African American art is a broad term describing the visual arts of the American black community. Influenced by various cultural traditions, including those of Africa, Europe and the Americas, traditional African American art forms include the range of plastic arts, from basketweaving, pottery and quilting to woodcarving and painting.
History
The earliest African American artists were slave artisans working as potters, blacksmiths, cabinetmakers, quilters, basketmakers and silversmiths. Many slaves arrived from Africa as skilled artisans, having worked in these or similar media in Africa. Others learned their trades or crafts as apprentices to African or white skilled workers. It was often the practice for slaveowners to hire out skilled artisans. With the consent of their masters, some slave artisans also were able to keep wages earned in their free time and thereby save enough money to purchase their, and their families', freedom.
G.W. Hobbs , William Simpson , Robert M. Douglass Jr ., Patrick Henry Reason , Joshua Johnson, and Scipio Moorhead were among the earliest known portrait artists, from the period of 1773–1887. While there were no schools during this period in the United States where an African American artist could learn to paint, patronage by some white families allowed for private tutorship in special cases. Many of these sponsoring whites were abolitionists.
After the Civil War, it became increasingly acceptable for African American- created works to be exhibited in museums, and artists increasingly produced works for this purpose. These were works mostly in the European romantic and classical traditions of landscapes and portraits. Edward Mitchell Bannister, Henry Ossawa Tanner and Edmonia Lewis are the most notable of this time. Others include Graton Tyler Brown , Nelson A. Primus and Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller . The goal of widespread recognition across racial boundaries was first eased within America's big cities, including Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, New York, and New Orleans. Even in these places, however, there were discriminatory limitations. Abroad, however, African Americans were much better received. In Europe—especially Paris, France—these artists could express much more freedom in experimentation and education concerning techniques outside of traditional western art. Freedom of expression was much more prevalent in Paris as well as Munich and Rome to a lesser extent.
The Harlem Renaissance was one of the most notable movements in African American art. Certain freedoms and ideas that were already widespread in many parts of the world at the time had begun to spread into the artistic communities United States during the 1920s. During this period the notable artists included Carl Van Vechten, Photographer James Van Der Zee, janitor turned painter Palmer Hayden , Aaron Douglass , Richmond Barthe , Archibald Motley, Jr. , William H. Johnson , Sargent Johnson , Malvin Gray Johnson , and Hale Woodruff .
The establishment of the Harmon Foundation by art patron William Harmon in 1922 sponsored many new artists. The As it did with many such endeavors, the 1929 Great Depression largely ended funding for the arts for a time. While the Harmon Foundation still existed in this period, its financial support toward artists ended. The Harmon Foundation, however, continued supporting artists until 1967 by mounting exhibitions and offering funding for developing artists.
The U.S. Treasury Department's Public Works of Art Project ineffectively attempted to provide support for artists in 1933. In 1935, President Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA provided for all American artists and proved especially helpful to African American artists. Politics, human and social conditions all became the subjects of accepted art forms. Important cities with important African American art circles included Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, DC. The WPA lead to a new wave of important black art professors. Mixed media, abstract art, cubism, and social realism became not only acceptable, but desirable. Artists of the WPA united to form the 1935 Harlem Artists' Guild, which developed community art facilities in major cities. Leading forms of art included drawing, sculture, printmaking, painting, pottery, quilting, weaving and photography. By 1939, the costly WPA and its projects all were terminated.
In the 1950s and 1960s, there were very few widely accepted African American artists as American culture continued to change in its attitudes toward art and black artists. Horace Pippin, Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence were among the few who had successfully been received in a gallery setting. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and '70s led artists to capture and express the times and changes. Galleries and community art centers devloped for the purpose of displaying African American art and collegiate teaching positions were created by and for African American artists. By the 80s and 90s, most majors cities had devloped museums devoted to African American artists. The National Endowment for the Arts provided increasing support for these artists.
See also
References
Sylvester, Melvin R. African Americans in Visual Arts: A Historical Perspective. Long Island University. Retreived January 23, 2005.
Last updated: 10-12-2005 17:39:24
