Art Genres and Movements

Deaf artists have a long history. This is to be expected given the visual nature of Deaf people and the fact that many Deaf children use forms of visual expression, such as drawing, as a primary means of communicating and expressing themselves with the nonsigning people around them. The first known attempt by a group of Deaf artists in the United States to depict American Sign Language (ASL) in visual art was the Deaf artists movement in the mid-1960s. The group included Gallaudet art students Betty G. Miller, most notably, Ann Silver, and Harry Williams. In 1972, Miller had a one-woman show entitled The Silent World, in which she exhibited many resistance and affirmation pieces.

Later, in the mid-1970s, Spectrum: Focus on Deaf Artists, a Deaf ...