Danny Simmons Helps Pave Way For African-American Art

Working in his light-filled Brooklyn studio, Danny Simmons can often hear jazz singer Lezlie Harrison practicing in the apartment above him—soothing his soul, and sometimes inspiring his colorful canvases.It is hard to imagine that two decades ago, it was the siren song of heroin that provided the inspiration.

The drug-addled 1960s and 1970s, he recalled, had fed the artist a myth: “All great artists get high.”

“It was a lie,” he said. “That’s a lie.”

He sighed into his telephone on Monday afternoon and, after just a moment, perked up. “I realized, when I got clean, that I was worried that when I stopped, would I still have the same artistic vision? And it just got better, instead of losing it.”

These days, Mr. Simmons is experimenting with abstract fabric and paint collage, currently on view through March 1 at the Southampton Cultural Center as part of the exhibit “Reflections in Black,” curated by Tina Andrews in celebration of Black History Month.

The exhibit showcases the work of artists based in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the East End, from bold paintings and whimsical renderings to poignant photography and sculpture that depict both African-American and African themes, according to Ms. Andrews. Her 3-foot-tall bronze sculpture “Unchain My Heart” is the third of an 11-piece series, sparked by the memory of her sixth-great-grandmother, whom her family calls “The Ancestor.”

“[She] was captured in West Africa and was sold to a plantation owner in Mississippi named Brumfield,” Ms. Andrews explained. “Since my family reunion in 1987, where so many Brumfields came together—black and white—I learned that the original slaveholders bought many slaves this way, mothers and daughters, children, men and women. So I started with ‘The Ancestor’ as a sculpture first, and was inspired to render many of the other poor souls captured and enslaved this way.”

The series is her artistic interpretation of the circa-1977 miniseries “Roots,” in which she landed a role as Aurelia, Kunta Kinte’s girlfriend, in the second episode. It was a must-do event for every relevant black actor, she said, and changed the industry moving forward.

Similarly, when Mr. Simmons—whose younger brother, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, previously owned a home in East Hampton—opened a pair of galleries in the city two decades ago, it shifted and progressed the current artistic landscape by hanging the work of African-Americans who were very rarely exhibited.

“There are a lot more opportunities for artists of color than there were 30 years ago,” Mr. Simmons said. “I hate to brag, but a lot of it had to do with our push in the 1990s. We needed to bridge the gap. And that’s around the time I really started to get my work out there. Around the time I got clean.”

Also the older brother of Joseph “Reverend Run” Simmons of trailblazing hip-hop act Run-D.M.C., Mr. Simmons grew up in Queens in an artistic family of five. When his parents weren’t busy with their day jobs, his father, Daniel, wrote, and his mother, Evelyn, painted, teaching her eldest son everything she knew.

But he was a bit of a troublemaker in his youth, mischief that continued into college at New York University, where he was arrested on drug charges after an undercover DEA agent approached him and a friend looking for a hookup. Mr. Simmons initially saw the potential sale as an opportunity, even though he wasn’t a dealer by trade, he said.

“I spent 18 months in jail, and I went back to school, like, ‘Okay, that’s over,’” Mr. Simmons said. “It seemed more like a time-out and an adventure more than actual prison. It was actual prison, believe me. But I felt like a college kid who got busted. I didn’t receive that criminal stigma.”

He completed his undergraduate studies in social work at NYU after his release and quit drugs at age 21. He had been smoking marijuana and dropping acid since age 15, he said, before finding his way to heroin.

Four years later, he fell off the wagon. And nearly lost everything.

“I broke my leg, and they put me on painkillers. That’s what triggered it again,” he said. “Then I was drinking, smoking pot, doing coke and back to heroin. You’re always an addict, and you’re still able to progress in life. I looked at it as getting high, part of being hip. You didn’t realize it was a necessity. You were still going to work and painting and doing this and doing that. Until it grips your life completely, you don’t look at it as an addiction.”

In 1992, Mr. Simmons, then 37, was about to lose his house. He looked at his life and realized, “This is really out of hand.” And he pulled it back together.

With his brother, Russell, they co-founded Def Poetry Jam, and he currently chairs the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, which he also co-founded. His daily administrative tasks allow him to get into his studio only twice a week, but it’s time he says he wouldn’t trade for anything.

“Art is really what I’ve chosen as my life’s work—or it’s chosen me,” Mr. Simmons said. “I can’t see doing anything else. I couldn’t retire to a beach somewhere, or be a beachcomber. I’d be painting in the sand.”

“Reflections in Black,” featuring work by Rosa Hanna Scott, John Pinderhughes, Reynold Ruffins, Tina Andrews, Sheril Antonio and Danny Simmons, will remain on view through March 1 at the Southampton Cultural Center. For more information, call (631) 287-4377, or visit scc-arts.org.