David Ramey: A Gift of Memory

This anniversary marks a defining moment for the Taubman Museum of Art and for Roanoke. In celebration of the Museum’s 75th Anniversary, and in response to the strong community engagement with the 2023 exhibition David Ramey: Gainsboro Road and Beyond, the Museum is presenting a selection of works by David Alexander Ramey, Sr. (1939–2017) — an extraordinary body of drawings that honors Ramey’s enduring connection to Roanoke and its history.

Ramey was a self-taught artist who spent decades working for the Norfolk and Western Railway. In the later years of his life, he turned with remarkable focus to drawing from memory the Gainsboro and Northeast neighborhoods of his youth. Working in colored pencil, graphite, and ink, he recorded the storefronts, churches, railroad yards, celebrations, and daily exchanges that defined Roanoke’s thriving Black community — scenes later irrevocably altered by urban renewal. His works are at once intimate and expansive, personal recollections that together form an irreplaceable visual archive.

A selection of original drawings is presented here alongside reproductions of additional works. This approach allows the Museum to share Ramey’s work while caring responsibly for these works on paper.

Presented in conjunction with the Museum’s 75th Anniversary, this installation celebrates the Roanoke community that has shaped both the artist’s work and the Museum’s history.

This exhibition is on view in the Media Lab March 6-June 28, 2026.