May 6 – August 9, 2021
Mary LeFlore Clements Oklahoma Gallery

Honoring the significant legacies of the Civil Rights Movement in Oklahoma City, We Believed in the Sun pairs Ron Tarver, a nationally recognized artist born in Oklahoma, with Ebony Iman Dallas, an emerging Oklahoma artist.

Photojournalist Ron Tarver, on the faculty of Swarthmore College for the past 13 years, talks with The Conversation's Nick Lehr about the Western Wranglers in Brewerytown, and his work for the Inquirer and National Geographic.

You may hear it, before you see it. The gentle trotting of hooves backdropped by the sounds of New York City’s JFK Expressway. Even locals do a double take when they cross paths with a member of the Federation of Black Cowboys. When they ride, they tell the true story of the Wild, Wild West: that it was built by Black cowboys. In fact, an estimated one in three cowboys was a person of colour in the 19th century. It’s an often unsung legacy, and one that lives in big city Black cowboy clubs, working Black ranches, and luxury label-featured organisations and entertainers. But what did it really mean to be a cowboy in 1890? What about today? We spoke with Ron Tarver and John Ferguson, two photographers who have spent extensive time in Black cowboy communities – either growing up in them, or gravitating towards them from across the Atlantic – to document their story. Spur up, folks.

On Tuesday, thousands of protesters marched downtown Houston, demanding justice for the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the countless other black Americans who have been victims of police brutality in the country.

PHILADELPHIA, PA - (January 2, 2020) The Print Center is pleased to present solo exhibitions of new
work by Miguel A. Aragón (born Ciudad Juárez, México; lives Staten Island, NY), Young Sun Han (born
Evanston, IL; lives Brooklyn, NY) and Ron Tarver (born Fort Gibson, OK; lives Philadelphia, PA). These
artists were selected from more than 500 international artists who applied to our 94th ANNUAL
International Competition. The jurors were Charlotte Cotton, Curator-in-Residence, California Museum
The Print Center 94th ANNUAL January 17 — March 21, 2020 2
of Photography, Riverside and Gretchen Wagner, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow for Prints, Drawings, and
Photographs, Saint Louis Art Museum

At the Black Cowboy Museum in a storefront near Houston, one man celebrates the lives of African-Americans in the West’s most iconic role.

As the “yeehaw agenda” takes hold online, two prominent women of color question the significance of the beloved American hero in their music.

A new exhibition at The Studio Museum in Harlem challenges popular silver screen portrayals of the American cowboy.

An exhibition on view at The Studio Museum in Harlem hopes to retire the persistent myth equating cowboys with whiteness.

According to scholars, one in four cowboys working in Texas during the golden age of westward expansion was black; many others were Mexican, mestizo, or Native American—a far more diverse group than Hollywood stereotypes of the cowboy would suggest. Bass Reeves, a black lawman who had a Native American sidekick, is thought to have served as a model for the Lone Ranger. Britt Johnson, a black cowboy whose wife and children were captured by Comanches, in 1865, partly inspired John Ford’s classic film “The Searchers,” almost a century later. In the wake of the Civil War, the African-American Buffalo Soldiers were dispatched by Congress to protect Western settlers and federal land.

At age 15, Amanda Hunt, now associate curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, came across an unlikely figure in a Philadelphia park: a black cowboy.

The photographs and videos in Black Cowboy at the Studio Museum show images of nonwhite cowboys, bringing Americana in line with historical accuracy.

Ron Tarver, in his new photo series "Invisible" at Sande Webster Gallery, zeroes in on things in our everyday surroundings we might look at a lot, but don't necessarily see.

People tend to find something recognizable in the celestial. The signs of the zodiac are among the oldest examples. Images captured by the Hubble space telescope account for some of the most recent. We assign to the latter titles such as “Eye of God,” “Hourglass Nebula” and “Cat’s Eye Nebula” -- we describe what is difficult to grasp by using terms that bring the heavens down to Earth.

The poetry of photography -- and the wonder it can evoke -- is what fascinates Ron Tarver, an award-winning lensman for the Philadelphia Inquirer.