Blake Bradford, tireless arts advocate, popular professor, writer, and mentor, has died at 52

Blake Bradford, 52, of Philadelphia, a creative and tireless arts advocate, popular college professor, writer, and mentor, died Friday, Oct. 21, of lymphoma at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Determined to advance, in his own words, “creative, inclusive, equitable communities and institutions,” Mr. Bradford developed educational and professional training programs for young people who may otherwise never have experienced the arts or found employment in museum management and with other cultural organizations.

“My work is grounded in generosity,” he said on his website. “I support collaboration and inspiration. I counter cultures of exclusion and remove barriers to participation. My objective is to make arts and culture institutions, collections, and experiences more rewarding for more people.”

To that end, Mr. Bradford, among many other things, created Points of Entry, a pioneering program that connects young people from underserved communities with employment opportunities at art and cultural organizations. In a 2018 podcast interview with Museum Hue’s Black Visuality, he said the established art world needs “more people participating in the process of making history and asking questions.”

He was a senior fellow at the Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships at Drexel University and taught as an adjunct professor at Lincoln University, Moore College of Art and Design, Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture, and the Community College of Philadelphia.

He was the director of education at Chicago’s Hyde Park Art Center from 2005 to 2008, the first Dr. Bernard C. Watson director of education at the Barnes Foundation, and the director of Lincoln University’s groundbreaking museum studies program.

He was also a board member at the Print Center, Ars Nova Workshop, and Philagrafika, and an art committee member at the African American Museum, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, and other organizations.

He researched and wrote about art history and Black artists, and his work was published in newspapers, exhibition catalogs, and elsewhere. His 11-page chapter “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now: African American Artists in Philadelphia since 1940″ is featured in 2020′s Routledge Companion to African American Art History.

“Expressing himself in speeches and writing came easy for him,” said his wife, Jill Luedke.

Mr. Bradford lectured and spoke at conferences and on panels, and helped refurbish the Barnes Foundation’s new classrooms in Philadelphia. “If you want to pull up Cezanne images on the computer in the digital classroom and send students out to Gallery 8 [to actually see the Cezannes], you could do that,” he told the Daily News in 2012.

Born Oct. 4, 1970, in Ithaca, N.Y., Mr. Bradford lived near Chicago, St. Louis, and elsewhere before his family settled in Villanova when he was 15. He graduated from Harriton High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from Williams College in Massachusetts in 1992 and a master’s degree in art history from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000.

He worked for a time at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Fabric Workshop and Museum. He met Luedke through a mutual friend about a decade ago, and they had twins Star and Cyrus in 2015. They married last year and moved recently to South Philadelphia.

Mr. Bradford enjoyed many forms of music, especially contemporary jazz and improvised sounds, and he attended concerts and shopped for records with friends when he was young. He trained in the martial arts as an adult and liked to watch old boxing footage of Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, and other famous fighters.

He doted on his children, modeled curiosity and kindness at home, and was sentimental about the first date with his wife, keeping the receipt of their time at the Good Dog Bar in Philadelphia tucked safely away.

“He was sweeter,” his wife said, “than he liked to let on.”

In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Bradford is survived by his parents, Earle and Yvette; two brothers; and other relatives.

Services were Friday, Oct. 28. A celebration of his life is to be held later.

Donations in his name may be made to the Ars Nova Workshop, Bok Room 509, 1901 South Ninth St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19148; the Print Center, 1614 Latimer St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19103; and the Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, Ala. 36104.