Copyright, 1996 © Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc.

African American Artists

Chapter 36:

Identity and Liberation

Humanities 103

Instructor Beth Camp

Challenge questions:

What issues of “identity and liberation” are reflected in each painting.

What is the link between “cultural identity” and “history”?

Quest for Racial Equality

End of slavery in the United States 1863 Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation 1865 13th Amendment to the Constitution Jim Crow laws set segregation

Race riots protested segregation, unequal education, restricted jobs, ghetto housing, exclusion from voting, and government services 1919 25 cities “bloody summer” 1960s to present

Quest for Racial Equality

1920s New York Harlem Renaissance Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks,

Richard Wright

Civil Rights Act of 1964: Desegregation Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream” Malcolm X, Black Islam movement

1970s Black Revolution James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison Toni Morrison, Alice Walker

Jacob Lawrence

The Migration Series, Panel No. 57: “The female worker was also one of the last groups to leave the South"1940-41

Jacob Lawrence

The Studio, 1977

Jacob Lawrence

Harriet Tubman, 1939-1940

Lawrence: Migration of the Negro, 1940-1941

Lawrence: "They were very poor“ 1940-41

Robert Colescott

A Stroll Through the Neighborhood, 1976

John Biggers (b. 1924)

The Upper Room, 1984. Lithograph,

4' x 2' 11"

African-American Women Artists

"Despite over three hundred years of racial, sexual, and economic oppression, black women continue to demonstrate that their creative talents will not be suppressed...and they, like the exhibition itself, are creative acts of resistance and empowerment."

Bearing Witness: Contemporary Worksby African American Women Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1999

Marie Johnson-Calloway (b. 1920)

Hope Street: Church Mothers, 1984. Mixed media, 4' x 7' 6" x 5 Source: Artsednet

Jean Lacy, Noah (Bert Williams/Bill "Bojangles" Robinson), 1986, animated music box. Source: Bearing Witness

.

Betye Saar (b. 1926)

Nine Mojo Secrets, 1971 Visit Betye Saar’s

homepage

Betye Saar

Liberation of Aunt Jemima"1972

Charnelle Holloway, Fertility Belt for the Career Woman , I995, Repoussé akua ba doll, sterling silver, bronze, mixed media. Source: Bearing Witness

Varnette P. Honeywood, The Caregiver, 1995, acrylic on canvas, courtesy of the artist. Source: Bearing Witness

Beverly Buchanan, Blue Lightning, 1995, oil pastel on paper, Source: Bearing Witness

Betye Saar, Watching, 1995, mixed media on metal, 13 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches. Collection of the artist. Source: Bearing Witness

Carolyn Mazloomi, The Ancestors Speak to Me. Contemporary Quilt with African textiles, 2002. Source: African American Quilts

Sources...

Mark Harden, The Artchive California Africa-American Art Museum ArtsEdNet Art Quarter, Joe’s Art Journal The Beat Museum http://beatmuseum.org CGFA and Ellenspace California State University, Hayward