#african-american artist

[newyorkthegoldenage]

William H. Johnson, Blind Singer, ca. 1940. Screenprint with tempera additions.

Johnson was among the foremost painters of African-American life during the Harlem Renaissance. Born in South Carolina and educated in fine arts in New York and Provincetown, Johnson spent most of his time from the mid-1920s to the late 1930s in Europe, where he was influenced by Post-Impressionism and Expressionism. After achieving critical acclaim abroad, he returned to New York permanently in 1938 under the threat of war and with a desire to reconnect to his roots. The move produced a dramatic change in his work. Assigned by the government's Works Progress Administration to teach at the Harlem Community Art Center, Johnson became immersed in the sights, sounds, and people of New York's African-American community, which he captured in compositions of flat shapes, patterned designs, and brilliant colors that were distinctly modernist in their simplicity and directness.

During his lifetime, Johnson created more than seventy-five prints. While in Europe he produced woodcuts and linoleum cuts, usually with hand coloring, inspired by the raw power of German Expressionism. After returning to New York, he took up screenprint and pochoir, techniques that suited his new embrace of simplified forms and bold colors. He printed these works on assorted found papers and often completed his images by hand with tempera, making each print slightly different from the next. He frequently experimented with subjects by printing compositional variants and also rendering them in drawing and painting, each format enriching the other, but with the printed versions the most simplified of all.

Notable among Johnson's New York prints are those that capture the essence of Harlem's fashion, music, and dance. This print, entitled Blind Singer, shows a pair of musicians in an open-air performance that was common on the city's bustling streets. The composition's flatness, pure color, and orchestrated angularity endow this still image with a sense of rhythmic motion and dynamic energy. --Judy Hecker, in Deborah Wye, Artists and Prints: Masterworks from The Museum of Modern Art

Photo & text: MoMA

[theaskew]

Sharon Barnes (African-American, lives and works in Los Angeles), (Ki Nu Ta Ben Vive Medu (That We Can Live Without Fear), 2024. Acrylic, oil, oil stick, burlap, paper, cardboard, thread on canvas 68 x48 in. | 152 cm x 121 cm. (Source: Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.)

[themuseumwithoutwalls]

MWW Artwork of the Day (2/18/25) Henry Ossawa Tanner (African-American, 1859-1937) Portrait of the Artist's Mother (1897) Oil on canvas, 74.3 x 100.4 cm. The Philadelphia Museum of Art

Henry Ossawa Tanner's portrait of his mother is both a tribute to Sarah Elizabeth Miller Tanner, the central, stabilizing figure in her large and distinguished African American family, and a celebration of her son's recent professional success. The painting also stands as a reminder of Tanner's success in his chosen career, in which he had persevered despite initial opposition from his parents. Tanner's portrait of his mother has none of the cool austerity of Whistler's picture, however. Instead it is an affectionate portrayal of a strong, sensitive, thoughtful personality.

[mahgnib]

Ralph Earl, “Houses Fronting New Milford Green”, circa 1796

[abwwia]

Barbara Jones-Hogu (1938-2017)

#bornOnThisDay Barbara Jones-Hogu (1938-2017) was an African-American artist best known for her work with the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) and for co-founding the artists' collective AfriCOBRA. Via Wikipedia #PalianSHOW

Barbara Jones-Hogu April 17, 1938 – November 14, 2017was an African-American artist best known for her work with the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) and for co-founding the artists’ collective AfriCOBRA. Via Wikipedia (photo) Jones-Hogu worked in a variety of printing techniques, including woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, and screen prints. Her work dealt directly with social and…

[herbgerblin]

Kendrick Lamar uses power word kill!

[ourrace-sexraceandculture]

The Original American Indians, the Black Indians.

[jareckiworld]

Vanessa German —The Ordinary Sacred "Power Figure" (mixed media; wood, glass, found objects, 2015)

[fyblackwomenart]

"African woman" by Judith Scholtz on INPRNT

[thefugitivesaint]

Thomas Blackshear II, 'Beauty and The Beast', ''Spectrum'' #2, 1995

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Jacob Lawrence, Harlem Diner, 1938. Water-pressed tempera on paper, laid on board.

Photo: NY Historical Society/Art Students League

[theaskew]

Alison Saar (American, b. 1956, lives and works in Los Angeles), Compton Nocturne, 2012. Three-colour lithograph, 25 1/8 × 19 1/8 in. | 63.8 × 48.6 cm.

[themuseumwithoutwalls]

MWW Artwork of the Day (2/23/25) Charles White (African-American, 1918–1979) Trenton Six (1949) Ink over graphite underdrawing on paperboard The Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth TX

Charles Wilbert White was known for his WPA era murals. He was briefly married to famed sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett. The Trenton Six case arose in 1948 in Trenton, New Jersey, when six African American defendants were convicted by an all-white jury of the murder of an elderly white shopkeeper. On August 6, 1948 all six men were sentenced to death, even though they had been able to provide alibis, and had repudiated their prior confessions. The international attention focused on the case included many notables, from W.E.B. Du Bois to Pete Seeger -- even Albert Einstein.

[sbrown82]

Michael Jackson, with former girlfriend singer Stephanie Mills, receiving the 'Good Scout Humanitarian Award' from the Boy Scouts of America organization (1990).

[oncanvas]

Mars Dust, Alma Thomas, 1972

Acrylic on canvas 69 ¼ × 57 ⅛ in. (175.9 × 145.1 cm) Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY, USA

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) "A Flower to Teacher" (1875) Watercolor on paper Located in the Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Georgia, United States