RAYMOND SAUNDERS, “THE GIFT OF PRESENCE” 1993-94 in “RAYMOND SAUNDERS: FLOWERS FROM A BLACK GARDEN,” CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART, (MARCH 22, 2025 – JULY 13, 2005)

Raymond Saunders, a Pittsburgh native whose retrospective contemporary art exhibit was showcased recently at the Carnegie Museum of Art, has died at age 90.

He died on July 19 in Oakland, California after contracting pneumonia, his nephew, Frank Saunders, told The New York Times.

Raymond Saunders was known for art that touched on racial disparity and social commentary, but he wanted to be seen simply as an American artist, instead of a Black one.

The exhibition at the Carnegie, “Flowers from a Black Garden,” closed on July 13, but was his first retrospective at a major American museum. It took a look at his career as a whole; it included 35 works that examined his nonlinear process in creating his art, with multiple mediums layered atop each other, including drawing, text, collaging, found imagery and abstract notation.

Eric Crosby, Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Carnegie Museum of Art, noted that Saunders’ art can be challenging to understand and divulge meaning from, but it only adds to its complexity.

“There’s a cacophony of marks and colors and bits of information and printed material. They’re also incredibly large paintings that sort of swirl around on their surface,” Crosby says. “[But] he offered so many pathways into the painting, that there’s something for everyone to identify with.”

RAYMOND SAUNDERS, 1981 | PHOTO BY MIMI JACOBS, 1971-1981, ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

His pieces are known for their rich black-colored backgrounds, chalk writing and miscellaneous scraps.

Saunders was not quiet about his thoughts on race and culture, but his views were not overshadowed by his perspective that Black artists should not have to feel an obligation to make their work mean something in regards to the culture, or any social moments, but instead should just be able to create art as they see fit, according to The New York Times.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, are just three of the many museums that house some of Saunder’s work in permanent collections.

Born in Homestead, Saunders grew up in the Hill District. He was able to find guidance through Joseph C. Fitzpatrick — an art teacher at the former Schenley High School in Oakland and mentor to artists like Andy Warhol — who gave him the support to further pursue his artistic endeavors. Fitzpatrick helped him to get a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Saunders continued to pursue his studies, and went on to earn his bachelor’s of fine arts degree from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1960, according to the Los Angeles Hammer Museum.

Saunders has received the National Endowment for the Arts Award twice, in 1977 and 1984, was the recipient of a Rome Prize Fellowship in 1964 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976, according to a press release from the Carnegie Museum of Art.

RAYMOND SAUNDERS, “LAYERS OF BEING” 1985, “RAYMOND SAUNDERS: FLOWERS FROM A BLACK GARDEN,” CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART, (MARCH 22, 2025 – JULY 13, 2005)

He lived out the rest of his life in Oakland California, in his combination home and studio, where he worked on his back porch, or what he called “the arena” that was designed to be bathed in sunlight all day, according to The New York Times.

He also taught painting at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco (then called the California College of Arts and Crafts) for more than 20 years and made sure to take students beyond the classroom, to visit galleries, museums and even his personal home studio.

“The power of informal art education to bring people together, to inspire young people to dedicate not their lives to art necessarily, but their lives to creativity, understanding creativity can be some force in our lives as we grow overtime,” Crosby says, regarding the legacy Saunders left behind for his students.

“He’s taught subsequent generations over the decades about what it means to be an artist, how to develop a practice.”

The recent retrospective displayed at the Carnegie Museum of Art was not just a tie to his hometown, but the final chapter in his complex intertwined relationship with the museum.

With Schenley High School just blocks away from the Carnegie Museum of Art, and his formative years spent strolling through its galleries, as well as taking classes there, his presence is felt in the museum.

Not only is the museum a part of Saunders story, but rather Saunders is a part of the museum’s story, and though the retrospective just closed, Crosby said there are plans to include Saunders work in future rotations of the permanent gallery collections to continue to display his life’s work.