An exhibition exploring the undertold stories of African American artists who sought new possibilities, inspiration and environments in the Nordic countries in the 20th century opens at Scandinavia House on November 26, 2024. Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century looks at the significance of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden as destinations for African American cultural figures including Ronald Burns, Doug Crutchfield, Herb Gentry, Dexter Gordon, William Henry Johnson, Howard Smith and Walter Williams through a range of artifacts, artworks (music, paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, textiles), and documentary evidence (photography, film, and journalistic writing). Organized by the National Nordic Museum in Seattle by co-curators and ASF Fellows Ethelene Whitmire and Leslie Anne Anderson, where it debuted in March 2024, the exhibition will now be on view at Scandinavia House through March 8, 2025.

The exhibition at Scandinavia House has recently been reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, with critic Lance Esplund citing it as an “important and compelling group portrait.”

Guided Gallery Tours led by Emily Stoddart, ASF’s Manager of Exhibitions & Community Programs, will take place on select Wednesdays throughout the exhibition run. Read more and register for an upcoming Gallery Tour here.

Nordic Utopia?-related programs will be taking place throughout the month of February. On February 19, Scandinavia House will host a celebration of the legendary dancer and choreographer, Doug Crutchfield, featuring Crutchfield’s great-niece, Dr. Davia J. Crutchfield, and Calvin Royal III, Principal Dancer with the American Ballet Theatre. On February 22, join co-curators Ethelene Whitmire and Leslie Anne Anderson and scholars Denise Murrell and Tamara J. Walker for a panel discussion as they expand on the various themes, artistic output, and shared histories on view in the exhibition. On February 26, see a screening of the musical drama Round Midnight (1986), starring Dexter Gordon, followed by a film talk with Maxine Gordon, Dexter Gordon’s widow, and film critic Richard Brody of the New Yorker.

During the 20th century, African Americans visited, performed, studied, and lived in the Nordic countries for a variety of reasons: a sense of adventure, love, seeking educational and occupational opportunities, freedom to explore their sexuality, freedom from Jim Crow segregation, among many other reasons. Drawing from paintings, photographs, textiles, film, music, and dance, this exhibition captures their journeys as their sense of who they were was transformed through their Nordic encounters. Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century is the first comprehensive examination of the stories of these African American visual and performing artists, and features loans from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park; SMK—the National Gallery of Denmark; and Moderna Museet in Stockholm, among other public collections. It also assembles art and artifacts from private collections, including those of the artists.

58 Park Ave Map
212-779-3587