Famous Firsts - Artist Damon Lamar Reed
Illinois Medical District-Democratic National Convention Public Art Project
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Individuals highlighted:
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Dr. Daniel Hale Williams
A Surgeon and hospital founder. An African American, he founded Provident Hospital, which was the first non-segregated hospital in the United States. Provident also had an associated nursing school for African Americans. He is known for having completed the first successful heart surgery.
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Dr Bernard Fantus
A Hungarian Jewish-American physician. He established the first hospital blood bank in the United States at Cook County Hospital, while he served there as director of the pharmacology and therapeutics department.
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Dr. Sara Josephine Baker
An American physician notable for making contributions to public health. Her fight against the damage that widespread urban poverty and ignorance caused to children, especially newborns, is perhaps her most lasting legacy. She noted that babies born in the United States faced a higher mortality rate than soldiers fighting in World War I, drawing a great deal of attention to her cause.
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Dr. Jocelyn Elders
an American pediatrician and public health administrator who served as Surgeon General of the United States. A vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, she was the second woman, second person of color, and first African American to serve as Surgeon General.
Damon's Bio
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There’s truth to the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Artist Damon Lamar Reed brings that truth to reality. From hip-hop to public art, he strives to create messages that reach the depth of the human condition.
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As a young artist, Damon was a national competitor in NAACP's Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics(ACT-SO), a winner of the Congressional Art Competition, and a graduate of the Harvard Career Discovery Program in Architecture. After graduating from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago(SAIC) in 1999, he soon after attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Artist Residency. In 2003, Kerry James Marshall featured Damon’s work in his solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art(MCA), One True Thing, Meditations on Black Aesthetics.
As an artist and entrepreneur, Reed has now created over 400 public art projects including: works for Super Bowl 46, Showtime(The Chi), Gatorade, the Chicago Blackhawks, Ticketmaster, and Sears to name a few. His work is featured in books such as, Kym Pinders’, Painting the Gospel: Public Art and Religion in Chicago. Revolt tv news named Damon “Revolutionary of the week” citing the impact of his Still Searching project, where he uses art to raise awareness about missing women. The BBC also did a feature on the impact of Damon’s art; not to mention stories on News Nation, ABC, CBS, WGN and NBC. He is filming a documentary with the same name, backed by Hulu, Kartemquin and Still I Rise Films and he recently did a TedXTalk with the filmmaker Latoya Flowers-Rudd.
Reed received the Neighborhood Access Program (N.A.P.) Grant from the City of Chicago to do more Still Searching murals on the south side of Chicago. He was the first artist to receive the “Gem of the Community Award” from Architreasures, for his ability to collaborate with the community. He also became the first person to accept “The Artist Award” from The Healing Foundation. In 2022 he was a recipient of the “Treasurers Award” from the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County.
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Damon is a true believer in the POWER of art and he uses it as a catalyst to change the world!
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