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A colorful African-style painting of 5 masks. The background is a turquoise blue with deep blue triangles and the Masks in the foreground feature bright multicolored stripes and shapes that follow the contours of each mask.

Curtis Barnes, Sr., Dayton Icon

July 12–September 14, 2025

A painter and educator, Curtis Barnes, Sr. was a longtime fixture of Dayton’s art scene. His bold, colorful and experimental paintings are a distinctive blend of naturalism with abstraction. They frequently picture the people in his life, as well as in powerful self-portraits. His influence is found today in his students, many still working in the Dayton area, as well as his 1992 co-founding (with artist “Bing” Davis) of the African American Visual Artists Guild. For his contributions, Barnes was presented the Paul Laurence Dunbar Humanitarian Award in 1994 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ohio Arts Council in 2008.

This is a celebration of Barnes’ life and art, drawn from the collections of his family and friends and comes on the 90th anniversary of his birth year. A DAI exclusive.

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