Art Reception – Beverly McIver

Beverly McIver is widely acknowledged as a significant presence in contemporary American art and has charted a new direction as an artist. McIver is Professor of the Practice of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. Previously, she taught at Arizona State University and
North Carolina Central University.

McIver was born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, as one of three daughters—including her sister, Renee, who has developmental disabilities—of a single mother who worked multiple domestic jobs to make ends meet. She received a BA in Painting and Drawing from North Carolina Central University and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from Pennsylvania State University. Her career as a painter are reminders to herself and her audience of the journey she endured in order to understand the many aspects that collectively shape her identity.

In 2022, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art debuted a survey exhibition of McIver’s work, titled Full Circle, which subsequently traveled to the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art and the Gibbes Museum. McIver was profiled in the 2011 film, Raising Renee—a feature-length documentary film produced in association with HBO.
McIver’s work can be found in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Nelson Fine Arts Center Art Museum at Arizona State University, and the Mint Museum, to name a few. Recent honors include election to the 2024 class of National Academicians with New York’s National Academy of Design, and a yearlong residency at the American Academy in Rome (2017). In 2017, she received the lifetime achievement award from the Anyone Can Fly Foundation in a ceremony hosted by Faith Ringgold. In 2011, McIver was named one of the “Top Ten in Painting” in Art in America.

Beverly McIver is exclusively represented by Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, New York.

For more information, visit: beverlymciverart.com.

Location: Bobbit Visual Arts Center – Auditorium – 113