David C. Driskell, artist, curator, and Distinguished University Professor of Art, Emeritus, University of Maryland at College Park. Archibald Motley Jr.’s paintings of African American subjects underwent drastic changes in style and reception during the artist’s long lifetime. After including Motley’s paintings in his Two Centuries of Black American Art exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1976, David Driskell visited Motley at his home in 1979 and 1980. Speaking at the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, held on March 23, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, David Driskell presents his recollections of those conversations as well as other impressions of Motley’s work formed during Driskell’s career as an art historian and curator. The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.