The Fisher Collection

Atlanta couple preserves, uplifts the Black experience through Pieces of Us

Photo credit: The African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA)

Through a montage of traditional and contemporary artworks, centuries of Black life and memory bare their wonder along the sun-drenched walls of the African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA).

A group walked into the gallery, among the latest art ventures on Atlanta’s south side, with bright eyes and smiling faces as they made their way around Pieces of Us: Selections from the Dameon and Kimberly Fisher Collection, ADAMA’s current exhibition.

It was a warm end to the Fisher family’s Thanksgiving gathering, and a reflection of the themes in the exhibit — family, community, legacy, reclamation, and the enduring power of storytelling.

“It is our role as cultural caretakers to share these stories and pass them down so that our heritage will never be lost,” Dameon Fisher said.

“The primary focus of our collection is to preserve and share the stories of our ancestors, our families, our experiences — the African and African American experience,” Kimberly Fisher added.

Pieces of Us greets visitors with Ernie Barnes’ The Graduate, the back bone of the collection that came from their classic Atlanta University Center love story.

In Barnes’ signature neo-mannerist style — renowned for works like Sugar Shack, a cultural staple via its presence on “Good Times,” and the cover of Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You,” Barnes uses elongated figures, defined lines, and exaggerated though fluid movements that drift off of the canvas — The Graduate depicts a coffee-skinned man in his black cap and gown, diploma rolled in his hand. His chin is up with pride. His stride is long and urgent and, at once, peaceful as he seems to imagine the beautiful future toward which he’s walking.     

Photo credit: The African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA)

Kimberly didn’t know when she first saw the painting that it would also be a gateway to a future in sharing fine art with the love of her life, in the city that gave them the foundation to dream.

Upon her graduation from Clark Atlanta University in 1991, Dameon, a Morehouse Man, gifted her the Barnes print, and that began their art collecting journey.

“(When we saw it), we were just taking it all in and I mentioned how much I loved it,” Kimberly said. “And for him to remember that I showed interest meant a lot to me.”

The young couple met at a party through their mutual friend whose dorm room was just across from Dameon in Graves Hall. The native Southerners — she’s from Fort Lauderdale, he’s from Dallas — were drawn to the history and the affirming presence of Black pride in Atlanta and the AUC. They moved to Nashville while Dameon studied dentistry at Meharry College, then to the former Chocolate City, where he completed his orthodontics studies at Howard University, with Kimberly working in hospital administration along the way. But in 1999, four years after they got married, the city where they first met pulled them back in.

“We were always really pleased with the vibrancy of Atlanta during the time that we were in college,” Dameon said. “It was a cultural haven for African Americans with events like Freaknik, the National Black Arts Festival, and some of the HBCU football classes that were big around that time.

Photo credit: The African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA)

The Fishers returned during an era when Atlanta boomed into global glory. They loved seeing how the arts scene and art opportunities had progressed. But they had long known the city’s influential power.

“Let's just be honest: Atlanta is really the birthplace of Black culture,” Dameon said. “It has produced so many of our great thinkers, activists, writers, actors, all of these individuals who have at some point had a connection to Atlanta. So we’re pleased with the growth of the city, but we know it has always been that.”

With their private art collection, now numbering more than 250 works in various mediums and across the career journeys of the artists, the Fishers also hope their collecting and cultural preservation efforts become part of that influence as Atlanta continues to carve out its place as a major arts city.

“We like the fact that Atlanta is a city that has not peaked,” Dameon said. “Some cities (have art movements) that start to decline. We like the fact that Atlanta is slowly percolating.”

Photo credit: The African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA)

The opening of ADAMA five years ago is part of what’s helping the local artscape expand beyond Midtown and other often affluent areas or art institutions in north Atlanta.

Pieces of Us gives the art museum and gallery — with its home in the Nia Building at Pittsburgh Yards — another thread in the tapestry of art experiences that center and celebrate Black life, from its triumphant and whimsical joys to its inevitable and stinging sorrows.

Curated by Esohe Galbreath, the collection ventures from stern wood carvings to heartbreaking advertisements selling enslaved people to still and reverent moments with the Black woman’s body. It features a bevy of contemporary pieces but stretches back to the mid-20th century.

Three Black friends find quiet and leisure napping on a picnic blanket in Tyler Mitchell’s archival pigment print, Still from Chasing Pink, Found Red. Bold and vibrantly colored wooden assemblages — Alfred Conteh’s Negrow and Kevin Cole’s Heavenly Hopes with Heavenly Dreams — wrap around a curved wall, ushering people into the next part of the collection’s story. Odes to Black icons sing through Derrick Phillips acrylic on wood depictions of Nina Simone and James Baldwin in Speaker of Truth.

While the Fisher Collection includes Black artists from throughout the country and the world, the Pieces of Us exhibit strictly draws from Black artists in the Southeast. 

Photo credit: The African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA)

“A lot of times, artists will reach national acclaim and leave the area for cities where art is really prominent, like New York and LA,” Dameon said.

“But we want to make sure (Black artists from the Southeast) have a voice, and profile how they actually contribute to not only the regional narrative of African Americans, but the national narrative,” he said. “That was really important for us because these are artists that we live around every single day. We consider them just as special.”

In the center of the gallery, civil rights pioneer John Lewis holds his hands over his heart with his eyes closed in the couple’s recently acquired miniature replica of the statue by Basil Watson. The 12-foot bronze memorial statue was unveiled on the Decatur Square in August 2024, bringing the promise of peace to the space that once held a vitriolic Confederate monument.

It’s one of the cornerstones of their collection, the Fishers said, along with other historical pieces by Romare Bearden and commissioned pieces by Cole and the beloved Radcliffe Bailey.

One of their most treasured artworks, Charles White’s 1940 charcoal sketch titled Head of Woman, was acquired from their mentor Russell Goings.

“We would consider it the most prominent piece in our collection because it’s the oldest,” Dameon said. “Russell was the person who helped us shape our true mission of our collection, which is to be cultural caretakers.”

Goings, former chairman of the Studio Museum in Harlem, bestowed the title of “cultural caretakers” upon the couple and challenged them to make it more than a personal collection. Its true value, he told them, was in ensuring that others could see, appreciate and learn from the art.

The Fishers embraced that role and have kept their commitment to it through sharing their story at seminars and gallery talks, loaning pieces for exhibitions or for school displays during Black History Month, a mock art auction for kids, and their membership in organizations like The Society, which promotes arts appreciation and sponsors various youth art initiatives. They also plan to build a long-term connection to share their collection with an educational institution.

It’s especially meaningful to them to now be in a position to help stoke the curiosity of children. During his Morehouse days, Dameon’s part-time job was to pick up laboratory specimens from local medical offices. He remembers seeing works by Bearden, Jacob Lawrence and Henry Porter on his visits to Dr. Calvin McLarin’s practice.

“Seeing those works hanging in a professional setting, with faces that look like us, really made a huge impression on me furthered my deep appreciation for art,” Dameon said. “We have our art hanging in our orthodontic practice now, where kids can be immersed in art, ask questions, and really pique their interest.

“When you see a young person come up and digest this work, it evokes some kind of feeling. It’s priceless to me,” he said.

With educators as parents and a family friend who always gifted her mother with original artwork on her birthdays, Kimberly said she grew up with a lot of exposure to fine art. Dameon’s upbringing is also filled with memories of art and music introduced by his parents. Their appreciation for art goes back to their childhood and they hope it carries forward to the next generation of artists, art collectors, and simply, folks who enjoy revisiting moments in time through art.

“We take the responsibility of educating our youngsters, in addition to our family and friends, about what it means to be a cultural caretaker,” Dameon said, reflecting on their family’s group visit to ADAMA and how happy they are to have this exhibit opportunity. Their family is used to seeing the art at the Fishers’ home during their holiday visits. “But to have them sharing this moment with us at this exhibition, seeing it in a museum setting, makes it even more special.”

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