Four NYC Artists Pooled Money to Save Nina Simone’s Childhood Home

March 3, 2017 5:00 am
Nina Simone's Childhood Home Bought by Four NYC Artists
Nina Simone, circa 1950 (Tom Copi/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Four NYC Artists Bought Nina Simone's Childhood Home
Nina Simone, circa 1950 (Tom Copi/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Tom Copi

 

The greater music world has four New York City artists to thank for saving the childhood home of one of its brightest stars. According to The New York Times, the African-American artists—Adam Pendleton, Rashid Johnson, Ellen Gallagher, and Julie Mehretu—outbid interested parties to purchase the $95,000 North Carolina home of famed jazz artist Nina Simone. (You might remember her “Sinnerman” from former president Barack Obama’s 2016 summer playlist.)

Johnson explained to the Times that “My feeling when I learned that this house existed was just an incredible urgency to make sure it didn’t go away.” His art, along with that of his trio of co-buyers, is often politically charged and meant to engage its viewers on race.

Simone, born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in 1933, was raised in the Tryon, North Carolina, house amidst the segregation of the South.

For more on the house and its saviors, watch the video below.

—RealClearLife

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