AFRO – AMERICAN ART
History of the Afro-American Art
THE SPIRAL OF AFRO-AMERICAN
ART
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No image represents the development of
Afro-American art better than the spiral, for Afro-American art history begins with a
narrow thematic and stylistic conservatism in the late eighteenth-century and
moves forward in rising, ever more upward-curving lines. Its growth is
profoundly affected by the general condition of the larger black community.
Political and cultural questions addressed by blacks in their struggle toward
fuller inclusion in American life provided the context for the black artist.
It was really hard for an Afro-American artist because he had to ask himself
questions like:
Am I truly American? Where is my place in American art? Have I a separate and even unique heritage? Who will be my sponsors? What
institutions will accept and exhibit my work? He found himself at a continuous crossroads. This remains a central problem in Afro-American art. |
Afro-American arts have had several periods of
accelerated activity and flowering: the early portraits; international
recognition of nineteenth-century landscape and painters of historical,
literary and religious subjects; the new self-image and enhanced sense of
African heritage explored during the “New Negro” era or “Harlem Renaissance” of
the 1920s; and the application of art to political and cultural purposes in the
1960s. Each of these periods built on the accumulated work that preceded it.
The result was a tradition that by the 1980s was indistinguishable from the
American art mainstream.
Afro American
Artists
From
the beginning of Afro-American art to the present there have been many famous
painters, one of these is Aaron Douglas:
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Painter, illustrator, muralist and educator, Aaron
Douglas (1899- 1979) has been
called „ the father of black American art”.
He was a major figure in the so-called Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of
black art and literature in the 1920s. His work draws on traditional African
motifs and subjects, and helped to establish their importance in contemporary
black culture. Aaron Douglas is known especially for his striking murals in
libraries and other public buildings. These murals usually depicted significant
events and people in African American history. While his murals were usually
two dimensional and almost geometrical, his portraits, such as this one of
"Marian Anderson," were traditional and classical. |
Marian Anderson |
For more information visit www.ops.org/wal/douglasweb/home.html
Another one of the best-known Afro-American artists of the last century
is Jacob Lawrence:
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Jacob Lawrence’ s ( 1917 - ) work
combines realism with the black experience in America. In narrative series of
paintings, he has highlighted the lives of outstanding blacks and chronicled
contemporary black history. Lawrence paints in tempera on composition board,
using highly stylized figures, vivid primary colours and sharp contrasts.
While still in the twenties, he was the first black artist to be honored with
a one-man show at the museum of Modern Art in New York City |
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To take a look at Lawrence’s gallery go to www.JacobLawrence.org
Even so there are also painters who are unknown, but
even have published pieces of art, like Keith Morrison:
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Keith Morrison was born in Jamaica
and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After being dean
of many universities and institutes he is now dean of the Collage of Creative
Arts at San Francisco. Morrison has consulted on art for many agencies,
public and private, and has served on a variety of art boards and state
agencies in Massachusetts and other US states. He was a cultural-economic
consultant for the Harlem Urban Development Corporation, New York, NY. |
He
has lectured widely across the country and consequently he received a lot of
awards like the Ford Foundation Graduate Award for Painting. Therefore he has
had many solo exhibitions. Not to forget, his work often has been featured in
many publications. Moreover he has curated exhibitions for many institutions,
including the Brandywine Workshop, Philadelphia; the University of Chicago's
Bergman Gallery and much more galleries. In his carrier he lectured across the
USA at different institutes.
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Red Sea |
As a painter he dealt with religious subjects
or with his African roots in his paintings. Red See and Shadow Africa or
Baptism and Altar are just a few examples to mention. |
Shadow Africa |
As a painter he dealt with religious
subjects or with his African roots in his paintings. Red See and Shadow Africa
or Baptism and Altar are just a few examples to mention.
However Morrison isn’t just a
painter, he wrote several essays and articles like the one about the “Father of Afro-America Art” Jacob Lawrence.
If
you want to have more information about Keith Morrison or take a look at his
paintings, visit his homepage www.KeithMorrison.com
There you will also find links and a possibility to contact him.
A
rather new kind of visual African American Art is Graffiti; if you want to gain
information about this topic, click here: Graffiti.
Gallery
Paintings and sculptures of
different Afro - American artists
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