"Recherché got us all some recognition," Dupree says, eyeing his fresh mark on the canvas.

Recherché was created by a group of progressive African American painters and sculptors ten years ago as a means to slip through that great white door of contemporary art.

Their work has since been exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, the Smithsonian and the Philadelphia Museum of Art among other prestigious venues. In the beginning, the group appeared to be on a fast track. The seven founding artists were touted in one magazine as the "people to watch" in Philadelphia. They were very much on the move. "We came up in a real free-wheeling time," says founding member Richard Jordan, referring to that heady era of junk bond wealth when cities gushed about growth and social programs.

There was money for art when Recherché stepped onto the cultural stage and there were people anxious to spend it. The collective seemed to be in the right place at exactly the right time. "The marketing was very good," says Jordan. The group had major exhibitions in Brazil and Denmark as well as the U.S. But if the individual success of its members is used as a measure, Jordan might be accused of being modest. All of the founding members now sell their work regularly. A few are able to live off the proceeds; a rare condition for an artist no matter what their race or gender. But no member of Recherché sees such recognition as the whole story.

"People see color," explains Nanette Clark, a current member of Recherché. "If you don't think they see it, think again. We're still in a segregated society." Clark is the director of Philadelphia's Afro-American Museum which collects and presents the contributions of blacks in art as well as other areas of American life. She wonders why these contributions are themselves segregated from the mainstream. It is, after all, an American museum. "When we do it," she says, "it's black art. Now why can't it be universal?"