I am honored to have the Mushroom Color Atlas archive of three hundred colors exhibited in World Without End: The George Washington Carver Project at the California African American Museum as part of the Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative.
George Washington Carver was a pioneer of plant-based engineering and one of the nation’s earliest proponents of sustainable agriculture. In the early 1900s, he built his “Jesup Wagon,” a moveable school to share soil and plant samples, equipment, and other agricultural knowledge with farmers. Carver’s then-radical ideas—including organic fertilizers, crop rotation, and plant-based medicines and construction materials—are now recognized as the forerunners of modern conservation. A trained and practicing artist, Carver used sustainable materials such as peanut- and clay-derived dyes and paints in his many weavings and still-life paintings. World Without End explores how contemporary artists and scientists working today engage with Carver’s ideas and interests. Alongside contemporary artworks, the exhibition includes Carver’s rarely seen paintings, laboratory equipment, and notebooks. Both the exhibition and its catalogue, which includes previously unpublished material documenting Carver’s life and work at Tuskegee University, will reframe and center Carver’s lasting impact on art and science.