Feminist artist, activist Harmony Hammond to lecture at Cornell April 24

MOUNT VERNON — Artist Harmony Hammond, author of the first history of lesbian art in the United States, will lecture on “Speaking Braids: Gender, Sexuality, and Artistic Practice” on Monday, April 24, at 7 p.m. in Cornell College’s McWethy Hall, Room 222A.

Her 2000 book, “Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History,” profiles 18 prominent lesbian artists. The book earned a Lambda Literary Award for this painter, sculptor, teacher, writer and curator.

Hammond is a Chicago native who received a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting from the University of Minnesota. She spent time in France and Belgium, where she was influenced by African, Oceanic and Native American art. She helped found the A.I.R. Gallery, the first women’s cooperative gallery in New York in 1973, where she had her first show. She is a Guggenheim fellow and recipient of two awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. She co-edited the groundbreaking “Lesbian Art and Artists” issue of Heresies magazine in 1977 and curated the first exhibition of lesbian art in New York in 1978. She taught at the University of Arizona for 17 years, retiring as a full professor. She lives in northern New Mexico.

This lecture is sponsored by Cornell’s art department; it is free and open to the public.