Museum director improves finances

Draper has made an impact in her two years at Reginald Lewis Museum

The sumptuous new Romare Bearden exhibit at Maryland’s largest AfricanAmerican museum contains nearly five dozen collages, paintings and prints that any institution would be proud to display.

Visitors to the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture wander from one eye-catching canvas to another, each completely different stylistically from anything else in the gallery.

“Romare Bearden: Visionary Artist” doesn’t look as though it was put together on a shoestring budget — but it was. The exhibit that opened earlier this month doesn’t give the impression of having come together on the fly — in a matter of months, instead of over the three years that’s standard for most museum art exhibits — but it did.

This show is the most recent example of what executive director Wanda Q. Draper has accomplished in the two years since taking the Lewis’ helm. See DRAPER, page 20