Pittsburgh library pioneer Vivian Hewitt, 1920-2022
Vivian Davidson Hewitt had an eye for both art and how to fill a place in Pittsburgh history. The New Castle, Pa., native was born on Feb. 17, 1920, and passed away on May 29. She was 102.
Hewitt is best known nationally for her patronage of the arts. She and her late husband, John, collected the work of emerging and established African-American artists for decades.
The groundbreaking John and Vivian Hewitt Art Collection is housed at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Art + Culture in Charlotte, N.C. and represents over half a century of astute curation by the couple. Working with a modest income, the Hewitts nevertheless managed to assemble a collection of hundreds of paintings, drawings and sculptures that were the envy of galleries and museums with millions to work with.
As glamorous as collecting art is, Hewitt’s claim to fame in Pittsburgh has more to do with how she made her living. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Geneva College in Beaver Falls in 1943, Hewitt completed a master’s in library science at the Carnegie Library School and became the city’s first Black librarian in 1944.
Hewitt left Pittsburgh in 1949 to become an instructor at the library school at Atlanta University. Her career in library sciences took her across the country, including a prestigious gig as the chief librarian of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1955 to 1963 and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1963 to 1983.
In 1978,. Hewitt became the first Black president of the Special Libraries Association (SLA), a tremendous honor for the Western Pennsylvanian. She was an exemplary educator, teacher, library pioneer and citizen for many decades. As an astute collector of art and photographs, she helped open the eyes of the nation to the work of people whose contribution to art wasn’t always appreciated.
In 2017, the August Wilson Center hosted the John and Vivian Hewitt Art Collection. It represented a homecoming for Hewitt, who still had many friends and relatives here.
From her humble roots in Lawrence County to salons, galleries and libraries across the country, Ms. Hewitt managed to keep her perspective. She saw herself as more than a civil rights pioneer. At heart, she considered her mission fairly straightforward: to open as many eyes as possible to all the beauty and knowledge the world contained.