(BLACK PR WIRE) — Some notable faces in the entertainment world have joined in an interactive campaign featuring The Kinsey Collection: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey — Where Art and History Intersect. It’s part of the yearlong national celebratory art tour supported by Wells Fargo in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
The renowned collection of Los Angeles philanthropist and entrepreneur Bernard Kinsey and his wife Shirley — one of the largest private collections of art and artifacts chronicling the African-American experience from the 1600s to the present — was presented at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach in 2008, where in partnership with the Palm Beach County School District more than 12,000 students experienced it.
Exhibitions of the collection have been displayed in eight museums including the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. An iteration of the collection is set for showing at EPCOT Center, Walt Disney World Resort through 2015. It has been cited in three national awards including the nation’s highest honor, The President’s Medal for Museum and Library Services, and been selected as one of the “Top Ten exhibits to see in the world.”
“The Kinsey Collection strives to give our ancestors a voice, name and personality, enabling the viewer to understand the challenges, obstacles, triumphs and extraordinary sacrifice of African Americans who’ve greatly contributed to the success of this country,” said Bernard Kinsey, “We are delighted to join with Wells Fargo in honoring the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation by sharing this collection with national audiences.”
The exhibition currently on tour officially launched during Black History Month at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, Calif. On June 29, the tour kicked off its second stop at the Harvey B. Gantt Center in Charlotte, NC. It will move to Baltimore’s Reginald F. Lewis Museum in November.
In addition, Jordin Sparks, Lauren London, Lance Gross and Talib Kweli are serving as featured curators in a four-part short film series, Untold Stories: Our Inspired History, that consists of documentary style narrations taking viewers through specific points in history represented by artifacts in The Kinsey Collection.
The new series is designed to educate viewers about the historical impact of African-American history on modern life using the perspective of each celebrity curator.
In one video, Gross describes the trials faced by Josiah Walls, an early African-American statesman in the 41st and 42nd Congress.
Another features Sparks sharing the accomplishments of a young Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American woman poet to be published.
*THE KINSEYS: Owners of renowned art collection.
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