Photo Courtesy The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)
Photo details: Monica Ikegwu Open / Close (Diptych) 2021 Oil on canvas 48 x 36 inches each. Courtesy of Dr. Myrtis Bedolla and Alex Hyman Collection
BALTIMORE, MD – The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) will present Making America Again: So Strong, So Brave, So True, an exhibition featuring work by a representative cohort of Ford/Philip Morris Foundation Fellows for Artists of Color (1985-99), whose careers have had a lasting impact on the contemporary art world. The exhibition runs August 28 to September 29, 2026, in the Sheila & Richard Riggs Gallery at MICA’s Fred Lazarus IV Center, located at 131 W. North Ave. in Baltimore.
The Ford/Philip Morris initiative was the only program of its kind in the nation. Spearheaded by MICA and funded by the Ford Foundation and the Philip Morris Foundation, the initiative expanded to four additional independent art colleges—the Cranbrook Academy, the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Yale School of Art. Their combined effort enabled 200 artists of color to earn Master of Fine Arts degrees while providing the education, mentorship, and professional training needed to ensure they could become active contributors to the mainstream of American art and culture and beyond. The artists represent a variety of stylistic tendencies, and many are now prominent global forces in the art world with work in the collections of major museums.
Featured artists from the cohort include Candida Alvarez, Dawoud Bey, Sanford Biggers, and others. The exhibition also showcases work by artists who preceded the fellowship program, including Joyce J. Scott, Oletha DeVane and Lola Flash, as well as artists who came to MICA following the program, including Jerrell Gibbs, Monica Ikegwu, Jeffrey Kent, Amy Sherald and others.
The title of the exhibition—Making America Again: So Strong, So Brave, So True—is inspired by Langston Hughes' 1935 poem, Let America Be America Again, which contrasts the promise of the American Dream with the lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, and other marginalized communities.
Dr. Leslie King Hammond and Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims are guest curators for this exhibition. Dr. Hammond is the graduate dean emerita and founder of the former Center for Race and Culture at MICA. She also previously served as a senior fellow at the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation in Baltimore. Dr. Sims is an independent curator and art historian and the curator emerita of the Museum of Arts and Design. In 2021–2022, she was the Kress Beinecke Professor at the Center, National Gallery of Art. She received an honorary degree from MICA in 1988.
The exhibition is free and open to the public daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. A public reception will be held Thursday, Sept. 3, from 5 to 7 p.m.
For more information about the exhibition, visit mica.edu.
