Asake Bomani: Paris Connections, Art Career and Danny Glover

Paris may seem far from San Francisco, but an art project in 1992 brought the two places close. Asake Bomani helped tell the stories of Black artists who made Paris part of their lives. The project grew through a book and an art show, not through the movie world that made her former husband, Danny Glover, famous. Asake Bomani’s work in art gives her story a focus of its own.

Many people first hear Asake Bomani’s name through Glover. Yet the gallery and book records point to something else worth knowing. Bomani was part of a group that helped bring Black art, travel, and history to new audiences. That work deserves as much space as the story of her marriage.

Who Is Asake Bomani?

Asake Bomani is an American arts professional and editor. She is credited with Belvie Rooks on the 1992 exhibition book Paris Connections: African American Artists in Paris. The project was linked to the Bomani Gallery in San Francisco. She was also married to actor Danny Glover and is the mother of their daughter, Mandisa Glover.

Her best-known cultural work dealt with Black artists whose lives and careers crossed borders. The Paris Connections project joined a public art show with a book that people could read long after the exhibition ended.

The family side of her story is also tied to San Francisco. Her daughter grew up there before making a life of her own in New York.

San Francisco Was Central to Her Art Career

San Francisco has long been a home for art, music, and people from many places. It was also where Asake Bomani worked with galleries and art shows. A gallery can help a city see art made far away.

The Bomani Gallery helped bring art tied to Paris to people in California. That link matters because the show was not just about one artist or one style. It looked at people who had traveled, lived abroad, or built a creative life between places.

When an art show is well planned, visitors can see links they might miss when looking at one painting at a time. A book can add names, dates, essays, and images. Together, a gallery show and its catalog can keep an artist’s story in view for years.

The Paris Connections Exhibition

Asake Bomani’s 1992 Paris Connections project was shown in San Francisco at Bomani Gallery and Jernigan Wicker Fine Arts. It put Black artists with ties to Paris at the heart of the show. The goal was not simply to hang work on walls. The exhibition also set that work beside a wider story of art and travel.

Paris had drawn artists from many countries through the 1900s. For Black American artists, time abroad could bring new peers, new ideas, and a new place to work. Life in France did not erase every barrier. Still, living outside the United States shaped the art and careers of many people.

A show built around those links gives viewers a chance to see how travel and place can change art. It also asks them to look beyond the usual borders of American art history. A work made in Paris may still carry memories of New York, the South, or the Caribbean.

The Book That Kept the Exhibition Alive

Bomani’s name appears in library catalogs for Paris Connections, a book issued by Q.E.D. Press in 1992. Belvie Rooks is also named as an editor. Artist Raymond Saunders is credited with curatorial work on a related volume.

The Smithsonian Libraries and Archives describes a 1992 catalog called The Paris Connections: African American Artists in Paris. Its record credits both editors and names the San Francisco galleries. The book was issued in English and French.

A catalog does more than give the dates of a show. It can hold essays, photos, and the names of artists whose work might be hard to find in one place. Students, teachers, and art fans can learn from it.

For Bomani, the publication links her work to a record that can still be found in libraries. It is a lasting part of a project that once took place in two gallery spaces.

Why Paris Was Such a Rich Subject

The title Paris Connections carries a strong idea: people can belong to more than one place. An artist may be born in America, live in France, and draw on ideas from both. Art can hold all of those ties without forcing them into one neat label.

For viewers in San Francisco, the show gave a way to explore that idea close to home. They could see how a city across the ocean became part of the lives of Black artists. The work also belonged to a wider story of travel, freedom, and the search for room to create.

This is what gives the project more depth than a list of paintings. It joins visual art to the lives of the people who made it. The same piece can tell a story about craft, memory, and the city where it took shape.

Her Work With Belvie Rooks

Belvie Rooks shared the editor credit with Asake Bomani. The two names appear together in the Smithsonian record. They are tied to an exhibition project rather than a standard novel or a book about one person’s life.

Editing a book about art is team work. It calls for a clear theme, material that fits the theme, and a way to help readers move from one artist to the next. Curators, writers, publishers, and gallery staff all have parts to play.

That shared credit matters to Asake Bomani’s story. It shows how an idea can grow through people who bring different skills to the same goal. The result can reach both those who saw the show and those who later find it on a library shelf.

The American Book Award Connection

Paris Connections is also listed among the 1993 American Book Award recipients, with Bomani and Rooks named for their work. The honor came a year after the exhibition catalog was published.

An award can help people find a book they missed. It can also help keep a small or focused project in sight after the art show has closed. That is important for books about artists whose stories have not always had space in larger art histories.

This work gives readers another reason to remember Asake Bomani. The art project linked two cities, several creative voices, and a book that still appears in major library collections.

Her Years With Danny Glover

Another chapter of her life began long before Glover became a major film star. Asake Bomani and Danny Glover married in 1975. Their family life was tied to San Francisco as his acting career took shape.

Glover later became known around the world for roles in The Color Purple and the Lethal Weapon films. His work moved from stage and television to big film sets. Through those years, the couple also raised a daughter.

Their marriage ended in divorce after many years together. Their family story remained linked, while Asake Bomani’s art work had its own path.

Their Daughter Mandisa Glover

Mandisa Glover was born in 1976. She is the only child of Danny Glover and Asake Bomani. Her early years were spent in San Francisco, where her family was based.

As an adult, Mandisa made her own path in food and creative work. She later lived in New York and developed a cooking business called AlileAixe. Her work has brought together food, art, and a mix of cultural tastes.

People’s profile of Mandisa Glover also describes her time working behind the scenes in film and her later interest in modeling. She did not simply follow her father into an acting career.

Mandisa became a mother in 2004 when her son, Adesola, was born. This gave Bomani and Glover a new link as grandparents. Across the years, Mandisa has spoken with care about her father and their family bond.

A Family Linked to Art in Different Ways

There is a shared thread across these lives, even though each person worked in a different field. Glover’s work has been on stage and screen. Bomani helped bring art and history into gallery spaces and books. Mandisa built a path that includes food, fashion, and creative work.

Those careers do not need to look alike to belong in the same family story. Each uses ideas, craft, and the ability to connect with an audience. The forms are quite different, but they show how one family can have many kinds of creative work.

It is easy for a famous actor’s name to take up all the space in a story. Looking at Bomani’s 1992 project shifts the view. It brings the focus to the gallery and to people who made art far from home.

Why the Gallery Project Still Matters

Art shows end. A painting goes back to its owner, a room is cleared, and a new show moves in. Without records, visitors may have only a memory of what they saw. Paris Connections left something that can still be studied.

Libraries hold more than books meant for casual reading. They also keep catalogs that tell us where an exhibition took place, who worked on it, and what it set out to show. Such records help keep the history of a small art space from fading away.

For anyone drawn to Black art in Paris, the book offers a starting point. It also points toward the people and galleries that brought the work to a US audience. Bomani’s editor credit is part of that lasting record.

An Arts Story With a Life Beyond Hollywood

Asake Bomani’s name can lead readers in two directions. One is the family she built with Danny Glover and their daughter. The other is the work she did with galleries, books, and Black art history. Both are part of the story, but neither needs to erase the other.

Asake Bomani’s link to Paris Connections shows how a local gallery can reach far beyond its city. In 1992, a San Francisco project brought artists with ties to Paris into view. Decades later, its catalog still lets readers follow that work.

For a related story about a person whose own career grew beside a famous spouse, read Rich Orosco’s career in sports marketing and family life on Turquoise Moon Homes.