L’Observateur / December 30, 1999

NEW ORLEANS – Nationally-renowned African-American artist and St. Rosenative Margaret Burroughs is having an exhibition at the Stella Jones Gallery in New Orleans, starting Monday.

Burroughs, 82, is considered one of the “grand dames” of African- American art. A poet, lecturer, educator, community activist, visual artistand museum administrator, she was born in 1917 as Margaret Taylor.

When she was 5 her family relocated to Chicago, joining the migration of blacks from the Deep South to urban areas of the north.

She’s come a long way from scribbling pictures on the kitchen floor while her mother did the dishes. The daughter of Alexander and Octavial PierreTaylor, she attended school and became involved with the NAACP while in high school.

In 1935 she entered Chicago Normal College to become a teacher, and she graduated in 1937 then attended the Art Institute of Chicago.

She taught from 1940 to 1968 in Chicago’s public schools. She earned hermaster’s degree in art education in 1948.

Burroughs pursued art education in Mexico in the early 1950s and founded the National Conference of Artists in 1959 and the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago in 1961 and was a professor of humanities at Kennedy-King College in Chicago from 1969 to 1979. InApril 1980 Burrough was honored by President Jimmy Carter as one of the 10 most outstanding black artists in America.

Burroughs has also written children’s books and published several poems in various anthologies.

Sharing the exhibition with Ernest Crichlow as part of the 20th Century African-American Icons series, Burroughs’ work will be on display at the Stella Jones Gallery, 201 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, Jan. 3 through Feb.29.

A reception is set Jan. 8 at the University of New Orleans DowntownCenter, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.For more information, call the Stella Jones Gallery at 568-9050.

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