Daniel Minter

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Daniel Minter Sculptor · Painter · Printmaker
Universe of Freedom Making installed at the Smithsonian NMAAHC: a curving gallery wrapped in Daniel Minter’s painted mural, with his carved and painted wood wall framing museum cases
Universe of Freedom Making, 2024. Carved and painted wood, mixed media. Installation view, In Slavery’s Wake, Smithsonian NMAAHC About the installation

Now on view

Detail of Universe of Freedom Making

International tour · through 2028

In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World

Smithsonian NMAAHC’s first international exhibition, with Daniel’s Universe of Freedom Making as its commissioned centerpiece. Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, then Dakar and Liverpool.

About the installation
A Distant Holla, Chapter One: a house-shaped assemblage with a kneeling figure, a bowl, and a girl in blue, shown in MAINE: A Force Within American Art at the Farnsworth Art Museum

Rockland, Maine · 2026–27

MAINE: A Force Within American Art (1890–2026)

Farnsworth Art Museum. Featuring A Distant Holla, Chapter One.

Exhibition details
Red and black standing sculpture with a carved figure inside, on a green circle, in the Thresholds installation at the Haggerty Museum of Art

Milwaukee · through Dec 19, 2026

Thresholds

Part of The Otherworld Is Home, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University. With a catalog essay by the artist.

Exhibition details
Detail of a work shown in Re|Sounding: a carved wooden plank with two hands set across two painted blue panels, a standing figure on the left and a patterned figure above an island on the right

Bath, Maine · 2025–27

Re|Sounding

Recovering Maine’s undertold maritime history. Maine Maritime Museum.

Exhibition details

Selected work

All work
House-shaped assemblage with a tall carved blue head and beaded collar, a man in a blue cap, small carved figures in niches and a guinea fowl Currency Exchange Three painted panels in a dark wood frame, each figure above a broken teacup Governor’s Tea Three carved and painted wood figures: a bald man in a blue patterned shirt, a soldier in a helmet, and a man in a blue cap and overalls Unchosen Choices A red door with a carved face and a patterned panel holding a bottle in a niche Turn So Quick I Thought he had a twin
“I want to channel my ancestors, I want them to know that they have projected out into the future.”

Daniel Minter is a sculptor and painter whose work builds an iconography of the Afro-Atlantic experience rooted in resilience, resistance and healing. He created Universe of Freedom Making, the centerpiece of the Smithsonian NMAAHC’s international touring exhibition In Slavery’s Wake. His work is in the collections of the Smithsonian, the Hood Museum, the Portland Museum of Art and the Farnsworth Art Museum.

His honors include the Joyce Award and a Caldecott Honor, and he co-founded Indigo Arts Alliance and the Portland Freedom Trail. He lives in Portland, Maine.

In the collections of

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture · Hood Museum of Art · Colby College Museum of Art · Portland Museum of Art · Farnsworth Art Museum · Bowdoin College Museum of Art · Bates College Museum of Art · David C. Driskell Center · Northwest African American Museum · Lynden Sculpture Garden · Microsoft Corporation

Honors

Joyce Award, 2021 · Maine Craft Artist Award, 2024 · Honorary doctorates, Colby College and Maine College of Art & Design · Caldecott Honor, 2020 · Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor, 2013 · NAACP Image Award nominee, 2023

Thresholds installation at the Haggerty Museum of Art

Colossal · September 18, 2026

“Through Carved Wooden Assemblages, Daniel Minter Communes with the Spiritual”

Read the article on Colossal ↗

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