This collection highlights the diverse ways that African Americans have expressed their creativity through a selection of art works.
Description
African American contributions to the arts have been historically undervalued in the American arts canon. In mounting their own exhibitions, providing venues for authors and performing artists, and hosting educational programs, HBCU museums and archives asserted the worth and significance of Black cultural production.
A white square button with a drawing of a flower. The text says: "War is not healthy for children and other living things." The button uses the poster design created by Chicago, Illinois, artist Lorraine Schneider in 1966. The design and slogan became an enduring symbol of the peace movement starting in 1967 with the Vietnam War.
Lois Mailou Jones was an artist and art educator known for her costumes, textile designs, watercolors, paintings, and collages from Washington, D.C. Voodoo Worshippers, Haiti, is a watercolor scene of three Haitian Voodoo practitioners around four candles under a full moon. Jones places colorful shapes behind black brushstrokes that create depth.
Charles White was a painter, printmaker, muralist, and educator known for his stylistic approach to African American subjects from Chicago, IL Two Alone is a painting of a man embracing a woman as they stand in front of a window. The woman stands, arms crossed, leaning into the man who looks into the distance and above her head.
Estella W. Johnson was an artist from New York, NY. The Way of the Flesh is a cultic depiction of a cloaked figure ascending a stairwell. The figure cloaked in white has another black cloaked figure attached to it as they pass a line of cloaked figures with bowed heads.
A political cartoon of a courtroom scene with the caption “The Black Panther Party Always Remembers Its Enemies.” The jury, judge, secretary, and bailiff are all depicted as pigs, while the lawyer and defendant are depicted as people. Numbers 8 and 9 from the Black Panther Party Ten Point Program are printed at the bottom of the page.
Ernest Hardman was a painter from Detroit, MI. The Last Supper #2 is an abstract depiction of Jesus and His disciples sitting around a table. Unlike The Last Supper, Hardman decenters Jesus and creates a euphony of shape and color that resembles men debating around a table.
Calvin Burnett was a graphic artist, illustrator, painter, designer, and art teacher from Cambridge, MA. The Box is a surrealist drawing of a Black woman seated in a box. The drawing's geometric complexity and the woman's reflections evoke an uncanny feeling.
A political cartoon featuring a pig teaching a classroom of children with the quote “Today children we are going to talk about George Washington the father of your country and how he freed you from the colonial powers of England.” The 5th point from the Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point program is printed at the bottom of the page.
This drawing by Oliver Parson shows a group of emaciated children seated on a checkerboard patterned floor. There is also a chick, just hatched from its egg, that seems to be struggling to survive. Parson has an incredible talent for conveying powerful emotions in his works. The checkerboard and other sacred geometry imagery appear frequently in the works of Dr. Biggers's students.
Mark Hewitt was an artist from Boston, MA. Spirit of 366th depicts a portrait of a young Black man from the 366th infantry in an Army uniform. The soldier looks into the distance of a shining light while dark-hued clouds of brown, black, and purple gather overhead.
Cecil D Nelson Jr. was a painter born in Champaign, IL. Self Portrait - Confronted Age, 16 depicts a Black male teenager haunted by racial violence. He sits in a chair holding a paintbrush with his hand on his head, wearing a shirt with a target symbol. There is also a rope, mask, and torn newspaper with the headline “lynch.”
Pruitt’s painting is based on a photo he took of the preacher of his childhood church. At the time this piece was painted, the artist was exploring different faiths and struggling with his religious beliefs. Pruitt cites Basquiat and Rauschenberg as stylistic inspirations that influenced this painting. The muddied brushstrokes used to create this piece reflect the internal struggle of the artist.
Elizabeth Catlett was an artist and educator from Washington, D.C., who repatriated to Mexico. Negro Woman is a wooden sculpture of a Black woman. Catlett crafts the woman with an intense stare through careful sculpting and inlaid onyx eyes.
Samples’ mural unfolds like a dream, with each panel above the sleeping artist revealing a constellation of scenes from the artist’s youth. Lower window panels evoke a harmonious existence with nature and animals, while upper panels reveal struggles with racism in the South and his mother’s death.
This terracotta was created by an unknown Texas Southern art student. The form suggests a surreal male and female pair warmly embracing each other. The artist employs negative space uniquely in this sculpture; additional gendered embellishments can be seen within the open heads. These exterior decorations were required by Professor Carroll Harris Simms.
Armstead Mills' painting shows a woman holding a bucket and striding through a field of flowers, with a small dog at her ankles. Malindy, wearing a dress and carrying a bucket, is portrayed tenderly and beautifully in this colorful nature scene. Mills' brother, Edward, also attended Texas Southern as an art student.
Renee Stout is an artist and sculptor from Junction City, KS. Lunch at the Bush White House is a conceptual gothic painting that explores the intersection of Stout's critique of the Bush administration and numerology from an atmospheric perspective. Above a plantation-like landscape, Stout depicts a heart impaled by an ornate fork.
Postcard serving as an invitation for an event at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. The event is a members preview exhibition opening and book signing on November 9, 1995, at 7:00pm for Tom Feelings' "Middle Passage," which would go on to be the author and cartoonist’s most famous work.
Curnell's painting shows a field of crops stretching into a cloudy horizon, with four people working the field. Two men are actively picking, while a man and woman stand to the side, resting next to a water pail. The figures’ dress and posture seem to suggest that this may be a family farm, rather than a plantation scene depicting slavery.
Set against a background of shotgun houses, Black people engage in a struggle to break free from chains and physical limitations. Extreme musculature and angel wings suggest supernatural strengths. A motif in Settles’ work is the power and beauty of Black hair.
Hubbard, a student of Carroll Harris Simms, created “Figure With Turtle and Bird” in 1966. This terracotta depicts a bird, atop an abstract tree, surrounding a tortoise. These animals are often paired in folktales, including an Igbo tale where a tortoise fools birds and is punished by having his shell broken. The fable says this is the cause of the irregular shape of tortoise shells.
Erma Gordon's self-portrait shows the artist from three different angles. The three profiles are tied together by a light, almost translucent fabric that is worn by the frontmost figure and held by the others. This motif is used repeatedly by the artist, including in her mural. Two boys move fluidly and playfully through the background.
James Reuben Reed was a painter born in Kansas City, MO. Depressed is an oil painting of a seated man wearing a tattered gray suit, a hat, and black shoes. He is leaning forward, whiting a piece of wood and looking toward the viewer.
Volume 1 of The Black Panther Party Jamaica Bulletin from Jamaica Queens, NY, February 28, 1969. Included in the bulletin are a political cartoon titled "The Pig Must Go"; an article titled "Panthers Harassed by F.B.I."; and an abridged version of Black Panther Party Ten Point Program.
This Biggers print shows a figure playing a balafon, with a sankofa bird overhead. The balafon is a West African percussion and the sankofa bird signifies the importance of the past in improving the future. Taken together, they show the importance of music in preserving culture.
