ZieherSmith is honored to announce the representation of the Alicia Henry Collection, encompassing over 600 artworks that Alicia Henry (1966-2024) created over more than three decades. The announcement marks the beginning of a long-term, scholarship-driven stewardship of the artist’s body of work, undertaken in collaboration with curators Daina Augaitis and Gaëtane Verna. The proceeds of the collection will benefit the Alicia Henry Scholarship Fund at Fisk University, where Henry was a professor for more than two decades, and other legacy-building projects.

The artist credited drawing as the origin of all her works, including painting, works on paper, and most especially her textile-based wall pieces, for which she is best known. “Through figurative works that she made by layering fabric and hand-embroidery, Henry explored themes of isolation, interaction, family connection, identity, beauty, and the body. A chief concern was the tension between the physical, psychological, and social self, which she often revealed behind the quiet form of a seemingly expressionless mask” (Artforum, October 22, 2024).

To inaugurate this relationship, the gallery will present her major piece, The Walk (2008, acrylic, thread, and fabric, 72 × 79 in), at the Atlanta Art Fair from October 1-4, 2026.

A native of Illinois, Alicia Henry received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Yale University School of Art. After graduation from Yale, she spent two years in Provincetown, MA, as a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center. Following two years spent in Ghana teaching art with the Peace Corps, Alicia returned to the US and taught art on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Porcupine, SD. In 1997, she took a role as a professor in the Language and Arts Department at Fisk University in Nashville, TN, one of the oldest HBCUs in the US, to which she was drawn by its vast collection of works from the African diaspora. She remained at the university for nearly thirty years, and the Scholarship Fund was part of the artist’s own directive, ensuring that her legacy would continue to support students at the school.

In the 2026 group exhibition In Her Place, the Frist Art Museum described the artist as “Known for stitching together multilayered figures made from paper, leather, and fabric, Henry had an uncanny ability to bring her materials to life while addressing themes including family relationships, identity, and isolation,” and Jamaal Sheats, director and curator of Fisk University Galleries, stated: “Her legacy is one of quiet, unwavering impact. She didn’t seek recognition, but she shaped generations of artists through her guidance, her support, and her dedication” (press release, In Her Place, Frist Art Museum, December 4, 2025).

MacArthur Award-winning artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons was a champion of Henry’s work and stated: “I have long quietly cherished the beauty and the mystery of her work… Part of the hidden power of her work resides in that modesty of gesture that, by consistency and commitment, becomes heroic… One day her work will be regarded as some of the most important that was produced in this city” (Laura Hutson Hutner, “The Talented Professor Henry,” Nashville Scene, July 6, 2023).

Henry was the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships, and grants, including the Joan Mitchell Painter and Sculptor Grant (2013); the Guggenheim Fellowship (2000-2001); the Ford Foundation Fellowship (1989-1991); the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art (2016); and the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts Fellowship (2016-2017). Residencies included the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1990), the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown (1991-1993), the MacDowell Art Colony (1993), and Art in General, New York (2000

During her life, Henry’s work was the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions at institutions, including a major solo exhibition organized by The Power Plant (2019), which toured in Canada to the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (2019), the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (2022), and the Kamloops Art Gallery (2022); the Atlanta Biennial (2019); the Havana Biennial (2019); Cheekwood Museum, Nashville (2018-2019); the Frist Art Museum, Nashville (2016, 2025); the Hunter Museum of American Art (2014); the Tennessee State Museum, Nashville (2014); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2012); the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (2013); the South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, Indiana (2004); the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (2002); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (1997); and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (1996).

Her work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Dallas Museum of Art; Cheekwood Museum; Fisk University Art Galleries; the Huntsville Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the North Dakota Museum of Art; and the University of Texas, Austin.

Alicia Henry was loved and admired not only for her talents as an artist, but also for the kind, warm, gentle and friendly spirit that she personified. ZieherSmith is deeply committed to broadening the understanding and awareness of the artist and her oeuvre through our collaboration with the Alicia Henry Collection. Press contact: Andrea Zieher, andrea@ziehersmith.com, 1-917-363-9301

Click the button to donate directly to the Alicia Henry Scholarship Fund at Fisk University and under designation select “Alicia Henry Visual Arts Scholarship” or contact us for more ways to give. Click below to read Laura Hunter Hutson’s 2023 article.

Contact us for preview or passes to the Atlanta Art Fair.

Our permanent location is a storefront space in the AMEC building at 1207 King Hollands Ave, formerly known as 1207 South Street, building 13th Ave S and 12th Ave S.

Free street parking in front or free validation in gallery for the parking lot in rear of building. Visit our shop The National Life at same location or online.

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