In memory of Cliff Joseph, artist & activist

While searching for an image to represent the launching of Black Voices in Cabaret, we are inspired by this painting by Cliff Joseph, African-American artist, activist and art therapist. Cliff was engaged in the world around us until the week of his passing on November 8, 2020, at the age of 98. He loved our cabaret work, and his wife Ann Joseph is most willing to give us permission to use this image—”Freedom” circa 1970.

Sarah Gray of Aaron Galleries passes along to us, from the gallery catalogue Cliff Joseph: Artist and Activist, this brief overview: “Joseph revisited the theme of balloons several times in the 1960s-70s. The symbolism of the balloon: its inherent, seemingly contradictory characteristics of surface strength and fragility; its potential to rise to great height and the (unknown) appeal to hold it down, parallel some of characteristics of the African American people at the time.”