Keith Anthony Morrison

Keith Anthony Morrison (born May 20, 1942), is a Jamaican-born American painter, printmaker, educator, critic, curator, and academic administrator.

Morrison was an abstract painter from 1965 until 1985, which was followed by works in a figurative painting-style that are surrealist as well as draw on his Caribbean heritage.

[3] Morrison's work has been featured in many publications, including the book African Diaspora in the Cultures of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States (2014), an anthology of essays by 14 scholars;[6] the J. Paul Getty Museum's Mortality/Immortality?

In 2019 the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, D.C. held a large solo exhibition of Morrison’s paintings on canvas and watercolors on paper.

In 2012 an exhibition of Morrison's paintings, titled "The Middle Passage," curated by Julie McGee, was held at the University of Delaware Museums.

In 2014 the book African Diaspora in the Cultures of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States, edited by Persephone Braham (University of Delaware Press), was published to document the symposium that was formed around Morrison's art.

The exhibition, accompanied by a catalog the curator wrote, included lithographs, photographs, videos and film.

The exhibition included artists from countries such as Brazil, Cuba, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Haiti, Nigeria, Sudan, Switzerland, the USA and the UK and showed the global scope of thinking that originated among African-American artists, curators, and scholars of the era, such as W. E. B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, James Porter, Alonzo Aden and James Herring.

In 1969 Morrison curated the exhibition Jacob Lawrence’s Toussaint L’Ouverture Series at DePaul University Gallery, Chicago.

In 1996 Morrison curated "Contemporary Print Images," a Smithsonian Institution International Travel Exhibition to the National Museum, Bamako, Mali; American Cultural Center, Niamey, Niger; School of Fine Arts Gallery, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda; and Municipal Gallery, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Nexus Gallery, Philadelphia; Prints at the Brandywine Workshop, Philadelphia; "Metaphor/Commentaries: Artists from Cuba (1999); "The Curator's Eye," National Gallery of Art, Kingston, Jamaica, (2008; and "Magical Visions," (including Terry Adkins, Sonya Clark, Melvin Edwards, Sam Gilliam, Barkley L. Hendricks, Kalup Linzy, Karyn Olivia, Odilli Odita, Faith Ringgold, William T. Williams (the University of Delaware Museum, (2012).

He co-authored with David C. Driskell, Juanita Holland, and others: "Narratives of African American Art and Identity, Smithsonian Institution, 1999.

Morrison has served on several artboards and state agencies in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Illinois, and California in the US.

In 1979, he became only the fourth African American to be appointed full professor in the history of the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), where he taught until 1992.

At San Francisco State, he raised funds, created festivals and exhibitions in art, film, music, and theatre.

He was also the founder and director of the annual John Handy Jazz Festival, held at San Francisco State University, from 2000 to 2001.

At Tyler, he restructured the budget, expanded the programs internationally to include Africa, Asia, Central, and South America, and added many faculty and lab technicians.