cinque's co-founders (Bearden and Lewis), as well as artists Hale Woodruff, Charles Alston, Felrath Hines, and Richard Mayhew.

[2][6] Susan Stedman, the exhibition's guest curator, has been working on an oral history of the gallery since 2017, building on the records held by the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art.