Bernard and Shirley Kinsey

September 13, 2013, 10:00am

Where Art and History Intersect: The Kinsey Collection and Phoebe Beasley at the Payson Library

Husband and wife collectors and curators, Bernard and Shirley Kinsey, started collecting African American art, manuscripts, and ephemera over forty years ago.  Their passion for this art and the very art of collecting has led to a traveling body of work known as The Kinsey Collection.

One of the places the Collection is currently exhibiting is at Pepperdine University’s Payson Library.  Original artworks, books, paintings, posters, letters, and documents are on display.  The Collection’s motto “Where Art and History Intersect” is quite fitting for many reasons.  At the opening, Shirley Kinsey said that one of the multi-layered goals of the Collection is to “preserve the past for the future,” to help remind people “where you are from and where you are going,” and to assure that viewers know “who you are and whose you are.” – Ellen C. Caldwell, Los Angeles Contributor.

Come and Join Us Brothers: United States Soldiers at Camp William Penn, 1863, Published by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments, Courtesy of The Kinsey Collection.