ARTNOIR'S - AFRICAN/AMERICAN ART HISTORY 101

ARTNOIR'S AFRICAN/AMERICAN ART HISTORY 101

AARON DOUGLAS (1899-1979)

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"Marian Anderson"

Aaron Douglas was born on May 26, 1899 in Topeka, Kansas. Aaron was encouraged at an early age by his mother to continue his creative interest in art. His drawings and paintings were welcomed on the walls of the Douglas' home. Douglas seemed to have embraced the art world at the right moment. He graduated with a B.A. in FINE ARTS from the University of Nebraska in 1922 and later graduated from Teachers College of Columbia University in 1944. Douglas taught art at Lincoln High School in Topeka for two years, but his goal was to utilize his talents in the revival of artistic opportunity available in New York.

He felt himself drawn to Harlem by newspaper articles reporting the flowering of black cultural awareness. There he met and studied with the German artist Winold Reiss, who encouraged him to celebrate his racial heritage and introduce African motifs and themes into his paintings. During the heyday of the HARLEM RENAISSANCE, the name of Aaron Douglas was preeminent as an artist among his colleagues and the leading writers and leading intellectuals of the day. Because he was able to reproduce illustrations for books and magazines, his services were in high demand. Douglas was a frequent contributor to The Crisis magazine, and was the only African American artist featured in Alain Locke's classic anthology of black writers,The New Negro (1925). He became well known for Cubist-type black and white rhythmic illustrations. A good example was his GOOD TROMBONES illustrations for JAMES WELDON JOHNSON'S book of poems and sermons in verse.

Douglas' talents allowed him to become a successful muralist. He was commissioned to do the murals for the 1920 opening in the CLUB EBONY in Harlem. In 1929, he traveled to Chicago to create a mural for the SHERMAN HOTEL'S COLLEGE INN BALLROOM. At the end of 1930, Douglas created another mural for FISK UNIVERSITY in Nashville, Tennessee. James A. Porter wrote in Modern Negro Art that "...most of his murals are based on themes from Negro history....Douglas' mural style is the result of a rationalization of form. He has adopted a formula for Negro physical characteristics which depends on two effects of design: elongation and angularization....his Negro forms appear to be linked with a context of primitive dance patterns."

With the handsome fees for his murals, Douglas and his wife, Alta, went to PARIS, France, where he expanded his knowledge of painting and sculpture. He also met the writer, J.A. RODGERS, and painter, PALMER HAYDEN. His decision in becoming an artist came from his exposure to the African American painter, HENRY OSSAWA TANNER, and his CHRIST AND NICODEMUS painting completed in 1899. Douglas also got a chance to meet with his lifelong idol: painter HENRY OSSAWA TANNER.

On his return to the United States in 1928, Douglas became the first president of the HARLEM ARTISTS GUILD. The GUILD was successful in helping to get African-American artists the necessary acceptance into the arts project under the U.S. Government's WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION (WPA). For his efforts, Douglas became known as the "DEAN" among his fellow artists. From 1939 to 1966, Douglas took on a position as a professor of art at FISK UNIVERSITY in Nashville, Tennessee. He later became department head before he retired in 1966. Aaron Douglas wanted to infuse his ideas and Afrocentric expressions into his creations. This break from the traditional display in his art was not well received and, initially, not understood by his critics. Before Douglas died in 1979, he was recognized for making it acceptable for future African-American artists to express in their creations movements and depictions from their experiences as African-Americans.

Reyneau painted Douglas's portrait in front of "Song of the Towers," the last in a series of four murals Douglas had painted in 1934, under the sponsorship of the Works Progress Administration. The series traces African Americans' history from their origins in Africa, through slavery, emancipation, and the great migration from the rural South to the industrialized, urban North. "Song of the Towers" addresses African Americans' entry into the northern cities.

mona OTHER WORKS BY THE ARTIST

TRIBOROUGH BRIDGE, oil, 1935

THE NEGRO IN AN AFRICAN SETTING, black and white mural, oil, 1933

THE COMPOSER, portrait in oil, 1967

LISTEN, LORD - A PRAYER, black and white illustration, 1925

EVOLUTION OF THE NEGRO DANCE, black and white mural, oil, 1935

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