Njideka Akunyili Crosby, whose art negotiates the cultural terrain between her adopted home in America and her native Nigeria in collage and photo transfer-based paintings, will give the seventh Betty Jean and Wayne Thiebaud Endowed Lecture. This year’s lecture celebrates Wayne Thiebaud’s centennial birthday. 

Akunyili Crosby was born in Enugu, Nigeria in 1983 and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She was a participant in La Biennale di Venezia, 58th International Art Exhibition, May You Live In Interesting Times, curated by Ralph Rugoff (11 May – 24 November 2019). Recent solo exhibitions include Njideka Akunyili Crosby: “The Beautyful Ones”, The National Portrait Gallery, London (2018-19) and Counterparts, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX (2018-19), Baltimore Museum of Art, MD (2017-18). She is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Art from Swarthmore College in 2019, a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship and was awarded Financial Times’ Women of the Year in 2016. Most recently, she received the Great Immigrants, Great Americans Award from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.  

Read more about Akunyili Crosby and here work here.

This event is supported by the Department of Art and Art History, the Art Studio program, the UC Davis College of Letters and Science and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. 

The Betty Jean and Wayne Thiebaud Endowed Lecture honors the Thiebauds’ long commitment to educating the eye and hand along with the mind. The endowment will complement the Art Studio Program’s Visiting Artist Lecture Series, a core component of the Art Studio MFA Program, increasing its ability to invite distinguished artists, critics and curators to the UC Davis campus.