06/02/2026
“Art is one of the last forms of freedom of speech. And we don’t want to lose it.” 🕊️
In 2017, gentrification forced artist Mildred Howard out of Berkeley, the city where she was raised.
Now, at 80, Howard is getting her flowers — in a big way. 💐
Last year, she was honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her first major museum retrospective, “Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory,” opens at the Oakland Museum of California on Friday, June 12.
The Bancroft Library has recently acquired her archive, offering a never-before-seen look at the ideas, inspiration, methods, and memories of “a beautiful artist,” said Christine Hult-Lewis, Bancroft’s curator of pictorial collections.
Chances are, you’ve seen Howard’s work.
There’s the large disk-shaped sculpture near the Ashby BART station, a tribute to her mother, who led the fight against the plan for an aboveground BART track in the largely African American neighborhood of South Berkeley. “She said ‘No Berlin Wall in Berkeley,’” Howard recalled.
In San Francisco’s Hunters Point neighborhood, pedestrians can walk through her giant, ornate picture frame.
And her houses made of bottles draw inspiration from Southern folklore while conjuring ideas of division, justice, and freedom.
Howard’s archive — spanning her 50-plus years as an artist — will be open to anyone who wants to see it, preserved for future generations in the city that shaped her.
“There are so many stories behind so many pieces of paper,” Howard said.
Learn more about Howard’s life and art, as revealed through her archive. 🔍
🔗 ucberk.li/howard-archive
