Associate Professor of Art Derrick Adams—an acclaimed contemporary American artist whose vibrant multimedia creations redefine representations of Black life—was a 2025 Native Son Award honoree at its annual event on June 11.

The Native Son Awards, a cornerstone celebration during Pride Month, spotlights gay Black men who are breaking barriers and shaping culture across the arts, media, politics, and activism. Named after Richard Wright’s groundbreaking 1940 novel, the awards underscore the layered intersections of race, sexuality, and identity.

Adams was recognized for his unapologetic commitment to portraying the joy, complexity, and beauty of Black life—not through the lens of trauma, but through celebration, rest, and empowerment. His body of work spans painting, sculpture, performance, and video, offering viewers a richly textured and affirming vision of the Black experience.

Adams’ debut book, Derrick Adams, presents 150 of the most significant works from his 30-year career, establishing him as one of the most important figurative artists working today.

Beyond the studio, Adams is also a visionary community builder. In 2022, he founded Charm City Cultural Cultivation, a Baltimore-based nonprofit uplifting underserved communities through creativity and cultural access. The organization includes:

  • The Last Resort Artist Retreat, a residency program centered on leisure as healing for Black creatives;
  • The Black Baltimore Digital Database, a community-powered archive preserving local cultural memory; and
  • Zora’s Den, a thriving space for Black women writers that evolved from an online forum to a full-fledged network of workshops, readings, and sisterhood.

Adams’s work has been showcased in solo exhibitions at such institutions as The Cleveland Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges’ The Momentary, the Hudson River Museum, and the Museum of Arts and Design. His powerful public art installations have lit up the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Merchandise Mart in Chicago, the Nostrand Avenue LIRR Station in Brooklyn, and NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem.

Joining Adams in this year’s cohort of Native Son Award recipients was a slate of trailblazing talents: actor Colman Domingo, costume designer Paul Tazewell, choreographer Sean Bankhead, activist David J. Johns, and Black AIDS Institute founder Phill Wilson.

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon ’96 returned for his third year as emcee of the event, held at the IAC Building in New York City.