Daniel Minter. Photo: Tom Bloom
Biography
Daniel Minter is a sculptor, painter and printmaker whose work builds an iconography of the Afro-Atlantic experience rooted in resilience, resistance and healing. Working in carved wood, canvas, metal and mixed-media assemblage, he explores displacement and diaspora, the spirituality of African diasporic traditions, and the ongoing (re)creation of meanings of home.
Minter created Universe of Freedom Making, the commissioned centerpiece of In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World. The exhibition is the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture’s first international traveling show, and it is touring Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Dakar and Liverpool through 2028. His work is currently on view in MAINE: A Force Within American Art (1890–2026) at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine; Thresholds at the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Re|Sounding at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine. It is held in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian NMAAHC, the Hood Museum of Art, the Colby College Museum of Art, the Portland Museum of Art, the Farnsworth Art Museum, the Bowdoin and Bates College museums of art, and the David C. Driskell Center.
A Joyce Award recipient, Minter makes permanent public works that are built with the communities they honor. They include In the Healing Language of Trees at Milwaukee’s Lynden Sculpture Garden and In the Voice of Trees at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. As co-founder of the Portland Freedom Trail, he created its bronze bas-relief markers, set in granite at 13 sites of the city’s abolitionist movement and Underground Railroad. His long engagement with Malaga Island, whose interracial community the State of Maine forcibly removed in 1912, was pivotal in having the island designated a public preserve.
His honors also include a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Honor. The U.S. Postal Service twice commissioned his artwork for its national Kwanzaa stamp. A National Endowment for the Arts travel grant first took him to Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, and his residencies have since included the G.A.S. Foundation in Nigeria, founded by Yinka Shonibare. In 2018 he co-founded Indigo Arts Alliance in Portland, Maine. Begun as an artist residency and incubator space, it has grown into an international institution, hosting 98 artists of African descent from more than 16 countries along with scholarly programs and symposia. Minter holds honorary doctorates from Colby College and the Maine College of Art & Design.
Community as material
Minter’s public works are made in partnership with the people whose histories they hold. The beads that wrap In the Healing Language of Trees and In the Voice of Trees were carved and hand-formed together with community members, and along the Portland Freedom Trail, his bronze reliefs honor the freedom seekers and abolitionists whose courage shaped the city.
The same conviction led him, with Marcia Minter, to found Indigo Arts Alliance in 2018. Begun as an artist residency and incubator space in Portland, Indigo has grown into an international institution, hosting 98 artists of African descent from more than 16 countries along with scholarly programs and symposia.
Indigo Arts Alliance ↗Selected CV
Full CV (PDF)Selected solo exhibitions
- 2024Hidden Mouth Talking, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, Maine
- 2022through this to that, with Eneida Sanches, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, Maine
- 2022A Other Crossing, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, Maine
- 2021Rootwork, Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- 2018–19Othered: Displaced from Malaga, University of Southern Maine Art Gallery, Gorham, Maine; Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans
- 2017CARVING, Northwest African American Museum, Seattle
- 2011A Heavy Grace, A Shallow Home, Hammonds House Museum, Atlanta
- 2008A Shallow Home, Northwest African American Museum, Seattle; Museum of African Culture, Portland, Maine
Selected group exhibitions
- 2026Thresholds, part of The Otherworld Is Home, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee
- 2026–27MAINE: A Force Within American Art (1890–2026), Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine
- 2025–27Re|Sounding, Maine Maritime Museum, Bath, Maine
- 2024–28In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World, Smithsonian NMAAHC, Washington, D.C.; international tour
- 2024The Wake / L’Éveil, Dak’Art Biennale, Dakar, Senegal
- 2023The Farnsworth at 75: New Voices from Maine in American Art, Farnsworth Art Museum
- 2020Stories of Maine: An Incomplete History, Portland Museum of Art
- 2018Portland Museum of Art Biennial
- 1994Face of the Gods: Art and Altars of Africa and the African Americas, Seattle Art Museum
- 1994Bienal Internacional Afro-Americana de Cultura, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Commissions & public art
- 2024–28Universe of Freedom Making, commissioned centerpiece of In Slavery’s Wake, Smithsonian NMAAHC; touring Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Dakar and Liverpool
- 2025In the Voice of Trees, permanent outdoor sculpture, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, Boothbay, Maine
- 2021–23In the Healing Language of Trees, permanent outdoor sculpture, Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee (Joyce Award commission)
- 2004, 2011Commissioned artwork for the Kwanzaa stamp, United States Postal Service
- 2004Portland Freedom Trail, Portland, Maine; co-founder and creative visionary of 13 permanent granite and bronze markers
- Malaga Island Freedom Trail, Maine · Art in Embassies, U.S. Embassy, Gabon
Awards & honors
- 2024Maine Craft Artist Award, Maine Crafts Association
- 2023NAACP Image Award nominee
- 2023Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, Colby College
- 2022Distinguished Achievement Award, Maine Literary Awards
- 2021Joyce Award, Joyce Foundation, with Lynden Sculpture Garden
- 2020Caldecott Honor, American Library Association
- 2019Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, Maine College of Art & Design
- 2013Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor
Residencies & grants
- 2025G.A.S. Foundation, founded by Yinka Shonibare, Lagos and Ikiṣẹ, Nigeria
- 2023MOMAZOZO Artist Residency, Carrizozo, New Mexico
- 2014Partners of the Americas, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
- 2012Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Sapelo Island, Georgia
- 1994Travel Grants Fund for Artists, NEA / Arts International; a year in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Arts leadership & teaching
- 2018–Co-Founder & Artist Director, Indigo Arts Alliance, Portland, Maine: Maine’s first Black-led nonprofit artist residency, 98 artists from 16+ countries
- CurrentAdjunct Professor, Maine College of Art & Design
- 2020Visiting Artist, Lunder Institute for American Art, Colby College Museum of Art
Selected publications
- 2026Catalog essay, Thresholds, Haggerty Museum of Art
- 2024In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World, Smithsonian Books. Featured artwork
- 2021Black Food, ed. Bryant Terry. Ten Speed Press. Featured artwork
Selected lectures & panels
- 2026In conversation with Henry John Drewal, Fall 2026 Discussion and Exhibition Preview, Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee
- 2025Community Art + Justice Evening: Freedom Making Through the Arts, Smithsonian NMAAHC, Washington, D.C.
- 2023Symposium, Embodying Memory, Medicine, and Power in Material and Process, Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee
- 2018On Land, panel with Theaster Gates, Lunder Institute for American Art, Colby College
- 2018In conversation with David Driskell, moderated by Henry John Drewal, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, Maine
Education
- 2023Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, Colby College
- 2019Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, Maine College of Art & Design
- 1983Associate of Arts, Visual Communications, Art Institute of Atlanta