Rose Art Museum  Honors Danielle Mckinney

2025 Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence

By: Rose - Feb 18, 2025

Rose Art Museum  announces Danielle Mckinney as its 2025 Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence. Since 2002, the Perlmutter Award has been part of the Rose Art Museum’s longstanding tradition of recognizing and supporting emerging artists of extraordinary talent. A painter of pensive and cinematic portraits of Black women, Mckinney’s residency will culminate in the exhibition Danielle Mckinney: Tell me More, August 20, 2025–January 4, 2026, at the Rose. Tell me More will be the artist’s debut museum presentation in the United States.

"Danielle Mckinney is a brilliant painter whose intimate and jewellike canvases evoke a broad range of emotions and art-historical associations. Her lush and sensuous paintings expand the genre of portraiture, inspiring awe and contemplation,” said Dr. Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator. "We are excited to welcome her to campus and look forward to her meaningful interactions with our students and our communities."

Mckinney’s work is a deeply personal exploration of portraiture, color, and composition. Her work draws from a wide range of sources, rooted in an expansive dialogue with art history while remaining true to her unique vision. Trained as a photographer, Mckinney begins by priming her canvases with a black ground, pulling her figures and settings out of shadow in a process reminiscent of film developing in a darkroom. Her compositions are meticulously constructed: a pose borrowed from a 19th-century photograph, the tilt of a head inspired by a vintage magazine shoot, or a coy expression echoing a famous painting. Yet, through these influences, Mckinney crafts paintings imbued with a singular vision and a specificity that is uniquely her own.

In addition to her exhibition, McKinney will participate in engagements with the Brandeis community during the Fall 2025 semester. Danielle McKinney: Tell me More promises to captivate audiences with the emotional resonance of her paintings and her bold dedication to beauty—a powerful statement in a time when unapologetic beauty is most needed.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Danielle Mckinney (b. 1981, Montgomery, AL) lives and works in Jersey City, NJ. She earned her BFA at Atlanta College of Arts in 2005 and an MFA at Parsons School of Design in 2013. McKinney has been the subject of two solo international exhibitions: Danielle McKinney. Fly on the Wall at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Madrid, Spain; and Danielle Mckinney: about a moment – in a moment, Kunthal n in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her work has been featured in several group exhibitions, including Presence in the Pause: Interiority and its Radical Immanence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE; When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa; IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE AND YOU WERE FULL OF JOY at The Contemporary Austin, TX; and Black Melancholia at the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; The Time Is Always Now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; A New Subjectivity 1979/2024 at the Parrish Art Museum, Watermill. NY. Mckinney's work is in numerous museum collections, including the  Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY.

ABOUT THE PERLMUTTER AWARD

The Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence Award is part of the Rose Art Museum’s longstanding tradition of promoting contemporary artists. Past honorees include Noé Martínez (2024), Arghavan Khosravi (2023), Tuesday Smillie (2018), Tony Lewis (2017–2018), Jennie C. Jones (2017), Mika Rottenberg (2013–2014), Dor Guez, (2012), Alexis Rockman, (2008), Dana Schutz (2006), Xavier Veilhan (2005), Barry McGee (2004), and others. 

Nathan Perlmutter served as national director of the Anti-Defamation League for eight years and was a vice president at Brandeis from 1969 to 1973. Along with his wife, Ruth Ann, he championed the interfaith movement and empowered religious and racial minorities. Shortly before his death, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in 1987. Ruth Ann Perlmutter, a sculptor and painter, received degrees from the University of Denver and Wayne State University.