A selection of 75 Otto Neals watercolors was selected from the Valentine Museum of Art collection. Works will be displayed through 2024.
About Otto Neals:
Otto Neals, painter, sculptor, and printmaker, was born in Lake City, SouthCarolina. His family moved from the south to Brooklyn, N.Y., where he has resided eversince.
He is basically self-taught, however, he did study briefly at the Brooklyn Museumwith Isaac Soyer and at the Bob Blackburn Printmaking Workshop with MohammedKhalil, Roberto De Lamonica, and Krishna Reddy. He is proficient in many mediumsincluding oils, watercolors, pastels and wood and stone carving.
In 1958 he participated in the newly founded Fulton Art Fair where he met artistssuch as Tom Feelings, Al Hollingsworth, Vivian Schuyler Key, Vincent Smith and ErnieCrichlow and Jacob Lawrence who were the co-Directors of the fair. To date, he is theonly artist that has taken part in the exhibitions each year since its inception. He was alsoa founding member of the Harlem based group called the Weusi Artists which maintained a gallery called, Nyumba Ya Sanaa.
Neals’ works are in the collections of several notables including HarryBellafonte, the Honorable Una Clarke, former N.Y.C. Council member, Randy Weston,Musician, Congressman John Lewis, Ruby Dee and Oprah Winfrey. His works are alsoincluded in the Ghana National Museum, The Studio Museum, and The SchomburgLibrary. He was commissioned by the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation to create a work ofbronze, entitled, “Peter and Willie”, for the Imagination Playground in Brooklyn’sProspect Park for which he was awarded the N.Y.C. Arts Commissions Award forExcellence in Design. Other commissions include ten bronze plaques for the “HarlemWalk of Fame” and a bronze work called “Discovery” for The Brooklyn ChildrenCenter.
His works have been exhibited at Kenkeleba Gallery, The Studio Museum, TheN.Y. State Museum in Albany, N.Y., The Herbert Johnson Museum at CornellUniversity, Ithaca, N. Y. and one-man shows at The Schenectady Museum, Schenectady.N.Y.,Benedict College, Columbia, S.C. and The Columbia Museum, Columbia, S.C. Hewas also chosen to create a cover for the June 1986 cover of Black Enterprise for whichhe also posed. Images of his works was also included in Ebony Magazine, ElanMagazine, Sculpture Magazine, Time Out, African Voices, The International Review ofAfrican American Art, and Who’s Who in American Art. The artist, writer, Elton Faxincluded him in “Black Artists of the New Generation”, one of his many books about art.
