OMCA Announces First Major Museum Survey of Beloved Bay Area Artist Mildred Howard
Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory
June 12–October 11, 2026
Oakland Museum of California, Great Hall
PRESS KIT
(Oakland, CA, December 9, 2025) — The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) is proud to present Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory, the first major museum survey of acclaimed Bay Area artist and 2025 Guggenheim Fellow Mildred Howard (b. 1945, San Francisco). Opening June 12, 2026, this landmark exhibition brings together five decades of Howard’s artistic practice, including new and never-before-seen works. From early self-portraits and assemblages to large-scale installations and ephemera from the artist’s archive, Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory offers an unprecedented opportunity to explore the depth and evolution of Howard’s practice. A fully illustrated publication will accompany the survey, ensuring the artist’s work is documented for future generations.
Born in San Francisco in 1945 and a lifelong resident of the East Bay, Howard is celebrated for her mixed-media assemblages, immersive installations, and monumental public works that probe memory, identity, and the African American experience. While Howard has long been recognized as a powerful influence in Bay Area contemporary art and the Black Arts Movement, Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory arrives at a moment of growing national recognition for the artist. In 2025, she was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, acknowledging her “transformative impact on American intellectual and cultural life” and cementing her position as a vital artistic voice.
“Mildred Howard is one of the most important living artists in the Bay Area,” says Carin Adams, OMCA Senior Curator of Art. “Her work is simultaneously poetic and political, personal and collective. This exhibition celebrates her profound contributions to contemporary art, while affirming her place in the canon of American art history.”
Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory unfolds as a layered journey through Howard’s work and life. Visitors will enter into a section featuring early artworks and objects from Howard’s own archive. Influences of fashion and African diasporic dance are highlighted alongside Howard’s generative friendships with fellow artists, including Romare Bearden, Oliver Jackson, Hung Liu, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, and her mentor, Bay Area conceptual artist David Ireland. This area provides a deeply personal entry point into the recurring themes of her practice: memory, body, and language.
The exhibition is anchored by two of Howard’s most significant installations—Blackbird in a Red Sky (aka Fall of the Blood House) (2005) and Crossings (1997/2026)—which bookend OMCA’s Great Hall. Between them, visitors will encounter Untold Histories: Hidden Truths for All (2025), a new sculptural series that responds to and reimagines toppled American monuments. Howard’s ongoing exploration of memory and migration also extends to a new large-scale media piece. Using film footage Howard made on a trip to the American South as a teenager, the work draws on her connection to the Great Migration, which brought her parents from Texas to the Bay Area in the 1940s. Like much of Howard’s practice, these works illuminate collective, generational experiences through personal narratives.
Poetics of Memory will also showcase Howard’s most significant works on paper, assemblages, and sculptures, including A Salute to Sojourner, Still Water Run Deep (2001), The History of the United States with a Few Parts Missing (2007), and Black Has Always Been a Color (2024). The artist’s renowned public artworks, such as Frame/Refrain (2015), will also be represented through photography and video, underscoring the deep impact of her practice in the civic sphere.
“Mildred’s work is transformative,” says Lori Fogarty, OMCA CEO and Executive Director. “She takes everyday materials and imbues them with meaning and histories that refuse to be erased. This exhibition not only honors her as an artist but also invites visitors to engage with urgent questions about memory, belonging, and the power of the stories we tell.”
Major support for Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory is provided by the Oakland Museum Women’s Board and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
CONTACT:
Alexxa Gotthardt
[email protected], 330-472-3775 (cell)
Azayza Jimenez
[email protected], 510-318-8467 (cell)
ABOUT THE CATALOGUE
OMCA’s publication, Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory, offers the first comprehensive compendium of artist Mildred Howard’s (b. 1945) expansive practice. Bringing together a broad selection of past and recent works, this catalogue situates Howard’s artistic and cultural impact through new scholarship and documentation. Archival materials and newly commissioned photographs of the artist’s studio will provide readers with an in-depth view of Howard’s creative process and evolving visual language.
Essays by Makeda Best, Lian Ladia, and Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins—along with an interview of the artist by the editor and curator Carin Adams—offer critical perspectives on Howard’s practice, her engagement with community and place, and her influence within contemporary art. Serving as both a record and a resource, Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory preserves and illuminates the breadth of Mildred Howard’s artistic legacy.
ABOUT MILDRED HOWARD
Bay Area artist Mildred Howard (b. 1945) was born in San Francisco and raised in Berkeley. Over the course of her long career, she has engaged in nuanced examinations of the history and politics of gender, race, and major contemporary issues, including themes of home and belonging. She has received numerous awards for her critically acclaimed work, including a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship (2025), the Lee Krasner Award (2015), two Rockefeller Fellowships (2010, 2007), and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture (1992). Additionally, she has been awarded Honorary Doctorate Degrees from California College of the Arts and California State University, East Bay; the Douglas G. MacAgy Distinguished Achievement Award at San Francisco Art Institute (2018), the Nancy Graves Grant for Visual Artists (2017), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2004/5), a fellowship from the California Arts Council (2003), and numerous civic recognitions. Numerous institutions have exhibited Howard’s work, including Creative Time, New York; InSITE, San Diego, CA; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; New Museum, New York; San Francisco Arts Commission and International Airport; Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt; Walcot Chapel, Bath, England; among others. Her works reside in the permanent collections of the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA; Museum of Glass and Contemporary Art, Tacoma, WA; Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; and San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; among others.
ABOUT THE OAKLAND MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA
Founded in 1969 as a “museum of the people,” Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) tells the diverse stories of California’s art, history, and natural environment. Through inclusive exhibitions, public programs, and educational initiatives, OMCA creates space for meaningful dialogue and strives to build more equitable, empathetic, and connected communities. With more than 2 million objects, OMCA’s collection of art, history, and natural science is a resource for understanding California’s dynamic heritage—all within its 110,000 square feet of gallery space and seven-acre campus. A leading Bay Area cultural institution rooted in Oakland, OMCA is dedicated to fostering an environment where visitors from the region, state, and beyond feel valued and empowered to shape the future of California’s cultural landscape.
VISITOR INFORMATION
The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) is at 1000 Oak Street, at 10th Street, in Oakland. Museum admission is $19 general admission; $16 for seniors; and $12 for youth ages 12 to 17 as well as for students and educators with valid ID, and free for Members and children 12 and under. There is a $6 charge in addition to general admission pricing for special exhibitions in the Great Hall. OMCA offers onsite underground parking and is conveniently located one block from the Lake Merritt BART station, on the corner of 10th Street and Oak Street. An accessibility ramp is located at the 1000 Oak Street main entrance to the Museum. museumca.org