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Black Women in the Visual Arts: a Comparative Study Lois Jones Peirre-Noel

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New Directions Volume 3 | Issue 2 Article 6 4-1-1976 Black Women in the Visual Arts: A Comparative Study Lois Jones Peirre-Noel Follow this and additional works at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections Recommended Citation Peirre-Noel, Lois Jones (1976) "Black Women in the Visual Arts: A Comparative Study," New Directions: Vol. 3: Iss. 2, Article 6. Available at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol3/iss2/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Howard @ Howard University. It has been accepted for inclusion in New Directions by an authorized administrator of Digital Howard @ Howard University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Peirre-Noel: Black Women in the Visual Arts: A Comparative Study NATIONAl Black Women In the Visual Arts "Forever Free," by Edmonia Lewis 12 A Comparative Study By Lois Jones Pierre-Noel The strength and position of the Black woman artist has existed as an important contribution from the early history of Black American artists. Women artists emerged from a most discouraging beginning in this country to attain remarkable achieve- ments. For to be both "Black" and "wom- an" was to express one's creativity in "frustrating obscurity." Then, too, art history books failed to mention Black women artists before the middle of the 19th Century. From the mid-1800s to the 20th Cen- tury, the more significant contr.ibutions of Black women artists were made by those who traveled abroad for the recognition the American society was not willing to give. Outstanding in this group was Edmonia Lewis, one of the most vibrant personalities of her time.Born in New York in 1845, Lewis became the first Black woman sculptor. Liberal abolitionists were responsible for her education at Oberl in College (1859-1863), followed by spe- cialized work in sculpture in the studio of Edmond Brackett, in Boston. She first attracted attention in 1865 when she exhibited in Boston a bust of Robert Gould Shaw. That sarne year she was sent by patrons to Rome, where she perfected herwork in the fashionable neo- classical style of the day untiI her death in 1890. Henry Tuckerman, a leading American art historian of the late 19th Century, referred to Edmonia Lewis as "the most exotic and interesting of all the young American artists in Rome." Among her most noted creations is "Forever Free," which she executed in marble in Rome in 1867 as a tribute to the Ernancipation Proclamation. It is now in the permanent collection of the Howard UniversityGallery of Art. Other important works of rnarble are: "Hagar," 1875; "Madonna and Child," 1867, and "The Marriage of Hiawatha," Published1865 by Digital. Howard @ Howard University, 1 PHOTOGRAPHY BY P. P ANGLADE New Directions, Vol. 3 [], Iss. 2, Art. 6 On returning to the States,she executed portraits of Black characters in wood. Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong in 13 -mostly in plaster-a number of portrait "Congolaise" was one of her major works music; Claude McKay, Langston Hughes bust commissions, among them Charles to be purchased by the Whitney Museum and James Weldon Johnson in literature; Sumner, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Homer, in New York for its permanent collection. May Howard Jackson, Augusta Savage Charlotte Cushman, and Henry Wads- Augusta Savage decided early in life to and Laura Wheeler Waring in art. Waring, worth Longfellow-which is now in the succeed in the field of sculpture. It was a proficient painter who taught at Cheney Harvard University College Library. not an easy road for her but, possessing State Teachers College in Pennsylvania, Ranked along with Edmonia Lewis is great genius and strong ambition, she was commissioned by the Harmon Foun- Meta Vaux Warri.ck Fuller, whom I knew left her home in Green Cove Spring, Fla., dation to do [along with Betsy Graves when I was a student in Boston. She was for New York to further her education. She Reyneau] a series of portraits of outstand- indeed a great inspiration to me. After was a scholarship student for three years ing Americans of African descent. five years of study at the School of Indus- at Cooper Union and, in 1923, applied for The Harmon Foundation of New York trial Art in Philadelphia, she went to Paris and was granted a scholarship to study at was greatly instrumental in provid ing in 1899 to study at the Academie Colorosi, Fontainbleau in France. But Savage never Black artists with exposure and rewards where she attracted the attention of realized the benefits from this scholarship for their work. So was the collector Arthur Auguste Rodin, the great French sculptor. because, on learning that she was Black, A. Schomburg, then curator of the Depart- In 1903 she exhibited, in the Paris Salon, the American Scholarship Committee ment of Negro Literature, History and a group entitled "The Wretched," which withdrew the scholarship. She did, how- Prints at the 135th Street Branch of the were considered her masterpieces. After ever, later receive a Rosenwald scholar- New York Public Library. His large collec- three years in Paris, she returned to the ship for a two-year study in Paris. Her tion of art, which resulted from his States. sculpture, "Gamin," a study of the head of promotion of public exhibits and lectures, a Black boy was responsible for the great was donated to the library. Most of Fuller's early works were de- recognition she received-along with the Other agencies and institutions which stroyed in a studio fire in Philadelphia in expressive head of W.E. B. Dubois- now paved the way for Black artists to develop 1910.Among the remaining are "Ethiopian in the 135thStreet NewYorkPublic Library. their skills and display their art include, Awakening," (now in the 135th Street Another of Savage's achievements was the Bernett Aden Gallery, founded by Public Library in Harlem) "The Talking her creation of the sculpture: "The Harp" Alonzo Aden and James V. Herring (then Skull," "The Exodus," and "Richard B. [inspired by the Black national anthem head of the Howard University Art Depart- Harrison." "Lift Every Voice and Sing"] which she ment), and the Atlanta University Art In an effort to gain recoqnition as artists, was commissioned to do in 1939 for the Award Shows, under the sponsorship of Lewis and Fuller chose to live outside the New York World's Fair. Many American Hale Woodruff. Black community, as did Robert Duncan- galleries exhibited her work, among them Some of the women artists who flour- son and Henry O. Tanner. Their wish was the Anderson Galleries, the Argent Gallery ished during this era include, Elizabeth to be regarded as "artists," without regard and the Architectural League of New York. Catlett, sculptor and print-maker, who to race. Consequently, with a few excep- It was during this period in the 1920s now lives in Mexico, and Selma Burke, tions, they avoided subjects relating en- that the Black artist began to gain selr- also a sculptor residing in Bucks County, tirely to the Black experience. definition through the expression of group New Hope, Pa. Catlett, a graduate of Unlike Fuller, May Howard Jackson, consciousness in the "Negro Renais- Howard University, won top award for her also a sculptor, had no desire to study sance" or the "New Negro Movement." sculpture, "Mother and Child," at the abroad and confined her study to the Alain Locke, editor of the New Negro Negro Exposition in Chicago in 1940.She Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Her Anthology, was indeed responsible for works mainly in wood-cedar and walnut. resultant works were excellent examples reawakening Black Americans to their Her themes are politically designed in of calculated modeling in the tradition of African past and the richness of their keeping with her statement that "art is American pictorial sculpture. heritage. This movement centered in important only to the extent that it helps in In contrast to Jackson, sculptor Nancy Harlem, to where a large number of Black the Ijberation of our people." She is due EIizabeth Prophet, of Warwick, RI., chose peasants and laborers fled to escape a to retire soon from her position as profes- to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in bitter life of poverty in the South after sor of sculpture and department head at Paris, after completing her work at the World War I. In art, this action of self- the National School of Fine Arts of the Rhode Island School of Design. There she expression took place in music, drama, National University of Mexico. resided from 1922 to 1935 and attracted dance, Iiterature and the visual arts. The Selma Burke was born at Mooreville, much attention by her strongIy featured great personalities of the period included, N.C.,where at an early age she began to http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol3/iss2/6 2 Peirre-Noel: Black Women in the Visual Arts: A Comparative Study 14 fashion nursery rhyme subjects from local women, Laura Wheeler Waring, Elizabeth in New York's Greenwich Village, and clay which was used as a wash for farm Catlett, Alma Thomas, and this writer, in whose work is included in the presenta- buildings. Her formal education includes an exhibition entitled,"Black Matri- tion of "Paintings by Five Black Women stud ies at St.Augustine's College, Cooper Images," organized by Professor James Artists," at the Howard University Gallery Union and Columbia University. Later, E. Lewis. of Art in January, 1976. she went to Europe on a fellowship. An organization of Black women artists Geraldine McCullough, a Chicago Burke has won numerous awards and in New York called "Where We At"- sculptor, created the controversial monu- has fulfilled several important commis- headed by Kay Brown-exhibited at the ment of Dr.
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