Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. is passionate about his art and his message. They come together in his work as a printer,
bookbuilder, artist, and teacher. Kennedy is an Afro-American printer from Oak Park, Illinois. He was a computer
programmer before being captivated by printing and the book arts. He has been a
professor, a director of a press, and now hails from Alabama where he operates the York Show Prints. He continues to lecture and teach all over the United States.
Kennedy will visit UCSB this spring to work with art classes and present public lectures.
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Amos Kennedy’s books pack a wallop through their artistic
qualities, their graphic images and their powerful printed messages. He is dedicated to the
preservation of African-American culture through the medium of his art. He provokes strong emotion by his statements to us through his
bookbuilding. His work confronts, causing one to think. Kennedy’s books passionately address the
issue of race, equality, and freedom. One example is the “Children Do Not Count Project.” Sixty-two postcards in heavy brown paper stock document the death of sixty-two children in Chicago. The name of each child, their age at death, and means of death is on each postcard. Each card reads "It takes an entire community to murder a child -- An African-American proverb."
“Mask” is one example of his bookbuilding.
This small work book includes a collaged image of an African
mask on its cover and richly printed pages. Several pages unfold
to reveal both images and text. The pages are covered with
the word ‘mask’ printed in different orientations and in different
colors. Included is the poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence
Dunbar, an African-American poet of the 19th century. Kennedy
has used this poem in several of his works. Aside from his forceful
messages, Kennedy’s works are beautiful to behold and to be
held: lush colors, rich printed textures, surfaces built up
through layers of ink, precise and elegant exquisite books,
and exuberant design.
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