The Kinsey Collection in The Seattle Times

The Kinsey Collection exhibition at Tacoma Art Museum has been featured in The Seattle Times. See below for an excerpt or click here for the full article.

Two days before The Kinsey African American Art & History Collection exhibit opened at Tacoma Art Museum, Shirley Kinsey, a philanthropist and collector, gave the bronze bust of Frederick Douglass a pat on the shoulder like the famed abolitionist was an old friend. Before the Los Angeles-based Kinsey family turned their private art and history collection into a world-traveling exhibition, the sculpture of Douglass used to sit at their dining room table. 

“We’d say we were having dinner with Frederick Douglass,” Shirley Kinsey said with a laugh. 

The Kinsey Collection features African American art and historical artifacts from 1595 to the present collected by the Kinsey family and shared with the goal of “filling in the blanks” where Black American experiences are left out of American history. 

First meeting each other as students at a civil rights protest in 1963 where Shirley Kinsey was arrested, the couple have been married for 50 years and have been exhibiting their private collection of Black art and historical artifacts for 15 years.