African American art

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

Antebellum and Civil War eras

From its early origins in slave communities, through the end of the twentieth century, African-American art has made a vital contribution to the art of the United States. ["African-American Art" By Sharon F. Patton. Published 1998. Oxford University Press] During the period between the 1600s and the early 1800s art took the form of small drums, quilts, wrought-iron figures and ceramic vessels in the southern United States; these artifacts have similarities with comparable crafts in West and Central Africa. In contrast, black artisans like the New England–based engraver Scipio Moorhead and the Baltimore portrait painter Joshua Johnson created art that was conceived in a western European fashion for their local markets. [" [http://www.aawc.com/Submission_Art.html African American Art] " By Richard Powell "Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience" Oxford University Press. April 2005]

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. [Romare Bearden, Harry Henderson, "A history of African-American Artists. From 1792 to the Present", New York: Pantheon Books 1993]

G.W. Hobbs, William Simpson, Robert M. Douglas 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. The artists received more encouragement and were better able to support themselves in cities, of which there were more in the North and border states.

Harriet Powers 1837ndash 1910 was an African American folk artist and quilt maker from rural Georgia, United States born into slavery. Now nationally recognized for her quilts, she used traditional appliqué techniques to record local legends, Bible stories, and astronomical events on her quilts. Only two of her late quilts have survived: "Bible Quilt 1886" and "Bible Quilt 1898". Her quilts are considered among the finest examples of nineteenth-century Southern quilting. [ [http://www.earlywomenmasters.net/powers/index.html Harriet Powers] Early Women Masters] Like Powers, the women of Gee’s Bend developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity. Although widely separated by geography, they have qualities reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present. [" [http://www.quiltsofgeesbend.com/history/ The Quilts of Gees Bend] "] At one time scholars believed slaves sometimes utilized quilt blocks to alert other slaves about escape plans during the time of the Underground Railroad, ["Hidden in Plain View", written by Raymond Dobard, Jr., Ph.D., and Jacqueline Tobin (1999)] but most historians do not agree. Quilting remains alive as form of artistic expression in the African-American community.

Post-Civil War

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 Grafton 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 to Contemporary art

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 notable artists included Richmond Barthé, Aaron Douglas, janitor turned painter Palmer Hayden, William H. Johnson, Sargent Johnson, John Biggers, Malvin Gray Johnson, Archibald Motley, Augusta Savage, Hale Woodruff, and photographer James Van Der Zee.

The establishment of the Harmon Foundation by art patron William E. Harmon in 1922 sponsored many new artists. 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 Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA provided for all American artists and proved especially helpful to African American artists. Artists and writers both gained work that helped them survive the Depression. Among them were Jacob Lawrence and Richard Wright. Politics, human and social conditions all became the subjects of accepted art forms. Important cities with significant black populations and important African-American art circles included Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The WPA led 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, sculpture, printmaking, painting, pottery, quilting, weaving and photography. By 1939, the costly WPA and its projects all were terminated.

In 1943, James A. Porter, a professor in the Department of Art at Howard University, wrote the first major text on African-American art and artists, "Modern Negro Art".

In the 1950s and 1960s, few African-American artists were widely known or accepted. Despite this, The Highwaymen, a loose association of 26 African American artists from Ft. Pierce, Florida, created idyllic, quickly realized images of the Florida landscape and peddled some 200,000 of them from the trunks of their cars. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was impossible to find galleries interested in selling artworks by a group of unknown, self-taught African Americans [" [http://www.highwaymen.bigstep.com/generic4.html Painting Florida] "] , so they sold their art directly to the public rather than through galleries and art agents. Rediscovered in the mid-1990s, today they are recognized as an important part of American folk history. [" [http://www.go-star.com/framer/highwaymen.htm The Highwaymen] " By Ken Hall] [ [http://www.gibson-highwaymen.com/generic81.html Updates & Snapshots 2006] ] The current market price for an original Highwaymen painting can easily bring in thousands of dollars. In 2004 the original group of 26 Highwaymen were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. [" [http://www.floridahighwaymenpaintings.com The Florida Highwaymen] "] Currently 7 of the 26 are deceased, including A.Hair, H.Newton, Ellis and George Buckner, A.Moran, L.Roberts, and most recently Hezekiah Baker. The full list of 26 can be found in the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, as well as various highwaymen and Florida art websites.

Some African-American artists did make it in to galleries by the 1950s and 1960s: Horace Pippin, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, William T. Williams, Norman Lewis (artist), and Sam Gilliam were among the few who had successfully been received in a gallery setting. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s led artists to capture and express the times and changes. Galleries and community art centers developed for the purpose of displaying African-American art Collegiate teaching positions were created by and for African-American artists.

By the 1980s and 1990s, hip hop graffiti became predominate in urban communities. Most major cities had developed museums devoted to African American artists. The National Endowment for the Arts provided increasing support for these artists.

Important collections of African-American art include the Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art, the Paul R. Jones Collection of African American Art, the David C. Driskell Art collection, and the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Kara Walker, a contemporary American artist, is known for her exploration of race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her artworks. Walker's silhouette images work to bridge unfinished folklore in the Antebellum South and are reminiscent of the earlier work of Harriet Powers. Her nightmarish yet fantastical images incorporate a cinematic feel. In 2007, Walker was listed among "Time Magazine"'s "100 Most Influential People in The World, Artists and Entertainers". [Kruger, Barbara (2007) [http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100/article/0,28804,1595326_1595332_1616818,00.html "Kara Walker"] "Time" online. Retrieved 26 July 2007]

Contemporary influential artists include Laylah Ali, Emma Amos, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dawoud Bey, Camille Billops, Mark Bradford, Edward Clark, Willie Cole, Robert Colescott, Louis Delsarte, David C. Driskell, Mel Edwards, Ricardo Francis, Charles Gaines, Ellen Gallagher, Herbert Gentry, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, Jerry Harris, Richard Hunt, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, M. Scott Johnson, Glenn Ligon, Al Loving, Kerry James Marshall, Eugene J. Martin, Richard Mayhew, Sam Middleton, Thaddeus Mosley, Sana Musasama, Senga Nengudi, Martin Puryear, Adrian Piper, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Joyce Scott, Gary Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Renee Stout, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, William T. Williams, John Wilson, Fred Wilson, Richard Yarde, and Purvis Young among others.

ee also

* African American literature
* African American Music
* James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art
* African American culture

References

*Romare Bearden, Harry Henderson," A history of African-American Artists. From 1792 to the Present", New York: Pantheon Books 1993
*Sylvester, Melvin R. [http://www.liunet.edu/cwis/cwp/library/aavaahp.htm African Americans in Visual Arts: A Historical Perspective] . Long Island University. Retrieved January 23, 2005.