Local artist stands out at Africa House gallery

(First in a two-part series for Black History Month).

Despite her northern European complexion, accent and last name, Ann van de Graaf is very much African-American.

“I grew up in Tanzania,” she said recently, “and I didn’t see another white child besides my brother until I was four. Whites were very much a minority there, and because it was a protectorate and not a colony, they weren’t allowed to own land. I became accustomed to being the only white person at a lot of gatherings.”

It was a perspective that van de Graaf brought to Lynchburg in the late 1950s, only to collide head-on with the peculiar institution of segregation.

“That was new and strange to me,” she said.

At first, van de Graaf’s slightly English accent (Tanzania was a British outpost) and European grace served her well in Lynchburg, long known for its Anglophiles. But segregation nagged at her sense of fairness — and the good will she had built up all but evaporated when she and her husband, Hans, sold their house in the Rivermont area to a black couple in 1968.

“I started teaching art to mostly black children in Dearington,” she said, “and I wanted to do something to recognize the people who were getting involved in the civil rights movement. Since I was an artist, I decided that the best thing for me to do was paint a picture.”

Initially, she began crafting portraits of local civil rights activists until their sheer numbers began to overwhelm her.

“I finally decided to do a painting with all (75) of them together,” she said. “Some of them were people I had painted individually, some were done from memory.”

She spent some time at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts working on “Lord, Plant My Feet On Higher Ground,” a painting that has become iconic among Lynchburg’s black community. The original hangs in the Legacy Museum of African American History, and prints are scattered throughout the city — including one on van de Graaf’s desk on the second floor of her Garfield Street gallery, Africa House.

“I talked with some members of the black community at the time and asked them if they minded having this painting done by a white person,” van de Graaf said, “and they were all very supportive.”

Over the years, van de Graaf has returned the favor. She is currently on the board of both the Legacy Museum and the Virginia University of Lynchburg, the venerable and mostly black college just up the street from her gallery. Several years ago, she was one of the organizers of a symposium revolving around the life and tragic death of Ota Benga, a Congolese pygmy who lived for a time in Lynchburg.

Moreover, Africa House is devoted to preserving and displaying black history and culture. Located in a neat two-story structure painted in gazelle-like tones of brown and tan, it is simultaneously one of the city’s smallest and busiest art centers. This Sunday, it will host a reading of “Afrocentric poetry” by members of the Randolph College Black Leaders Association. On Feb. 14, van de Graaf will premiere an exhibit of “vintage African-American artists,” with Virginia Davis of Lynchburg College providing the gallery talk.

From the very beginning, van de Graaf hoped to use Africa House to build bridges.

“When we opened last year,” she said, “we had three blessings. One was from Dibinga (wa Said) from the Congo, who had worked on the Ota Benga project with us. That was an African blessing. Another was from Tommy Hanks, who worked on getting the house ready and is Cherokee. That was a Native American blessing. And finally, we had an Episcopalian blessing from Robert Marshall of St. John’s, where I go to church.”

One of van de Graaf’s ancestors, she said, was a South African slave owner. Another was a leader in a movement to free slaves.

“I guess I followed the freeing side,” she said.

Sunday — John Chilembwe: From Virginia Seminary to African history.