The Henry Ponder Gallery on the campus of Benedict College will host the first exhibit of 2026 beginning Tuesday,Jan. 20, 2026. Curated by Wendell Brown, director of the Gallery, The Anthony J. & Davida Artis Collection of African American Art will be available for viewing until Feb. 27 weekdays from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Anthony and Davida Artis are the founder and co-pastor at Dedicated Believers Ministries in Flint, Michigan. The couple, married since 1992, has been collecting African-American art since 2009 and sharing pieces from their personal collection to museums and colleges across the country.
Anthony Artis describes how he started collecting art. “We have a local museum in the City of Flint. One day, I befriended one of the guards, and he explained these different pieces to me. Afterwards, he says, ‘Go down to the front desk, and there’s this print for sale by an African-American artist named Mary Lee Bindolf,’” said Anthony Artis. “The guard explained how the print costs $250, but he heard someone in New York just bought the same piece for about \bar { $ 4 },000 . He was so adamant about me purchasing it so I bought it and a couple of other pieces. I told everybody, my mother and father-in-law, my friends, some relatives, and all of a sudden, you had a bunch of Black people going into this predominantly White museum.”
Davida Artis recalls the start of their collection a bit differently. “In the beginning, it was a little contentious. He was wanting to buy art, and I was saying, ‘No, you need to pay the bills.’ It was a struggle for us to be on the same page per se and eventually he started doing it and then we had to sell some art pieces to pay the bills. Then, we began to see how it began to work for us. So, after a while, I kind of took the brakes off a little bit.”
Approximately 40 pieces of the Artises’ private collection will be on display including works by Elizabeth Catlett, Samella Lewis and Benny Andrews, who all have pieces in Benedict College’s permanent art collection.
“The Anthony J. & Davida Artis Collection of African American Art offers an extraordinary opportunity to engage with the depth, power, and breadth of African American artistic expression. As director of the Henry Ponder Gallery, I view this exhibition
as a vital platform for honoring the creativity, resilience, and cultural legacy of Black artists whose voices have profoundly shaped American history and art,” says Brown. “The purpose of presenting this collection is to make visible the narratives of struggle, triumph, identity, and community embedded in these works. Its impact is far-reaching: it reinforces the necessity of preserving African American cultural memory while also inspiring critical dialogue, education, and appreciation across generations. This exhibition stands as both a recognition of legacy and a call to continue supporting and elevating African American artists within the nation’s cultural story.”
Anthony Artis, as a former stockbroker, was watching CNBC and saw the Milken Institute had hosted a global
conference. While reviewing the list of 300 names, he describes his reaction as ‘shocked and surprised’ to see President and CEO Roslyn Clark Artis’ name listed among the speakers. Anthony Artis says he emailed President Artis to offer to exhibit some of his African American art at Benedict.
Davida Artis graduated from Fisk University when Henry Ponder was the president. Ponder would later become the president of Benedict College, the gallery where the Artises’ collection will be exhibited, bears his name.
A reception and conversation will be held on Thursday, Feb 12 from 6 { \it _ 8 \mathrm { _ p. m } } . in the Little Theater located in the Henry Ponder Fine Arts and Humanities Center.
