Harlem Renaissance Art

It is expressed that between the years 1918-1935s a large range of creative African Americans created numerous types of art work.  Shortly after the outburst of art this cultural movement became known as “The New Negro Movement” which later is called the “Harlem Renaissance.”  The Harlem Renaissance attracted the middle class, which then sprouted an artistic center.  The African Americans were immediately encouraged to celebrate their heritage and to become “The New Negro” a term made by sociologist Alain LeRoy Locke.

 

Some of the main artists were:

• Aaron Douglas
• Lois Mailou Jones
• Jacob Lawrence
• Palmer Hayden
• Ellis Wilson
   

Aaron Douglas (1899-1979)

 

"...Our problem is to conceive, develop, establish an art era. Not white art painting black...let's bare our arms and plunge them deep through laughter, through pain, through sorrow, through hope, through disappointment, into the very depths of the souls of our people and drag forth material crude, rough, neglected. Then let's sing it, dance it, write it, paint it. Let's do the impossible. Let's create something transcendentally material, mystically objective. Earthy. Spiritually earthy. Dynamic."

 

• Born in  Kansas in 1898
• Received his BA in art from the University of Nebraska
• Headed to New York to earn his MA from Columbia University
• Work represented the "New Negro"
• 1928, Douglas became the first president of the Harlem Artists Guild
• 1940 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he founded the Art Department at Fisk University and taught for 29 years
• Painted murals for public buildings, produced illustrations, and cover designs for black publications, for example, The Crisis and Opportunity.
• Painted these pictures below for the 135th street branch of the New York Public Library in Harlem.
• The four-panel series Aspects of Negro Life tracks the journey of African Americans from freedom in Africa to enslavement in the United States and from liberation after the Civil War to life in the modern city.

 

 

Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1998)

 

"Mine is a quiet explorations quest for new meanings in color, texture and design. Even though I sometimes portray scenes of poor and struggling people, it is a great joy to paint." -Lois Mailou Jones

 

• School of Museum of Fine Art in Boston during a time of strong discrimination against African Americans.
• When she handed in her paintings, she did not tell them she was an African American artist and had her white friends deliver her paintings in for her.  In a result of that, the prizes she was supposed to receive was taken away and given to her white competitors.
• She succeeded as an artist!

 

 

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000)

 

"I've always been interested in history, but they never taught Negro history in the public schools... I don't see how a history of the United States can be written honestly without including the Negro." 

- Jacob Lawrence

 

•  First mainstream African American artist
• Starting succeed at the age of 24 until he pasted away
• Known for his "Migration" series of painting (shows the migration of African American from Africa to the United States)
• Focuses on the history in the south
• Won many awards and received a lot of recognition for all his works
   

 

                                 

 

Different photos that were expressed during the Harlem Renaissance

 

 

References
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/history/index.html
http://historyoftheharlemrenaissance.weebly.com/artists.html