Frank Wimberley: Before More After Less

Berry Campbell is pleased to present its third solo exhibition of 99-year-old African American artist, Frank Wimberley (b. 1926). Based in Corona, Queens, and Sag Harbor, New York, Frank Wimberley works in a pure abstract style that comes out of the tradition of the Abstract Expressionist painters, particularly inspired by Willem de Kooning. Expressionism is a key to Wimberley's work. Throughout decades of varying art trends, Frank Wimberley has stayed true to his signature style of painterly and thickly textured works. Wimberley has long believed his approach provides the most authentic means of conveying his personal narrative, paralleling the artistic expression of his close friend and collector, legendary jazz musician Miles Davis.

This exhibition will include paintings, sculpture, and collages that range in date from 1969 to his most recent collage from 2025. Featured in this exhibition is a body of work from the 1990s that is distinguished by the artist’s approach of building up textured surfaces using canvas, sand, or other materials. These works, predominantly composed of blacks, whites, and earth tones, evoke a soft poetic quality. Many of these paintings have not been displayed publicly since their original exhibitions at the Cinque Gallery, June Kelly Gallery, and Howard University.

In recent years, Wimberley’s work has continued to receive significant recognition. In 2021, he had a solo exhibition, at the Arts Center at Duck Creek in East Hampton, New York, and was included in Creating Community: Cinque Gallery Artists at the Art Students League, New York. In 2023, his art was featured in Collection Highlights: African-American Art at the Greenville County Museum of Art in South Carolina. Currently, his work is included in Acts of Art and Rebuttal in Greenwich Village, a group exhibition at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery at Hunter College, New York, on view through March 2025. Recently Frank Wimberley was inducted in the Guild Hall Academy of Arts by Eric Fischl. He is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Smithsonian Institution of American Art, among many other institutions.

Frank Wimberley: Before More After Less is accompanied by a 68-page exhibition catalogue with a biography by Lisa N. Peters, PhD. Additionally, the catalogue will include original text by Frank Wimberley about his work in collage written for a group exhibition at Guild Hall in East Hampton, New York in 1979. The exhibition will open on Thursday, February 6 and will run through March 8, 2025 with an opening reception on Saturday, February 15, 2025, 2 – 4pm.