The Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA/the Museum) announces four exceptional new additions to its permanent collection through acquisitions. The first one being Portrait of Frederick (c. 1840), attributed to C. R. Parker (1799–1849), one of only two known pre-emancipation portraits depicting individuals who were at some interval enslaved in Mississippi. Purchased from Neal Auction Company in New Orleans in partnership with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, this important work will join the collections of both museums. At MMA, Portrait of Frederick will join Portrait of Delia (c. 1840–1849) by James Reid Lambdin (1807–1889), the only other known formal oil portrait of an individual enslaved in Mississippi.
Returning to Mississippi is This Water Runs Deep (2022), an epic mixed-media work by contemporary artist Jamea Richmond-Edwards. It was featured in the landmark exhibition A Movement in Every Direction co-organized by MMA and the Baltimore Museum of Art. The exhibition concluded its three-year national tour this spring. The Museum also welcomes powerful photography by Jackson-born, Brooklyn-based artist D’Angelo Lovell Williams and bold textile art by Mississippi-based artist Coulter Fussell.
Betsy Bradley, MMA’s Laurie Hearin McRee Director, said, “We are delighted to have acquired these distinctive works with ties to the state’s history and contemporary artistic practices. Together, they represent a storytelling arc from the 19th century to the present. Several of these works are on view at the Museum September 1 through December 2025 in dialogue with our ongoing exhibition New Symphony of Time.”
Portrait of Frederick is an image well-known to visitors of Longwood Mansion in Natchez, Mississippi, where it was on display for many decades. His first known enslaver in Mississippi was Dr. Rush Nutt. In addition to the rarity of its subject (born in 1802), the painting is particularly remarkable in that Frederick is the sole subject—not included as a figure adjacent to white sitters or as an element to underscore white sitters’ status. His presence is commanding as he gazes back at the viewer.
Rod Bigelow, Executive Director of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, said, “At Crystal Bridges, we are committed to expanding the narratives represented in American art. Portrait of Frederick is an extraordinary and rare work that offers a deeply human and historically significant view of our nation’s past. We are thrilled to partner with the Mississippi Museum of Art on this acquisition, ensuring this story will be shared with audiences across our communities—sparking dialogue, reflection, and a deeper understanding of what shapes our collective history.”
Richmond-Edwards’s This Water Runs Deep depicts her family’s journey from Georgia along the Mississippi River, displaced by floods and tornadoes that led to losing their land. A mythical leviathan coils around a gilded boat carrying the artist, her mother, husband, sister, niece, and sons, symbolizing protection through hardship. Richmond-Edwards is an interdisciplinary artist that creates monumental scale assemblages and immersive installations.
With work now in the holdings of the Art Institute of Chicago, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Tate Modern, among others, Williams first showcased his talents as a student at the Mississippi Museum of Art where his early work was included in the annual Scholastic Art and Writing exhibition. Today Williams is known for exploring narratives of Black and Queer intimacy in his beguiling photographs and self-portraits like the individual featured in the print Structural Dishonesty (2016).
Representing yet another type of journey, Fussell’s Hot Water (2022) is a part of her “River Raft Quilts” series. This sculptural quilted work references an open-ended narrative of personal escape. Drawing from a childhood growing up in a river-town, the youngest in a multi-generational family of quilters and seamstresses, Fussell sews her stories as outfitted rafts and guide-maps, preparing to travel down an imagined river. Fussell’s first museum survey exhibition will be on view at the Mississippi Museum of Art in March 2026.
For more information, visit www.msmuseumart.org
