For what it's worth, there is an art historian occupation in Wikidata (Q1792450), and the updated query returns 17 results: https://w.wiki/8JWv

Because ethnicity is considered a property that may violate privacy in Wikidata and its use is uneven, it can also be useful to return items that have properties indicating the person's inclusion in relevant databases or WikiProjects, which in this case might include the African American Visual Artists Database, Black Lunch Table, and WikiProject African Diaspora. Here's a query building on Eric's that adds those variables and sorts by birth date, returning an additional 29 names (46 total) that could be investigated further to determine whether they meet the criteria: https://w.wiki/8JXt

It's also possible to construct a similar query in the Getty Vocabularies' Union List of Artist Names (ULAN), but fewer results (5) are returned.

With care,

Karly

P.S. If anyone is interested in Wikidata and/or these types of linked data queries, please consider joining the LD4 Art & Design Affinity Group! Our next call is scheduled for December 6th and will feature a demo by William Blueher (Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art) of the Watson Library's workflow batch creating Wikidata items for artists using QuickStatements from spreadsheets based on the Watson Library Artist Indexes. You can join our Google Group to receive the calendar invitation.

On Mon, Nov 27, 2023 at 10:20 PM Eric Phetteplace <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Lee,

The best understanding I have of how to find Black art historians would be to do a Wikidata query which uses linked data (much culled from Wikipedia but also other sources) so you can formulate complex queries like "people who were of a certain ethnicity with a certain profession". This is my query for Black historians which yields 76 results: https://w.wiki/8J5C

There are many caveats to this approach; Black people are definitely underrepresented in the data source, ethnicity data is notoriously tricky especially for non-living persons, "art historian" isn't a specific occupation so I included "historian and all its subclasses". I am also very amateur at constructing these types of linked data queries, but here are a few names that look promising:

Shirley Woodson
Kellie Jones
Freida High Wasikhongo Tesfagiorgis

W.E.B. Du Bois is included in the results, which seems like a good proof that it's working. Some folks will likely not be art-related or not quite historians per se. There are several names without Wikipedia articles that would require further research.

Let me know if you have ideas on how to improve the query or questions about it, I will try my best to help.

Best,
ERIC PHETTEPLACE Systems Librarian, Libraries (he/him)
[log in to unmask]

CCA is situated on the traditional unceded lands of the Chochenyo and Ramaytush Ohlone peoples.
Black-owned bookstores in Oakland: Ashay by the Bay, Marcus Books

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