Janet Taylor Pickett was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan School of Art in 1970, and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan School of Architecture and Design in 1972. Devel-oping a groundbreaking visual vocabulary to probe themes of Blackness, identity, and the complexity of lived experience, Taylor Pickett continued her studies at Parsons School of Design, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and The Vermont Studio School. She taught the History of African American Art at both Essex County College and Bloomfield College for over thirty years and has received grants and fellowships from The New Jersey Council of the Arts Grant, The Ford Foundation, and the Mid-Atlantic States Art Council. Her artist residencies have included the Pilchuck Glass School, Val- paraiso Foundation (Majorca, Spain), University of Eastern New Mexico, Visiting Artist Lecture Series at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Lafayette College. A fore-runner in contemporary painting whose work has been compared to that of Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence, Taylor Pickett has had her work showcased in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally, as well as in private collections. Her masterwork, “And She Was Born” (2020) was featured on the cover of the exhibition catalog for Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century (2021) at The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. Other selected exhibitions include Progressions: A Cultural Legacy at MoMA/PS1, African American Women Artists and the Power of their Gaze at the David C Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, The Matisse Series at the Montclair Art Museum, The Atlantic World-Layered Histories at the Harvard Art Museums, Hagar’s Dress at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, and Necessary Memories at Jennifer Baahng Gallery. Additionally, her work has been shown at The Studio Museum of Harlem in New York, Howard University, and Telfair University, among others. Taylor Pickett is also the former Chair of the African American Cultural Committee at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey. Janet Taylor Pickett is represented by Jennifer Baahng Gallery.