>--\:w^- :-.,?" 1 V U 1' i 'A' i' From 1792 to the Present IVsl Mil m\tm m\tf mk\t\: I n[nd[i^so $85.00 Can. A landmark work of art history: lavishly il- lustrated and extraordinary for its thor- A oughness, HistoryofAfrican-American Artists — conceived, researched, and written by the great American artist Romare Bearden with journalist Harry Henderson, who completed the work after Bearden's death in 1988 — gives a conspectus of African-American art from the late eighteenth century to the present. It examines the lives and careers of more than fifty signal African-American artists, and the relation of their work to prevailing artistic, social, and political trends both in America and throughoutthe world. Beginning with a radical reevaluation of the enigma of Joshua Johnston, a late eigh- teenth-century portrait painterwidely assumed by historians to be one of the earliest known African-American artists, Bearden and Hen- derson go on to examine the careers of Robert S. Duncanson, Edward M. Bannister, HenryOs- sowa Tanner, Aaron Douglas, Edmonia Lewis, Jacob Lawrence, Hale A. Woodruff, Augusta Savage, Charles H. Alston, Ellis Wilson, Archi- bald J. Motley, Jr., Horace Pippin, Alma W. Thomas, and many others. Illustrated with more than 420 black-and- — white illustrationsand 61 colorreproductions including rediscovered classics, works no longer extant, and art never before seen in this —A country History ofAfrican-American Artists is a stunning achievement. BOSTOM PUBLIC LIBRARY A HISTORY OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTISTS A HISTORY OF AM CAN CAN AF RI RI - E ARTISTS FROM TO THE PRESENT 1792 '^ & Romare Bearden Harry Henderson Pantheon Books New York BR BR REF N6538 .N5 B38 1993 Copyright © 1993 by Harry Henderson and the Estate ot Romarc Bearden All rights reserved imder International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division ofRandom House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House ofCanada Limited, Toronto. Illustration credits are on pages 533-540. Permissions acknowledgments are on page 541. Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bearden, Romare, 1911-1988. A history ofAfrican-American artists: from 1792 to the present / Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-394-57016-2 — 1. Afro-American art. 2. Afro-American artists Biography. I. Henderson, Harry (Harry Brinton), 1914- . II. Title. N6538.N5B38 1992 704'.()396()73—dc20 89-42782 BOOK DESIGN BY FEARN CUTLER Manufactured in the United States of America First Edition CONTENTS Special Acknowledgments vii Introduction xi THE LATE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES 3 The Question ofJoshua Johnston 3 Robert S. Duncanson 19 \ Edward M. Bannister 40 Grafton T. Brown 52 Edmonia Lewis 54 Henry Ossawa Tanner 78 Other Significant Early Artists iii THE TWENTIES AND THE BLACK RENAISSANCE 115 Aaron Douglas 127 Richmond Barthe 136 Archibald J. Motley, Jr. 147 Palmer C. Hayden 157 Augusta Savage 168 Malvin Gray Johnson 181 W. H.Johnson 185 Hale A. Woodruff 200 Sargent Johnson 216 EMERGENCE OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTISTS DURING THE DEPRESSION 227 — Three Influential People Alain Leroy Locke, Charles Christopher Seifert, Mary Beattie Brady 243 Charles H. Alston 260 Eldzier Cortor 272 Beauford Delaney 280 Joseph Delaney 287 Jacob Lawrence 293 Norman Lewis 315 Hughie Lee-Smith 328 Elhs Wilson 337 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS SPECIAL In the twenty-odd years this book has been in prepa- 1930s. The staffofthe Croton-on-Hudson (New York) ration we have been indebted to many hbrarians, re- Free Library obtained books long out of print. searchers, artists, friends, and editors. We thanked June Kelly oftheJune Kelly Gallery in New York them individually at the time and have tried to ac- was a special resource. CorinneJennings ofKenkeleba knowledge in each chapter and its footnotes specific Gallery, New York, supplied us with much material assistance, sources, and references. on Edward M. Bannister and other artists. Dr. Tritobia However, there are some individuals to whom we Benjamin and curator Eileen Johnson of the Howard returned again and again for assistance. They include University Gallery of Art, and Tina Dunkley, curator Jean Blackwell Hutson, formerly head ofwhat is now of the Georgia State University Art Collection, aided the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; in locating many paintings. The artist Ethel Stein led Deirdre Bibby, now ofthe Museum of African Art in us to Consuelo Kanaga, a friend of Sargent Johnson Tampa, Florida; Adelyn Breeskin and Lynda Roscoe and William Edmondson. Charles Blockson, Phila- Hartigan, curators ofAfrican-American art at the Na- delphia "underground railroad historian"; Elwood C. tional Museum ofAmerican Art; Professor Richard A. Parry III ofthe University ofIowa; Reginald Gammon Long of Emory University, Atlanta; Elton C. Fax, ofthe University ofWestern Michigan; and Anita Du- artist-author of Seventeen Black Artists. Archie Motley quette of the Whitney Museum added to our infor- of the Chicago Historical Society responded to many mation in many ways. queries concerning his father's work and that of other We had also had help from the Royal Collection early Chicago artists. Professor Mary Schmidt- in Stockholm and the National Gallery of Canada in Campbell and Kinshasha Conwill, director ofthe Stu- Ottawa, as well as from Ekpo Eyo, formerly of the dio Museum in Harlem, aided and encouraged us. National Museum of Nigeria, and Professor Oyaemi, Samuel Vaughan andJames and Ruth Dugan were early director of that museum in Lagos. and persistent advisers. Robert D. Kempner made him- Our families constantly helped. Nanette Bearden self our twenty-four-hour reference librarian. and Beatrice Henderson typed and retyped early chap- We are particularly indebted to Patricia Gloster for ters as new research made changes necessary. Edward some interviews and to Michelle Davis for transcribing Morrow, Romare Bearden's cousin, was an informed the Anne Whitney correspondence. The late James A. source of information on the twenties and thirties in Porter and Dorothy Porter Wesley provided guidance Harlem. Joseph Henderson helped photograph paint- and answered many queries. So did David C. Driskell, ings at the Studio Museum in 1966. Elizabeth Hender- now of the University of Maryland, who made the son introduced us to Jay Leyda and his role in making Fisk University's Van Vechten Gallery an exhibition Jacob Lawrence's work known to the art world. Theo- center for African-American artists at a time when they dore Henderson filed hundreds ofphotographs, notes, were not being shown elsewhere. Clifton H. Johnson and clippings. Albert Henderson was our mainstay in and Andrew Simon, archivists ofthe Amistad Research all ofthis, especially being available to deal with com- Center, Tulane University, and James Kennedy of the puter glitzes at any hour. Karl Yung supplied his own Ethnic American Art Slide Library at the University computer when that became necessary. of South Alabama in Mobile were helpful in locating Sam Vaughan suggested that we take our work to "missing" paintings. Margaret Di Salva ofthe Newark Erroll McDonald, then senior editor at Random Museum was a important source on works of the House. McDonald appreciated it and had the courage V 1 1