CCH Pounder’s portrait collection is part of the African American Museum’s ongoing exhibit

A massive oil painting featuring two of Congolese artist Sisqo Ndombe’s haunting “cracked people” welcomes visitors to the African American Museum in Philadelphia’s sprawling exhibit, “Shared Vision: Portraits of the CCH Pounder-Koné Collection.”

In the piece, Black Rooster, a young girl, dressed in all white, cradles a rooster, a symbol of power in African art. She’s next to a boy in blue — perhaps it’s her brother — holding flowers. The bubblegum pink background is joyous, but the thick brown paint coloring the subjects’ innocent faces creates the effect of deep scarring.

These visible wounds, said Dejáy B. Duckett, vice president of curatorial services at AAMP and the show’s curator, represent internal pain.

“What if we could see all of the trauma in people as soon as we met them,” Duckett asked as she led me through AAMP’s third-floor gallery. Black Rooster’s gentle aura inspired “Shared Visions,” Duckett said. “Would we treat people differently? Would that evoke a sense of empathy in us if we could see each other’s cracks and scars?”

The thoughtfulness emanates through “Shared Visions,” a tender curation of Pounder’s vast art collection in its final month at AAMP. Pounder, 72, who played the civil rights activist Anna Hedgeman in Netflix’s Rustin and is well known for her role as Loretta Wade on CBS’s NCIS: New Orleans, is an avid collector of contemporary Black artists hailing from the United States and the Caribbean, as well as European and African countries.

Forty-two portraits make up the “Shared Visions” experience, each one starring subjects in varying shades of brown in striking poses that are astute, regal, and poignant. Whether donning metallic puffy jackets like the young women in Monica Ikegwu’s Confined, the white wigs of 18th-century British colonizers in Greg Bailey’s works, or Avatar-like blue-skinned women in Alanis Forde’s art, the portraits are intimate reflections of artists’ families, friends, hopes, dreams, and thoughts. They also critique the endless ways the Black experience shows up in the world.

“[Duckett] chose a well-rounded selection and each represents a different point of view,” Pounder said. “It was really charming to see: a wonderful blend of the historical and the contemporary.”

Portraits of historical significance exude of-the-moment energy. For example, Nigerian painter Chinezim Moghalu’s five-foot acrylic In-dependence III presents two chunky women in strapless mini dresses looking over their shoulders. Their dark skin and protruding red lips call to mind golliwogs, early 20th-century dolls demeaning to Black people. But these women give off an unapologetic attitude that says, “I deserve it all.”

“When you come off the elevator and see them looking, they have not a care of what you think they are,” Duckett said, challenging the stereotype. “They will not be defined by what you think of them.”

Behind In-dependence III is Mushroom Clouds, a two-panel piece by Jamaican artist Greg Bailey. In it, a couple living through the isolation of COVID-19 is sitting on a worn leather couch separated by their aggravation. Although together, they appear lonely and sad, a statement on modern relationships.

“Greg gave specific instructions for the paintings to be hung two inches apart, representing two miles, 20 miles, or 200 miles,” Pounder said. “She is going in a completely different direction than he is. He is standing his ground.”

Each piece has its own mood.

“Portraiture gets people in their solar plexus,” Pounder said. “It gets people in a familiar place. They know that person. They’ve seen that man. They have that friend.”

Pounder began her art collecting journey in the 1990s with her late husband, Boubacar Kone. In 2000, the couple opened the Musée Boribana, the first privately owned contemporary museum in Dakar, Senegal, giving it to the Senegalese government in 2014.

Today Pounder’s collection includes hundreds of sculptures, African artifacts, and paintings displayed in her New Orleans home and in area storage facilities. Curated works from Pounder’s collection have been staged at African American museums in Detroit and Chicago. In the summer of 2023, Duckett went to New Orleans to choose pieces for Philadelphia.

“It was breathtaking,” Duckett said. “I wasn’t sure where the art would lead me, but I’m glad it led me to portraiture.”

Portraiture centering the Black experience has been the draw of several art shows in Philadelphia’s art museums and beyond.

In addition to “Shared Visions,” AAMP is presenting reimagined Jet magazine covers in the “Shaheed Rucker: (re)Covering the Iconic” exhibit in its Jack T. Franklin Gallery. Rucker, a Philadelphia-born artist, superimposed images of Philly icons like Cecil B. Moore, Patti LaBelle, and DJ Jazzy Jeff on old school glossy magazines, breathing new life into the classic magazines and introducing it to younger audiences.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s colorfully vast “The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure,” which closed Feb. 9, featured 28 Black and African diasporic contemporary artists with an emphasis on portraits. The exhibit included Harriet Tubman En Route to Canada, a 2012 canvas by London artist Kimathi Donkor, depicting Tubman holding a shotgun on a traveler who is perhaps posing a danger to freedom seekers. It is among Pounder’s favorites.

“Mickalene Thomas: All About Love,” featuring the sparkling ’70s-inspired self-portraits of the Camden-born artist’s family and friends at the Barnes Foundation, closed in early January. Portraiture from Harlem Renaissance artists, of Alvin Ailey dancers, and paintings of Black women by Elizabeth Catlett were on display at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, and the Brooklyn Museum, respectively.

“In every single era of human existence humans have been compelled to produce art reflecting their image,” said Patricia Renee' Thomas, an artist and University of Pennsylvania lecturer. Pounder is a patron of Thomas’ work.

“The problem was that Westerners had a monopoly over what portraits were shown and who had the right to be painted: landowners, slave owners, and businessmen,” Thomas said.

Pounder, Thomas said, is a Black collector who is unfazed by the white gaze. Pounder “is more than a collector, she’s a visionary.”

“Shared Vision: Portraits of the CCH Pounder-Koné Collection” is on view through March 2. African American Museum in Philadelphia, 701 Arch St., Phila., aampmuseum.org