Aaron Douglas was a well-known painter and illustrator who created art throughout the Harlem Renaissance. He was iconically remembered as the “Father of black American art” because he came into New York from two mainly white populated schools with an individual style and personality expressing his culture and ethnicity. He was heavily influenced by being surrounded by his mother’s watercolors in his childhood home and by the art deco style emerging in New York while he lived there. Aaron Douglas’ work is a completely unique and beautiful combination of the two. He incorporated every aspect of African imagery, culture, ideas, and history into his paintings which led him to be known as one of the best visual artists of the jazz age. …show more content…
He was born on May 26, 1899 in Topeka Kansas, and became interested in art when he first began taking art classes in grade school. He went to college for visual arts at the University of Nebraska and got his BFA in 1922, and another BFA at the University of Kansas the following year in 1923. When he moved to Harlem, NYC in 1925, he began his illustrating career with magazines like The Crisis and Opportunity. He also co-founded a magazine called Fire. He widened his art horizons by studying with a German artist who taught him many details of a modern, art deco-like style that is strongly shown in all of his work. New York also brought him nightclubs, which he used to give him ideas for his work and to showcase his paintings and illustrations. Many of his paintings’ themes came from nightlife scenes. In 1926 Douglas married a teacher named Alta Sawyer. She was the love of his life, and there was a great increase in his work in the 1930’s after he married her. The 1930’s were a very important time for his work, because he began accepting many illustrating jobs as well as painting murals and teaching. His house also became a popular meeting place for Langston Hughes, WEB DuBois and their company. In 1927 he illustrated a book called God’s Trombones.
In the same year, he painted a mural at Club Ebony in Harlem, NY. In 1930 he created a mural of Harriet Tubman at Bennett College in Greensboro, NC and Dance Magic at Sherman Hotel in Chicago. He arguably created all of his best work in the 1930’s. One of his highest moments was in 1933 when he hosted his first solo art show in Harlem. This gave Douglas the motivation and attention that would lead to the best decade of his art career. In 1934, he painted his most important work called Aspects of Negro Life. This painting was created in four panels titled Song of the Towers, From Slavery Through Reconstruction, An Idyll of the Deep South, and The Negro in an African Setting. This painting expressed many important pieces of African heritage and resonated with many artists and citizens living in New York during the Harlem Renaissance. In 1935 he created Let My People Go, another deep and truthful painting about African stereotypes and heritages.
In the late 1930s, Douglas went to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee and founded their art department. He also continued his education while at Fisk and receive his masters degree in art instruction.
Aaron Douglas died on February 2, 1979 in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 80 years old and died peacefully. Throughout his whole life, Aaron Douglas continued to paint, learn about art and educate others on African culture through his creative and informative works.
After his death, Fisk University held a huge memorial service for him and all the time and energy he had spent there.
Henry Tanner was a realism painter during the Harlem renaissance. Henry tanner was born in Pennsylvania in the year 1869. He attended school at the academy of fine arts in Pennsylvania. While working on exhibits in Paris, his work began to gain international attention. He was one the first African Americans to receive recognition as an artist. Some of his most popular works of art are “The Banjo Lesson” and “The Thankful Poor” Henry Tanner was the son of a preacher, therefore many of his paintings possess a religious theme. His oil painting “Nicodemus visiting Jesus” won the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Lippincott prize in 1900. In 1923 he was named honorary chevalier of The Order of the Legion Honor. Henry O Tanner died in 1937.
The story “A Multitude of Black People…Chained Together” written by Olaudah Equiano, is a primary source, because he is telling a story that actually happened and the main character is him. This document was written in 1789. At the young age of 11, Olaudah Equiano was captured and sold off. In 1776 he eventually bought freedom in London, and he was a big supporter to end slavery. He was the youngest son of a village leader of the Ibo people of the kingdom of Benin, which was alongside the Niger River. Slavery was an integral part of the Ibo culture, and the Ibo people never thought about being taken away to be made someone else’s slave. One day, two men and two women captured the children of the chief and sold them off to be slaves. Around
Prior to the 1950s, very little research had been done on the history and nature of the United States’ policies toward and relationships with African Americans, particularly in the South. To most historians, white domination and unequal treatment of Negroes were assumed to be constants of the political and social landscapes since the nation’s conception. Prominent Southern historian C. Vann Woodward, however, permanently changed history’s naïve understanding of race in America through his book entitled The Strange Career of Jim Crow. His provocative thesis explored evidence that had previously been overlooked by historians and gave a fresh foundation for more research on the topic of racial policies of the United States.
Kehinde Wiley was born in 1977 in Los Angeles, California. He is a New York visual artist who is known for his highly naturalistic paintings of black people in heroic poses. As a child, his mother supported his interest in art and enrolled him in after school art classes. When Wiley was 12 years old he attended an art school in Russia for a short time. At the age of 20 he traveled to Nigeria to learn about his African roots and to meet his father. He has firmly situated himself within art’s history’s portrait painting tradition. He earned his BFA at San Francisco Art Institute in 1999 and he received his MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2001.
He has resided and taught in New York. I think his images and prints continue to reveal his practice and memories of growing up in the South. Not only is his subject matter about African American people, but more universally, people of all kinds - black, white, wealthy, poor, religious, northern or southern. As to what I found, his work has been portrayed as Southern, black, or radical, but I think he is above all an American artist. He draws on many different influences in his art, including his father.
Between 1910 and 1930, Harlem began thriving with African- American arts such as literature, theatre and painting, and music. This era was soon known as the Harlem Renaissance. During this time racial pride became a very big thing among African- American artists, but the only problem was how to best show this pride. Both high art and folk art can give a good expression of racial pride.
Gun-slinging, militant-looking, irate adolescent African American men, women, and children: an incessant image employed by the revolutionary artist Emory Douglas. Douglas is perhaps one of the most iconic artists’ of the 20th century and has created thousands of influential protest images that remain unforgettable to this day. Through the use of compelling images Emory Douglas aided in defining the distinct visual aesthetic of the Black Panther Party’s newspapers, pamphlets, and posters. It was through such mediums that Douglas had the ability to enlighten and provoke a predominately illiterate and uneducated community via visual communication, illustrating that art can evolve into an overpowering device to precipitate social and political change.
In his book, The Miseducation of the Negro, Carter G. Woodson addresses many issues that have been and are still prevalent in the African American community. Woodson believed that in the midst of receiving education, blacks lost sight of their original reasons for becoming educated. He believed that many blacks became educated only to assimilate to white culture and attempt to become successful under white standards, instead of investing in their communities and applying their knowledge to help other blacks.
to the art today. Aaron Douglas was one of those inspiring artists. "Aaron Douglas was an
It is impossible for anyone to survive a horrible event in their life without a relationship to have to keep them alive. The connection and emotional bond between the person suffering and the other is sometimes all they need to survive. On the other hand, not having anyone to believe in can make death appear easier than life allowing the person to give up instead of fighting for survival. In The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, Aminata Diallo survives her course through slavery by remembering her family and the friends that she makes. Aminata is taught by her mother, Sira to deliver babies in the villages of her homeland. This skill proves to be very valuable to Aminata as it helps her deliver her friends babies and create a source of income. Aminata’s father taught Aminata to write small words in the dirt when she was small. Throughout the rest of the novel, Aminata carries this love for learning new things to the places that she travels and it inspires her to accept the opportunities given to her to learn how to write, read maps, and perform accounting duties. Early in the novel Aminata meets Chekura and they establish a strong relationship. Eventually they get married but they are separated numerous times after. Aminata continuously remembers and holds onto her times with Chekura amidst all of her troubles. CHILDREN. The only reason why Aminata Diallo does not die during her journey into and out of slavery is because she believes strongly in her parents, husband and children; therefore proving that people survive hardships only when they have relationships in which to believe.
A human being is a complicated entity of a contradictory nature where creative and destructive, virtuous and vicious are interwoven. Each of us has gone through various kinds of struggle at least once in a lifetime ranging from everyday discrepancies to worldwide catastrophes. There are always different causes and reasons that trigger these struggles, however, there is common ground for them as well: people are different, even though it is a truism no one seems to able to realize this statement from beyond the bounds of one’s self and reach out to approach the Other.
As both the narrator and author of “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself” Frederick Douglass writes about his transition from a slave to a well educated and empowered colored young man. As a skilled and spirited man, he served as both an orator and writer for the abolitionist movement, which was a movement to the abolishment of slavery. At the time of his narrative’s publication, Douglass’s sole goal of his writings was to essentially prove to those in disbelief that an articulate and intelligent man, such as himself, could have,in fact, been enslaved at one point in time. While, Douglass’ narrative was and arguably still is very influential, there are some controversial aspects of of this piece, of which Deborah McDowell mentions in her criticism.
Archibald Motley Jr. was born in 1891 in New Orleans. Ever since, Archibald was a child he had the desire to be an artist. His family moved to a Chicago neighborhood in the 1890’s, but the family would take frequent trips back to New Orleans in the summer. Later we find out that these two similar settings were the determining factor for Archibald’s paintings. He decided to study art at the Institute of Chicago and was recognized by being one of the few African American artists during that time.
Douglas Engelbart was born in Portland, Oregon on January 30, 1925. Days were long and hard after his father’s death in The Great Depression; his brother practically raised him in a tiny house in the near outside of Portland. Engelbart roamed through woods and read quite a lot with his brother. His mother, Karen O’Leary was very depressed after being widowed and inspired Douglas to do anything he could get his hands to. He once mentioned his mother’s inspiration and encouragement in his last interview. Engelbart later died on July 2nd, 2013.
The Harlem Renaissance refers to a prolific period of unique works of African-American expression from about the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Although it is most commonly associated with the literary works produced during those years, the Harlem Renaissance was much more than a literary movement; similarly, it was not simply a reaction against and criticism of racism. The Harlem Renaissance inspired, cultivated, and, most importantly, legitimated the very idea of an African-American cultural consciousness. Concerned with a wide range of issues and possessing different interpretations and solutions of these issues affecting the Black population, the writers, artists, performers and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance had one important commonality: "they dealt with Black life from a Black perspective." This included the use of Black folklore in fiction, the use of African-inspired iconography in visual arts, and the introduction of jazz to the North.[i] In order to fully understand the lasting legacies of the Harlem Renaissance, it is important to examine the key events that led to its beginnings as well as the diversity of influences that flourished during its time.