Art, Visual

Early African American Visual Arts

African American visual artists fought a long battle to have the freedom to express themselves through their art. During their period of enslavement, society defined those African Americans working artistically with everyday materials not as artists but simply as silversmiths, cabinetmakers, iron workers, or potters.

Most enslaved blacks had no option but to produce objects useful to the slave owners and their families. While some slaves painted portraits of their owners and even free blacks, European classical traditions restricted how they represented their subjects. Scipio Moorhead, Patrick Henry Reason, and Julien Hudson are among those African Americans who painted both white and black portraits during the period from 1773 to 1887.

Although such artists were talented, art academies, associations, and colleges did not open their institutions to them and other African American artists. As a result, many blacks were unable to develop their artistic skills and to make a living through art. Abolitionists sometimes assisted the struggling African American artists. They paid for private art lessons, purchased their art, and even arranged for their works to be exhibited. Yet, no secure outlet for African American artistic abilities existed.

After the Civil War and until the early 1920s, African American visual art became more acceptable to white art patrons, museums, and art galleries. Yet, society continued to force black artists, such as Edmonia Lewis and Henry Ossawa Tanner, to produce only works in the classical tradition. Talented black artists slowly began to appear in Chicago, New Orleans, Boston, and Philadelphia, but they too were restrained by what white society wanted to see. To find artistic freedom, many African American visual artists left for Rome, Munich, and Paris, the latter of which had become a mecca for black artists by 1910.

Black visual artists finally found freedom of expression in the United States during the Harlem Renaissance. This movement, which began in the early 1920s, provided an artistic outlet for not only visual artists but also for writers, musicians, poets, intellectuals, and black entrepreneurs. The neighborhood of Harlem in New York City became the cultural center for African Americans during this time. At last, black art could depict the social, economic, and political conditions in the United States as they related to African Americans.

African American philosopher and writer Alain LeRoy Locke became the unofficial spokesperson and promoter for Harlem Renaissance artists. His book, The Negro in Art (1940), attempted to demonstrate the greatness of African American visual artists. The Harmon Foundation (1922–1967) also promoted the works of blacks. The foundation provided money to keep African American artists working and to publicize their art to a wider audience. The Great Depression ended the financial backing of the Harmon Foundation in 1933, although the organization itself lasted until 1967.

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