Nell Irvin Painter

Nell Irvin Painter (born Nell Elizabeth Irvin August 2, 1942) is an American historian.

Quotes

• Visual art is very freeing, because it answers only to the eye.
  • On exploring painting in “This new and ‘old’ artist offers a self-portrait in starting over” in PBS News Hour (2018 Jul 23)

• This was a new definition. I think there's room in our culture for interesting people who are black and for interesting people who are female and interesting people who are black and female. There's hardly any room to be interesting if you're old.
  • On embarking on a second career as a painter and how age might hinder being perceived as interesting in “This new and ‘old’ artist offers a self-portrait in starting over” in PBS News Hour (2018 Jul 23)

• It hasn't come together finally. There's no end to this, and it changes over time. My relationship with history as I used to write it, and as I sometimes use it in my work — that was something that took several years, actually, for me to feel comfortable with. And as I continued to wrestle with it and to deal with it visually, it's that I can do whatever I want to the figure; I can do whatever I want with history…
  • On the freedom that the visual arts give her versus historical research in “This new and ‘old’ artist offers a self-portrait in starting over” in PBS News Hour (2018 Jul 23)

• I think that’s the kind of relationship between recognition and black women. That you have to be an optimist to think something’s going to work out and just keep trying because if you concentrate on the really awful actual facts of life, then you’ll just crawl into bed and pull the covers over your head.
  • On Black women being recognized in “My Conversation With Legendary Historian & Artist Nell Painter: A Must Read Interview For Black Women” in Madame Noire (2013 Feb 28)