CLEVELAND (September 10, 2026)—The Gift: Emma Amos with Friends, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s (CMA) newest exhibition, displays Emma Amos’s monumental portrait series The Gift (1990–94). Acquired by the CMA in 2023, this suite of 48 watercolor portraits, painted from life, depicts women artists, writers, and curators in Amos’s intergenerational community. Ranging from renowned figures—Elizabeth Catlett, Anna Deavere Smith, bell hooks, Lucy R. Lippard, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Lorna Simpson, and Kay WalkingStick—to lesser-known individuals, the evocative paintings in The Gift are united in a vast grid whose scale radiates the force of its subjects. “The Gift is not possible to negate,” Amos stated. “Those women are too powerful to ignore.” Alongside The Gift, earlier portraits by Amos in the CMA’s collection as well as the artist’s own notebook, manuscripts, and film footage documenting The Gift’s production highlight how kinship—biological and elected—was an enduring motivation for her art. The exhibition also features selected loaned works that further contextualize The Gift within the artist’s decades-long practice.
Made as a birthday present for her daughter, India, The Gift animates the importance of creative community as a source of strength, support, and inspiration, which Amos learned from her own mother.
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Emma Amos with the women of The Gift (1990–94) at the opening of Emma Amos: Paintings and Prints, 1982–92, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, January 1995. Left to right: Claire Khalil, Martha Wilson, Mary Anne Rose, Brahna Yassky, Joan Semmel, Carol Sun, Kathleen Caraccio, Mira Schor, Emma Amos, India Amos, Faith Ringgold, Helen Evans Ramsaran. Nancy St. Paul, Sabra Moore, Miriam Schapiro, and Grace Williams. Emma Amos papers, 1894–2019. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Photo © Mel Wright Photo |
“Friendship, it seems, was lived through the making of The Gift. And watercolor, a highly unusual medium for Amos, was just right for capturing the immediacy of these dynamic encounters between artist and sitter,” said Emily Liebert, Lauren Rich Fine Curator of Contemporary Art and Chair of Art of the Americas and Modern and Contemporary Art. “The Gift brings to life the power of kinship and collectivity.”
This exhibition marks the first time The Gift has been displayed since 2013. Visitors can view The Gift: Emma Amos with Friends free of charge from Sunday, September 13, 2026, through Sunday, January 24, 2027, in the Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz Photography Galleries.
Programming Lunchtime Lecture: “Friendship and Inheritance in Emma Amos’s The Gift” Tuesday, October 6, 12:00 p.m. Gartner Auditorium, Suzanne and Paul Westlake Performing Arts Center Free; Ticket required
Speaker: Gabriella Shypula, Leigh and Mary Carter Director’s Research Fellow, the Cleveland Museum of Art
Emma Amos was an influential artist whose paintings, prints, and textiles celebrated her creative community of women, particularly women of color. This practice of picturing her social circle reached its peak in the monumental portrait series The Gift (1990–94), recently acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art. Made as a birthday present for her daughter, India, this suite of 48 watercolor portraits, painted from life, depicts women artists, writers, and curators who range in age, race, and degrees of renown. Complementing the exhibition The Gift: Emma Amos with Friends, join Gabriella Shypula, Leigh and Mary Carter Director’s Research Fellow, as she explores the context in which Amos made The Gift, the vibrant community it documents, and its legacies.
Catalogue The Gift: Emma Amos with Friends is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue inspired by a book proposal that Amos drafted but never realized during her lifetime. This catalogue includes essays by Rhea L. Combs, Carmen Hermo, Emily Liebert, and Gabriella Shypula, as well as a reprinted interview of Amos by bell hooks. The intersection of portraiture and community is explored through a roundtable discussion with contemporary artists Jordan Casteel, Aliza Nisenbaum, and Amy Sherald, moderated by Rhea L. Combs. The catalogue also features never-before-published archives, as well as biographies for each of The Gift’s 48 sitters. In tandem, the CMA is expanding the exhibition’s reach through a complementary digital resource rooted in The Gift.
All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, the John and Jeanette Walton Exhibition Fund, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson. Major annual support is provided by the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm and the Frankino-Dodero Family Fund for Exhibitions Endowment. Generous annual support is provided by two anonymous donors, Gini and Randy Barbato, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Gail and Bill Calfee, the Leigh H. Carter family, Dr. William A. Chilcote Jr. and Dr. Barbara S. Kaplan, Mary and Jim Conway, Joseph and Susan Corsaro, Ron and Cheryl Davis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, Florence Kahane Goodman, Martha H. and Steven M. Hale, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Linda Harper, Robin Heiser, the late Marta and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., the estate of Walter and Jean Kalberer, Robert M. Kaye, Jane and Doug Kern, the late Mrs. Nancy M. Lavelle, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Roy Minoff Family Fund, Lu Anne and the late Carl Morrison, Mrs. Peta and the late Dr. Roland Moskowitz, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Sarah Nash, Courtney and Michael Novak, Mark and Paula Nylander, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, Dr. Nicholas and Anne Ogan, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, Frank and Fran Porter, Christine Fae Powell, Peter and Julie Raskind, Michael and Cindy Resch, Marguerite and James Rigby, in memory of Dee Schafer, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, Elizabeth and Tim Sheeler, Saundra K. Stemen, Paula and Eugene Stevens, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.
The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.
This exhibition was supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.
### About the Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes more than 68,000 artworks and spans 6,000 years of achievement in the arts. The museum is a significant international forum for exhibitions, scholarship, and performing arts and is a leader in digital innovation. One of the leading encyclopedic art museums in the United States, the CMA is recognized for its award-winning open access program—which provides free digital access to images and information about works in the museum’s collection—and free of charge to all. The museum is located in the University Circle neighborhood with two satellite locations on Cleveland’s west side: the Community Arts Center and Transformer Station.
The museum is supported in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture and made possible in part by the Ohio Arts Council (OAC), which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts. The OAC is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally, and economically. For more information about the museum and its holdings, programs, and events, call 888-CMA-0033 or visit cma.org.
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