Winfred Rembert was born in Americus, Georgia in 1945 and raised during the Jim Crow era in the neighboring town of Cuthbert. Rembert spent years of his childhood working in cotton and peanut fields with his loved ones, experiencing the injustices of the sharecropping system at a
young age. He drew when he could at the encouragement of one of his teachers. The Civil Rights Movement electrified Rembert as a young adult, and in 1965 he was incarcerated for the first time due to activities at a peaceful protest. He escaped prison and survived a lynching
attempt by an angry mob. He was sent back to prison and spent the next seven years doing hard physical labor on a chain gang. After his release and at the encouragement of his wife,Rembert committed himself to a full-time art practice at the age of 51. Rembert’s largely
autobiographical paintings explore his life as an incarcerated person and stories of his youth in the Jim Crow South.
Rembert’s medium is leather—he learned to tool and craft the material from another prisonerduring his incarceration. The artist’s work, ranging from illustrative to nearly abstract, combines his skill as a draftsman with his mastery of leatherwork. His color palette also varies; in some
works, brightly colored figures explode across the composition, while in others they blend in with the earth tones of the leather background. Rembert’s subjects depict the horrors of the chain gang and sharecropping, but they also explore the joyous aspects of his childhood in Georgia
through dances in juke joints, churches and baptisms, and a meal shared with fellow laborers after a long day in a cotton field.
A self-taught artist, Rembert’s work has been compared to masters such as Horace Pippin, Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence. His breakout show was featured at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven. His work is held in the university’s permanent collection and many
others including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia. Rembert, who passed away at 75 in 2021, continued to make art until the end of his life from his home in New Haven, Connecticut.
-- Hannah Sheridan
CV source: https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/40477-winfred-rembertz/
Solo Exhibitions
2024
Hauser & Wirth, "Winfred Rembert. Hard Times", Los Angeles CA
2023
Hauser & Wirth, "Winfred Rembert. All of Me", New York NY
2021
Fort Gansevoort, "Winfred Rembert: 1945-2021", New York NY
2020
James Barron Art, "Winfred Rembert: I Want to Tell the Truth", Kent CT
2018
The Butler Institute of American Art, "Southern Roots: The Paintings of Winfred Rembert",
Youngstown OH
2017
The Muskegon Museum of Arts, "Southern Roots: The Paintings of Winfred Rembert",
Muskegon MI
2016
Catamount Arts, "Winfred Rembert: An Artful Response", St. Johnsbury VT
2015
New Haven Museum, "Winfred Rembert: Amazing Grace", New Haven CT
2013
Danforth Art Museum, "Winfred Rembert: Beyond Memory", Framingham MA
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, "Winfred Rembert: Amazing Grace", Montgomery AL
(travelling exhibition)
Flint Institute of Arts, "Winfred Rembert: Amazing Grace", Flint MI (travelling exhibition)
Tillou Fine Art, "Winfred Rembert", New York NY
2012
The Citadelle Art Foundation, "Winfred Rembert: Amazing Grace", Canadian TX (travelling
exhibition)
Hudson River Museum, "Winfred Rembert: Amazing Grace", Yonkers NY (travelling exhibition)
Greenville County Museum of Art, "Winfred Rembert: Amazing Grace", Greenville SC (travelling
exhibition)
2010
Adelson Galleries, "Winfred Rembert: Memories of My Youth", New York NY
1998
York Square Cinema, New Haven, CT
Group Exhibitions
2024
Galerie Marguo, "Wronged", Paris, France
2023
Southampton Arts Center, "Change Agents. Women Collectors Shaping the Art World",
Southampton NY
2022
Florence Griswold Museum, "Dreams & Memories", Old Lyme CT
North Carolina Museum of Art, "Start Talking: Contemporary Art from the Collection of Hedy
Fischer and Randy Shull", Raleigh NC
22 London, "Mirror Mirror", Asheville NC
2021
Adelson Galleries, "Winfred & Mitchell Rembert: Father and Son", New York NY
Florence Griswold Museum, "Social & Solitary: Reflections on Art, Isolation, and Renewal", Old
Lyme CT
Greenville County Museum of Art, "Soul Deep: African-American Masterworks", Greenville SC
2020
Hudson River Museum, "Landscape Art & Virtual Travel: Highlights from the Collections of the
HRM & Art Bridges", Yonkers NY
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, "Protest and Promise: Selections from the Contemporary
Art Collection 1963-2019", Hartford CT
Hudson River Museum, "Collection Spotlight: Derrick Adams Selects", Yonkers NY
2015
Adelson Galleries, "Fall Exhibition: Five Artists, Jacob Collins, Federico Uribe, Winfred Rembert,
Andrew Stevovich, Jamie Wyeth", New York NY
2002
Kresge Gallery, Ramapo College, "Willie Birch and Winfred Rembert (African American SeriesExhibition 1)", Mahwah NJ
2000
Yale University Art Gallery, "Southern Exposure: Works by Winfred Rembert and Hale
Woodruff", New Haven CT
Permanent Collections
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR
Flint Institute of the Arts, Flint, MI
Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT
Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, GA
Glenstone, Potomac, MD; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Legacy Museum, Equal Justice Initiative, Montgomery, AL
Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY
Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles, CA
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN
Muskegon Museum of Art, Youngstown, OH
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Richard M. Ross Museum of Art, Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.
Artist Books, Writings
2021
Rembert, Winfred, Kelly, Erin I., Stevenson, Bryan, "Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s
Memoir of the Jim Crow South", New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021, ill.