Omar Lama American, 1942-2022

Omar Lama is an American postwar and contemporary visualist artist who is known for his African American themed work. His art has been featured all over the United States. Lama works in several mediums and mixes his graphic art with line and geometric abstraction. Many of his drawings are featured in the book "The Art of Omar Lama" in which he is described as the 'Black and White Master'. 

Omar Lama was originally born as "John Porter" in Hall Tennessee in the year 1942. He was a Chicago artist who attended the Art Institute of Chicago. He was active between 1968-1974 and was a member of the Black Artist group "Africobra". His work was shown in its first two exhibitions, the AfriCOBRA: Ten in Search of a Nation and the AfriCOBRA II exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He also designed the artwork for several seminal covers for publications including the 1974 Black Book, chronicling the Black Arts movement.