Where We At – Cookin’ & Smokin’ at Weusi-Nyumba Ya Sanaa Gallery

Poster for an exhibition of Where We At held in January 1972 at the Weusi-Nyumba Ya Sanaa Gallery in Harlem, featuring works by Carol Blank, Kay Brown, Carol Byard, Jerrolyn Crooks, Iris Crump, Pat Davis, Doris Kané, Mai Mai Leabua, Dindga McCannon, Onnie Millar, Charlotte Richardson, Faith Ringgold, Ann Tanksley, and Jean Taylor.

Cookin’ & Smokin’ was a continuation of Where We At: Black Women Artists 1971, a group show arranged by McCannon, Brown and others, which led to the formation of WWA as a collective of Black women artists. From “Abundant Evidence: Black Women Artists of the 1960s and 1970s” by Valerie Smith:

Organized in 1971, “Where We At” Black Women Artists (WWA) provided an opportunity for
black women, marginalized by both the predominantly male Black Arts Movement (the cultural and aesthetic counterpart of the Black Power Movement) and the largely white feminist (and feminist art) organizations, to share concerns and resources. Although they made art, many of WWA’s members did not consider themselves professional artists. As Kay Brown, a painter, printmaker, and collagist, explained in a 1984 panel discussion held at the Hatch-Billops Collection in New York City: “They were conditioned to think that they could not really achieve the status of a professional artist.” By providing these women with a space in which they could engage in meaningful substantive conversation and exchange work and ideas, WWA helped them gain confidence and inspired them to continue.

The poster shows portraits of the thirteen featured artists. Via AAVAD:

Top row, left to right: Dindga McCannon and her daughter, Ann Tanksley, Carole Byard, Jean Taylor (as Joan), Charlotte Richardson; middle row: Faith Ringgold, Gylbert Coker, Kay Brown; bottom row: Doris Kane, Iris Crump, Carole Blank, Jerri Crooks. [Illus. in The Power of Feminist Art, ed. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994: 107.]

The title typeface is Libra. It’s paired with Folio fett and what appears to be a proportionally spaced typewriter adaptation of Bookman.