African American Artist Michigan 19th century CDV photos GOODRIDGE BROTHERS

Two original CDV photos one by African American photogtraphers Goodridge Brothers of Saginaw, Michigan and another rare CDV by EASTMAN & RANDALL of East Sagniaw, Mich. Both images appear to be of same person.

Each is approximately 4 x 2 1/2 inches. Creases upper right corner, left bottom right. Stains and toning (see images). The Goodridge Brothers were among the first African American photographers to operate professionally in the nation.

Begun by Glenalvin Goodridge in York, PA in 1847 and continued by his younger brothers, Wallace and William in Saginaw, MI between 1864 and 1922, the Goodridge Brothers Photography Studio was internationally renowned for its progressive use of photographic technologies, the variety of its subjects, and the skillful implementation of photographic techniques. 3 (Fall 1969) Goodridge Bros. Contains important article on the Goodridge Brothers (Glenalvin and Wallace), highly successful early African American commercial photographers. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2000. The Goodridge Brothers Studio was the most significant and enduring African American photographic establishment in North America from its beginnings in York, Pennsylvania, in 1847, until the death of Wallace L. Goodridge in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1922.

Well-written biography as well as photo history with new research on this fascinating team of early photographers. GENERAL BOOKS AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS. APPIAH, KWAME ANTHONY and HENRY LOUIS GATES, Jr.

Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Oxford University Press, 1999; 2005. No new information or in-depth discussion of the visual arts.

Names of visual artists included in the accounts of each period of black history are often lumped into a one sentence list; very few have additional biographical entries. As of 2011, far more substantial information on most of the artists is available from Wikipedia than is included in this Encyclopedia. Includes mention of: James Presley Ball, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David A.

Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Cornelius Battey, Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Everald Brown, Elizabeth Catlett, Dana Chandler, Roland Charles, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Albert V. Crite, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Murry Depillars, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, Robert S.

Duncanson, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, the Goodridge Brothers, Rex Goreleigh, Tapfuma Gutsa, Palmer Hayden, Lyle Ashton Harris, Chester Higgins, Joshua Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Ben Jones, Seydou Keita, Lois Mailou Jones, William (Woody) Joseph, Wifredo Lam, Jacob Lawrence, Edmonia Lewis, Fern Logan, Stephen Marc, Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, Willie Middlebrook, Scipio Moorhead, Archibald Motley, Gordon Parks, Horace Pippin, Prentiss H.

Porter, Elizabeth Prophet, Faith Ringgold, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Chéri Samba, Augusta Savage, Jeffrey Scales, Addison L. Scurlock, Charles Sebree, Johannes Segogela, Twins Seven- even, Coreen Simpson, LornaSimpson, Moneta Sleet, Marvin & Morgan Smith, Renée Stout, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Hank Willis Thomas, Dox Thrash, James Vanderzee, Christian Walker, the Wall of Respect, Laura Wheeler Waring, Augustus Washington, Carrie Mae Weems, Charles White, Cynthia Wiggins, Carla Williams, Pat Ward Williams, et al.

The entry on African Women Artists includes an odd and out-of-date collection of names: Elizabeth Olowu, Agnes Nyanhongo, Alice Sani, Inji Efflatoun, Grace Chigumira, Theresa Musoke, Palma Sinatoa, Elsa Jacob, and Terhas Iyasu. Hopefully future editions will follow the path of the substantially expanded edition of 2005 and will alter the overall impression that black visual artists are not worth the time and attention of the editors. Note: Now out-of-print and available only through exorbitant subscription to the Oxford African American Studies Center (OAASC) a single database incorporating multiple Oxford encyclopedias, ongoing addiitions will apparently be unavailable to individuals or to most small libraries in the U. 10.9 x 8.6 in.

GATES, HENRY LOUIS and EVELYN BROOKS HIGGINBOTHAM, eds. Originally published in 8 volumes, the set has grown to 12 vollumes with the addition of 1000 new entries. Also available as online database of biographies, accessible only to paid subscribers well-endowed institutions and research libraries. As per update of February 2, 2009, the following artists were included in the 8-volume set, plus addenda.

A very poor showing for such an important reference work. Hopefully there are many more artists in the new entries: Jesse Aaron, Julien Abele (architect), John H. Ron Adams, Salimah Ali, James Latimer Allen, Charles H. Alston, Amalia Amaki, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, William E.

Artis, Herman "Kofi" Bailey, Walter T. Bailey (architect), James Presley Ball, Edward M. Bannister, Anthony Barboza, Ernie Barnes, Richmond Barthé, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cornelius Marion Battey, Romare Bearden, Phoebe Beasley, Arthur Bedou, Mary A. Bell, Cuesta Ray Benberry, John Biggers, Camille Billops, Howard Bingham, Alpha Blackburn, Robert H.

Blackburn, Walter Scott Blackburn, Melvin R. Bolden, David Bustill Bowser, Wallace Branch, Barbara Brandon, Grafton Tyler Brown, Richard Lonsdale Brown, Barbara Bullock, Selma Hortense Burke, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs, John Bush, Elmer Simms Campbell, Elizabeth Catlett, David C. Raven Chanticleer, Ed Clark, Allen Eugene Cole, Robert H. Colescott, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest T.

Crichlow, Michael Cummings, Dave the Potter [David Drake], Griffith J. Davis, Thomas Day, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Thornton Dial, Sr. Joseph Eldridge Dodd, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, Sam Doyle, David Clyde Driskell, Robert S. Duncanson, Ed Dwight (listed as military, not as artist); Mel Edwards, Minnie Jones Evans, William McNight Farrow, Elton Fax, Daniel Freeman, Meta Warrick Fuller, Reginald Gammon, King Daniel Ganaway, the Goodridge Brothers, Rex Goreleigh, Tyree Guyton, James Hampton, Della Brown Taylor (Hardman), Edwin Augustus Harleston, Charles "Teenie" Harris, Lyle Ashton Harris, Bessie Harvey, Isaac Scott Hathaway, Palmer Hayden, Nestor Hernandez, George Joseph Herriman, Varnette Honeywood, Walter Hood, Richard L.

Hunster, Richard Hunt, Clementine Hunter, Bill Hutson, Joshua Johnson, Sargent Claude Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Ann Keesee, Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, Samella Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Jules Lion, Edward Love, Estella Conwill Majozo, Ellen Littlejohn, Kerry James Marshall, Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, Richard Mayhew, Carolyn Mazloomi, Aaron Vincent McGruder, Robert H. McNeill, Scipio Moorhead, Archibald H. Imagination (Gregory Warmack), Lorraine O'Grady, Jackie Ormes, Joe Overstreet, Carl Owens, Gordon Parks, Sr.

Edgar Patience, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Margaret Smith Piper, Rose Piper, Horace Pippin, William Sidney Pittman, Stephanie Pogue, Prentiss Herman Polk (as Prentice), James Amos Porter, Harriet Powers, Elizabeth Prophet, Martin Puryear, Patrick Henry Reason, Michael Richards, Arthur Rose, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Augusta Savage, Joyce J. Scott, Addison Scurlock, George Scurlock, Willie Brown Seals, Charles Sebree, Joe Selby, Lorna Simpson, Norma Merrick Sklarek, Clarissa Sligh, Albert Alexander Smith, Damballah Smith, Marvin and Morgan Smith, Maurice B. Sorrell, Simon Sparrow, Rozzell Sykes, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, J. Thomas, Robert Louis (Bob) Thompson, Mildred Jean Thompson, Dox Thrash, William Tolliver, Bill Traylor, Leo F.

Twiggs, James Augustus Joseph Vanderzee, Kara Walker, William Onikwa Wallace, Laura Wheeler Waring, Augustus Washington, James W. Carrie Mae Weems, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, John H.

White, Jack Whitten, Carla Williams, Daniel S. Williams, Paul Revere Williams (architect), Deborah Willis, Ed Wilson, Ellis Wilson, Fred Wilson, John Woodrow Wilson, Ernest C. Withers, Beulah Ecton Woodard, Hale Aspacio Woodruff.

The International Review of African American Art Vol. Issue devoted to African American photography.

An Overview" by Deborah Willis; "Vanderzee" by Donna Mussenden Vanderzee; "The Eye Music of Gordon Parks" by Mary Jane Hewitt and "For The Record: James Van Der Zee, Marcus Garvey, and The UNIA Photographs. By Gordon Parks, Vance Allen, Sulaiman Ellison, James P. Ball, Goodridge Brothers, James Van Der Zee, James Latimer Allen, C. Battey, Elise Forrest Harleston, P. Roberts, Marvin and Morgan Smith, Moneta Sleet, Jr.

Richard Saunders, and Robert Sengstacke. Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design.

Includes a list of photographers who were not exhibited (listed by state). Curated by Valencia Hollins Coar.

Texts: "Black Photography: Contexts For Evolution" by Deborah J. Johnson; "Historical Consciousness and Photographic Moment" by Michael R. Winston; "Photography And Afro-Amemrican History" by Angela Davis. Traveled to six other venues including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Newark Museum, and ending at the HIgh Museum, Atlanta, GA, June 29- August 26, 1984.

Gerald Fraser, "A Century of Black Photographers, " NYT, March 2, 1984. Included in the exhibition: James Presley Ball, Sr. Ball & Son, Wallace Goodridge, the Goodridge Brothers, Harry Shepherd, Herbert Collins, Cornelius M. Hyman, Paul Poole, James A.

Polk, Harvey James Lewis, Robert H. McNeill, Reverend Lonzie Odie Taylor, Allen E.

Hinton, Gordon Parks, Griffith J. Davis, Richard Saunders, Carroll T. Maynard, Clifton George Cabell, Robert S. Supplementary list of photographers not included in the exhibition: James N.

Bell, Frank Herman Cloud, H. Colburne, George Hunter, et al. New York: Cobblehill Books, 1996.

Intended for ages 11 and up. Not a comprehensive survey, but rather a series of profiles Surveys the work of African American professional photographers from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century: Jules Lion, Augustus Washington, James P. Ball, the Goodridge Brothers, Cornelius M. 8vo 9.5 x 7.3 in. Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present.

81 color plates, 487 b&w illus. Published to accompany the three-part traveling exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Institution.

Important gathering of photographs of Black subjects by African American photographers from mid-nineteenth century through the present (roughly half from 1980s and 90s) by the pre-eminent historian of this subject. Photographers include: O'Neal Abel, Salima Ali, James Lattimer Allen, Winifred Hall Allen, Amalia Amaki, Linda L. Ashton, Thomas Askew, John B. Bailey, James Presley Ball, Sr.

Thomas Ball, Anthony Barboza, Cornelius M. Battey, Anthony Beale, Arthur P. Bedou, Donald Bernard, Dawoud Bey, Howard Bingham, Caroll Parrott Blue, Terry Boddie, Rick Bolton, St.

Calhoun, Dennis Callwood, Don Camp, Roland Charles, Albert Chong, Carl Clark, Linda Day Clark, Allen Edward Cole, Florestine Perrault Collins, Herbert Collins, Adger Cowans, Renée Cox, Cary Beth Cryor, Steven Cummings, Gerald G. Daniel Dawson, Roy DeCarava, Doris Derby, Stephanie Dinkins, Lou Draper, George Durr, Nekisha Durrett, Edward (Eddie) Eleha, Darrel Ellis, Jonathan Eubanks, Delphine A. Fawundu, Alfred Fayemi, Jeffrey Fearing, Joe Flowers, Collette Fournier, Jack T.

Franklin, Elnora Frazier, Daniel Freeman, Roland L. Freeman, King Daniel Ganaway, Bill Gaskins, Glenalvin Goodridge, Wallace Goodridge, William Goodridge, Bob Gore, Lonnie Graham, Todd Gray, Camille Gustus, Robert Haggins, Austin Hansen, Edwin Harleston, Elise Forrest Harleston, Charles "Teenie" Harris, Doug Harris, Joe Harris, Lyle Ashton Harris, Thomas Allen Harris, Lucius Henderson, Craig Herndon, Leroy Henderson, Calvin Hicks, Chester Higgins, Jr. Milton Hinton, Raymond Holman, Earlie Hudnall, Jr. Curtis Humphrey, Reginald Jackson, Chris Johnson, Brent Jones, Kenneth George Jones, Lou Jones, Benny Joseph, Kamoinge Workshop, Perry A. Kelly, Roshini Kempadoo, Winston Kennedy, Keba Konte, Andree Lambertson, Bill Lathan, Carl E.

Lindo, Harlee Little, Fern Logan, Stephen Marc, Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, Charles Martin, Louise Ozell Martin, Chandra McCormick, Robert H. McNeill, Bertrand Miles, Cheryl Miller, Robert (Bob) Moore, John W. Mosley, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Ming Smith Murray (as Ming Smith), Mansa Mussa, Marilyn Nance, Sunny Nash, Constance Newman, David Ogburn, G. Dwoyid Olmstead, Kambui Olujimi, Villard Paddio, Gordon Parks, D.

Pearson, Moira Pernambuco, Bonnie Phillips, John Pinderhughes, P. Polk, Paul Poole, Carl R. Pope, Marion James Porter, Sheila Pree, Eli Reed, Richard Roberts, Wilhelmina Williams Roberts, Orville Robertson, Herb Robinson, Eugene Roquemore, Susan J.

Ross, Ken Royster, Jeffery St. Mary, Richard Saunders, Jeffrey Scales, Addison L. Sengstacke, Harry Shepherd, Accra Shepp, Carl Sidle, Coreen Simpson, Lorna Simpson, Moneta Sleet, Clarissa Sligh, Beuford Smith, Marvin Smith, Morgan Smith, Frank Stallings, Charles (Chuck) Stewart, Gerald Straw, Ron Tarver, Hank Willis Thomas, Elaine Tomlin, June DeLairre Truesdale, Sheila Turner, Richard Aloysius Twine, James Vanderzee, Vincent Alan W. Walker, Augustus Washington, Lewis Watts, Carrie Mae Weems, Ellie Lee Weems, Jean Weisinger, Edward West, Wendel A. White, Cynthia Wiggins, Carlton Wilkinson, Carla Williams, Charles Williams, Milton Williams, Pat Ward Williams, William Earle Williams, Ernest C.

Includes: James Latimer Allen, Eldridge Asher, John B. Bailey, Hattie Baker, Walter Baker, James Presley Ball, Thomas Ball, Edward M. Bedou, Hayes Louis Bowdre, Walter A. Browder, Hayward Bryant, James S. Campbell, Frank Herman Cloud, Herbert Collins, C.

Davis, Roy DeCarava, Robert S. Duncanson, Eddie Elcha, James C. Farley, George Fields, Daniel Freeman, King Daniel Ganaway, Glenalvin Goodridge, Wallace Goodridge, William Goodridge, J. Gray, Francis Grice, Austin Hansen, Elise Forrest Harleston, Frank Harris, Benjamin L. Hunster, Harvey Husband, Andrew F.

Lawson, Edward Henry Lee, Jules Lion, John Roy Lynch, Arthur L. Minter, Thestus Myzell, Gordon Parks, F.

Polk, Paul Poole, Charles L. Reason, Richard Samuel Roberts, W. Ross, Thomas Rutter, Addison N. Scurlock, Harry (Henry) Shepherd, Frank C.

Smith, Marvin and Morgan Smith, W. Vanderzee, Augustus Washington, Miles Webb, Ellis L. 4to, silver lettered black cloth. Philadephia: Benerman & Wilson, 1870.

291 publication of a list of new members of the National Photographic Association who joined after the publication of the list of members in July, 1869 erratic alphabetical order. Note: Available as ebook - 2013. Eastman & Randall, (H N Eastman and James T Randall), ambrotypists, Washington. Civic / economic groups[show]. African-American art is a broad term describing the visual arts of the American black community (African Americans).

Influenced by various cultural traditions, including those of Africa, Europe and the Americas, traditional African-American art forms include the range of plastic arts, from basket weaving, pottery, and quilting to woodcarving and painting. Pre-colonial, Antebellum and Civil War eras. The Harlem Renaissance to contemporary art.

This is the carved powder horn by carver John Bush from around 1754. Harriet Powers, Bible quilt, Mixed Media. Prior to the 20th century, African-American art existed during the French and Indian War. John Bush was a powder horn carver and soldier with the Massachusetts militia fighting with the British. His work has toured throughout Canada and the US.

[1][2] His powder horn of 1756 has been part of a travelling exhibition throughout Canada and US. [3][4] Art continued in subsequent slave communities, through the end of the 20th century, African-American art has made a vital contribution to the art of the United States.

[5] During the period between the 17th century and the early 19th century art took the form of small drums, quilts, wrought-iron figures and ceramic vessels in the southern United States; these artifacts have similarities with comparable crafts in West and Central Africa. In contrast, black artisans like the New England-based engraver Scipio Moorhead and the Baltimore portrait painter Joshua Johnson created art that was conceived in a western European fashion for their local markets. Many of Africa's most skilled artisans were enslaved in the Americas, while others learned their trades or crafts as apprentices to African or white skilled workers. It was often the practice for slave owners to hire out skilled artisans. Patronage by some white families allowed for private tutorship in special cases.

Many of these sponsoring whites were abolitionists. The artists received more encouragement and were better able to support themselves in cities, of which there were more in the North and border states.

Now nationally recognized for her quilts, she used traditional appliqué techniques to record local legends, Bible stories, and astronomical events on her quilts. Only two of her late quilts have survived: Bible Quilt 1886 and Bible Quilt 1898.

Her quilts are considered among the finest examples of 19th-century Southern quilting. Like Powers, the women of Gee's Bend developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African-American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity. Although widely separated by geography, they have qualities reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The women of Gee's Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present.

[10] At one time scholars believed slaves sometimes utilized quilt blocks to alert other slaves about escape plans during the time of the Underground Railroad, [11] but most historians do not agree. Quilting remains alive as form of artistic expression in the African-American community.

After the Civil War, it became increasingly acceptable for African American-created works to be exhibited in museums, and artists increasingly produced works for this purpose. These were works mostly in the European romantic and classical traditions of landscapes and portraits. Edward Mitchell Bannister, Henry Ossawa Tanner and Edmonia Lewis are the most notable of this time. Others include Grafton Tyler Brown, Nelson A.

Primus and Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller. The goal of widespread recognition across racial boundaries was first eased within America's big cities, including Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, New York, and New Orleans.

Even in these places, however, there were discriminatory limitations. Abroad, however, African Americans were much better received. In Europe - especially Paris, France - these artists could express much more freedom in experimentation and education concerning techniques outside traditional western art.

Freedom of expression was much more prevalent in Paris as well as Munich and Rome to a lesser extent. Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City by Henry Ossawa Tanner is in the collection of the White House, and hangs in the Green Room. Acquired during the Clinton administration with funds from the White House Acquisition Trust, it is the first artwork in the White House by an African American.

The Harlem Renaissance was one of the most notable movements in African-American art. Certain freedoms and ideas that were already widespread in many parts of the world at the time had begun to spread into the artistic communities United States during the 1920s. During this period notable artists included Richmond Barthé, Aaron Douglas, Lawrence Harris, Palmer Hayden, William H. Johnson, Sargent Johnson, John T.

Biggers, Earle Wilton Richardson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Archibald Motley, Augusta Savage, Hale Woodruff, and photographer James Van Der Zee. The establishment of the Harmon Foundation by art patron William E. Harmon in 1922 sponsored many artists through its Harmon Award and annual exhibitions.

As it did with many such endeavors, the 1929 Great Depression largely ended funding for the arts for a time. While the Harmon Foundation still existed in this period, its financial support toward artists ended. The Harmon Foundation, however, continued supporting artists until 1967 by mounting exhibitions and offering funding for developing artists such as Jacob Lawrence. Midnight Golfer by Eugene J. Martin, mixed media collage on rag paper. Kara Walker, Cut, Cut paper and adhesive on wall, Brent Sikkema NYC. The US Treasury Department's Public Works of Art Project ineffectively attempted to provide support for artists in 1933. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA provided for all American artists and proved especially helpful to African-American artists. Artists and writers both gained work that helped them survive the Depression. Among them were Jacob Lawrence and Richard Wright. Politics, human and social conditions all became the subjects of accepted art forms. Important cities with significant black populations and important African-American art circles included Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D. The WPA led to a new wave of important black art professors.

Mixed media, abstract art, cubism, and social realism became not only acceptable, but desirable. Artists of the WPA united to form the 1935 Harlem Artists Guild, which developed community art facilities in major cities. Leading forms of art included drawing, sculpture, printmaking, painting, pottery, quilting, weaving and photography. By 1939, the costly WPA and its projects all were terminated.

Porter, a professor in the Department of Art at Howard University, wrote the first major text on African-American art and artists, Modern Negro Art. In the 1950s and 1960s, few African-American artists were widely known or accepted.

Despite this, The Highwaymen, a loose association of 26 African-American artists from Fort Pierce, Florida, created idyllic, quickly realized images of the Florida landscape and peddled some 200,000 of them from the trunks of their cars. Rediscovered in the mid-1990s, today they are recognized as an important part of American folk history.

The current market price for an original Highwaymen painting can easily bring in thousands of dollars. In 2004 the original group of 26 Highwaymen were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. [16] Currently 8 of the 26 are deceased, including A. Newton, Ellis and George Buckner, A. Roberts, Hezekiah Baker and most recently Johnny Daniels.

The full list of 26 can be found in the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, as well as various highwaymen and Florida art websites. Jerry Harris, Dogon mother and child, constructed and carved wood with found objects, laminated clay (Bondo), and wooden dowels.

After the Second World War, some artists took a global approach, working and exhibiting abroad, in Paris, and as the decade wore on, relocated gradually in other welcoming cities such as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Stockholm: Barbara Chase-Riboud, Edward Clark, Harvey Cropper, Beauford Delaney, Herbert Gentry, [17] Bill Hutson, Clifford Jackson, [18] Sam Middleton, [19] Larry Potter, Haywood Bill Rivers, Merton Simpson, and Walter Williams. Some African-American artists did make it into important New York galleries by the 1950s and 1960s: Horace Pippin, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, William T.

Williams, Norman Lewis, Thomas Sills, [22] and Sam Gilliam were among the few who had successfully been received in a gallery setting. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s led artists to capture and express the times and changes. Galleries and community art centers developed for the purpose of displaying African-American art, and collegiate teaching positions were created by and for African-American artists. Some African-American women were also active in the feminist art movement in the 1970s. Faith Ringgold made work that featured black female subjects and that addressed the conjunction of racism and sexism in the U.

While the collective Where We At (WWA) held exhibitions exclusively featuring the artwork of African-American women. By the 1980s and 1990s, hip-hop graffiti became predominate in urban communities.

Most major cities had developed museums devoted to African-American artists. The National Endowment for the Arts provided increasing support for these artists.

Important collections of African-American art include the Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art, the Paul R. Jones collections at the University of Delaware and University of Alabama, the David C. Driskell Art collection, the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Mott-Warsh collection. Kara Walker, a contemporary American artist, is known for her exploration of race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her artworks.

Walker's silhouette images work to bridge unfinished folklore in the Antebellum South and are reminiscent of the earlier work of Harriet Powers. Her nightmarish yet fantastical images incorporate a cinematic feel. In 2007, Walker was listed among Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in The World, Artists and Entertainers". Textile artists are part of African-American art history.

According to the 2010 Quilting in America industry survey, there are 1.6 million quilters in the United States. Influential contemporary artists include Larry D.

Alexander, Laylah Ali, Amalia Amaki, Emma Amos, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dawoud Bey, Camille Billops, Mark Bradford, Edward Clark, Willie Cole, Robert Colescott, Louis Delsarte, David C. Driskell, Leonardo Drew, Mel Edwards, Ricardo Francis, Charles Gaines, Ellen Gallagher, Herbert Gentry, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, Jerry Harris, Joseph Holston, Richard Hunt, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, Katie S. Scott Johnson, Rashid Johnson, Joe Lewis, Glenn Ligon, James Little, Edward L. Loving, Kerry James Marshall, Eugene J. Martin, Richard Mayhew, Sam Middleton, Howard McCalebb, Charles McGill, Thaddeus Mosley, Sana Musasama, Senga Nengudi, Joe Overstreet, Martin Puryear, Adrian Piper, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Gale Fulton Ross, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, John Solomon Sandridge, Raymond Saunders, John T.

Scott, Joyce Scott, Gary Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Renee Stout, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Stanley Whitney, William T. Williams, Jack Whitten, Fred Wilson, Richard Wyatt, Jr.

Richard Yarde, and Purvis Young, Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas, Barkley Hendricks, Jeff Sonhouse, William Walker, Ellsworth Ausby, Che Baraka, Emmett Wigglesworth, Otto Neals, Dindga McCannon, Terry Dixon (artist), Frederick J. Scipio Moorhead, Portrait of poet Phillis Wheatley, 1773, in the frontispiece to her book Poems on Various Subjects. Edward Mitchell Bannister, Driving Home the Cows 1881.

Harriet Powers, Bible quilt, mixed media, 1886. Henry Ossawa Tanner, Gateway, Tangier, 1912, oil on canvas, 18 7/16" × 15 5/16", St. Charles Alston, Again The Springboard Of Civilization, 1943 (WWII African American soldier). Mequitta Ahuja (born 1976), painter, installation artist. Laylah Ali (born 1968), painter.

Amalia Amaki (born 1959), artist. Emma Amos (born 1938), painter[2]. Edgar Arceneaux (born 1972), drawing artist. Radcliffe Bailey (born 1968) collage, sculpture[3][4]. Kyle Baker (born 1965), cartoonist.

Darrin Bell (born 1975), cartoonist. Dawoud Bey (born 1953), photographer[2]. Sanford Biggers (born 1970), interdisciplinary. McArthur Binion (born 1946), painter. Betty Blayton (born 1937), painter, printmaker[1]. Chakaia Booker (born 1953), sculptor[2].

Edythe Boone (born 1938), muralist. Charles Boyce (born 1949), cartoonist. Tina Williams Brewer, fiber artist[5].

Michael Bramwell (born 1953), conceptual artist. Elenora "Rukiya" Brown, doll creator.

Beverly Buchanan (born 1940), painter, sculptor[1]. Fred Carter (born 1938), cartoonist.

Bernie Casey (born 1939), painter[1]. Nick Cave (born 1959), performance artist. Michael Ray Charles (born 1967), painter[2]. Barbara Chase-Riboud (born 1936), sculptor[1]. Jamour Chames (born 1989), painter.

Edward Clark (born 1926), painter. Sonya Clark (born 1967), textile and multimedia artist.

Willie Cole (born 1955), painter[2]. Kennard Copeland (born 1966), ceramic sculptures [2]. Cummings III (born 1938), woodworker.

Michael Cummings (born 1945), textile artist. Bing Davis (born 1937), potter and graphic artist[1].

Louis Delsarte (born 1944), artist[1]. J Rodney Dennis[7][8] painter. Terry Dixon (born 1969), painter and multimedia artist. Jeff Donaldson (born 1932), painter and critic. Emory Douglas (born 1943), Black Panther artist. (born 1941), printmaker, etcher, lithographer, and painter. Driskell (born 1931), artist and scholar. Mel Edwards (born 1937), sculptor[2][1].

Ellen Gallagher (born 1965)[2]. Theaster Gates (born 1973), sculptor, ceramicist, and performance artist. Reginald K (Kevin) Gee (born 1964), painter. Wilda Gerideau-Squires (born 1946), photographer. Leah Gilliam (born 1967), media artist and filmmaker.

Sam Gilliam (born 1933), painter[2] [1]. Gordon (born 1936), printmaker[2].

Lonnie Graham, photographer and installation artist. Deborah Grant (born 1968), painter. Todd Gray (born 1954), photographer, installation and performance artist. Renee Green (born 1959), installation artist[2]. Mario Gully, comic book artist. Tyree Guyton (born 1955)[2]. Ed Hamilton (born 1947), sculptor.

Patrick Earl Hammie (born 1981), painter. David Hammons (born 1943), artist[2]. Trenton Doyle Hancock (born 1974)[2].

Kira Lynn Harris (born 1963), multidisciplinary[10]. Jerry Harris (born 1945), sculptor. Marren Hassenger (born 1947), sculptor, installation, performance[11]. William Howard (active 19th century), American woodworker and craftsman. Bryce Hudson (born 1979), painter, sculptor[2].

David Huffman (born 1963), painter[12]. Richard Hunt (born 1935), sculptor[2][1]. Clementine Hunter (1886/7-1988), folk artist[2][1]. Steffani Jemison (born 1981), performance artist, video artist.

Wadsworth Jarrell (born 1929), painter, sculptor. 1824, portrait painter and folk artist[2][1]. Rashid Johnson (born 1977), conceptual artist. Titus Kaphar (born 1976), painter[13]. Deana Lawson (born 1979), photographer[14]. Glenn Ligon (born 1960), painter[2]. Llanakila, artist, painter, digital illustrator, and digital artist.

Whitfield Lovell (born 1960), artist. Clarence Major (born 1936), painter. Kerry James Marshall (born 1955), painter[2]. Richard Mayhew (born 1934), Afro-Native American, landscape painter[16].

Valerie Maynard (born 1937), sculptor, printmaker, painter. Ealy Mays (born 1959), painter. Howard McCalebb (born 1947), artist. Charles McGee, (born 1924) painter. Charles McGill (born 1964), artist, educator. Julie Mehretu (born 1970), painter, printmaker. Nicole Miller (born 1982), video artist.

Dean Mitchell (born 1957), painter. Scipio Moorhead (active 1770s), painter[1].

Lorraine O'Grady (born 1934), conceptual artist. Turtel Onli (born 1952), cartoonist. John Outterbridge (born 1933), assemblage artist[2][1]. Joe Overstreet (born 1933), artist[1]. Cecelia Pedescleaux (born 1945), quilter.

Howardena Pindell (born 1943), painter[2]. Jerry Pinkney (born 1939), illustrator[2]. Adrian Piper (born 1948), conceptual artist[2]. Rae Pleasant (born 1985), illustrator[18][19]. Carl Robert Pope (born 1961), photographer[2].

L (born 1955) conceptual artist. Martin Puryear (born 1941), sculptor[2][1]. Faith Ringgold (born 1930), painter[2][1]. Bayeté Ross Smith (born 1976), photographer.

Alison Saar (born 1956), artist[2][1]. Betye Saar (born 1926), artist[2][1]. Scott (born 1948), sculptor[2]. Lorenzo Scott (born 1934), painter.

Ed Sherman (born 1945), photographer. Gary Simmons (born 1964), artist. Lorna Simpson (born 1960), artist[2]. Cauleen Smith (born 1967), filmmaker. Leslie Smith III (born 1985), painter.

Mitchell Squire (born 1958), American installation artist, sculptor and performance artist. Renee Stout (born 1958), artist[2]. Martine Syms (born 1988), artist. Hank Willis Thomas (born 1976), photographer. Mickalene Thomas (born 1971), painter and installation artist.

Henry Taylor (born 1958) painter. Kara Walker (born 1969), artist[2] [1]. Washington (born 1962), printmaker and counterfeiter.

Carrie Mae Weems (born 1953), photographer[2]. Kehinde Wiley (born 1977), painter. Gerald Williams (artist) (Born 1941) painter.

Williams (born 1942), painter[1]. Deborah Willis (born 1948), photographer. Fred Wilson (born 1954), conceptual artist. This article needs additional citations for verification.

Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this template message). The Black Arts Movement, Black Aesthetics Movement or BAM is the artistic outgrowth of the Black Power movement that was prominent in the 1960s and early 1970s. [1][2][3] Time magazine describes the Black Arts Movement as the single most controversial movement in the history of African-American literature - possibly in American literature as a whole.

[4] The Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BARTS), founded in Harlem in 1965 by LeRoi Jones (later known as Amiri Baraka) is a key institution of the Black Arts Movement. The movement has been seen as one of the most important times in African-American literature. It inspired black people to establish their own publishing houses, magazines, journals and art institutions. It led to the creation of African-American Studies programs within universities. [6] The movement was triggered by the assassination of Malcolm X. [7] Among the well-known writers who were involved with the movement are Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou, Hoyt W. [8][9] Although not strictly part of the Movement, other notable African-American writers such as novelists Toni Morrison and Ishmael Reed share some of its artistic and thematic concerns. Although Reed is neither a movement apologist nor advocate, he said.

I think what Black Arts did was inspire a whole lot of Black people to write. Moreover, there would be no multiculturalism movement without Black Arts. Latinos, Asian Americans, and others all say they began writing as a result of the example of the 1960s.

Blacks gave the example that you don't have to assimilate. You could do your own thing, get into your own background, your own history, your own tradition and your own culture. I think the challenge is for cultural sovereignty and Black Arts struck a blow for that. BAM influenced the world of literature with the portrayal of different ethnic voices.

Before the movement, the literary canon lacked diversity, and the ability to express ideas from the point of view of racial and ethnic minorities, which was not valued by the mainstream at the time. Theatre groups, poetry performances, music and dance were centered on this movement, and therefore African Americans gained social and historical recognition in the area of literature and arts. Due to the agency and credibility given, African Americans were also able to educate others through different types of expressions and media outlets about cultural differences. The most common form of teaching was through poetry reading. African-American performances were used for their own political advertisement, organization, and community issues.

The Black Arts Movement was spread by the use of newspaper advertisements. [11] The first major arts movement publication was in 1964. The beginnings of the Black Arts Movement may be traced to 1965, when Amiri Baraka, at that time still known as Leroi Jones, moved uptown to establish the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BARTS) following the assassination of Malcolm X.

[4] Rooted in the Nation of Islam, the Black Power Movement and the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts Movement grew out of a changing political and cultural climate in which Black artists attempted to create politically engaged work that explored the African American cultural and historical experience. [4] Black artists and intellectuals such as Baraka made it their project to reject older political, cultural, and artistic traditions. Although the success of sit-ins and public demonstrations of the Black student movement in the 1960s may have "inspired black intellectuals, artists, and political activists to form politicized cultural groups, "[12] many Black Arts activists rejected the non-militant integrational ideologies of the Civil Rights Movement and instead favored those of the Black Liberation Struggle, which emphasized self-determination through self-reliance and Black control of significant businesses, organization, agencies, and institutions. "[13] According to the Academy of American Poets, "African American artists within the movement sought to create politically engaged work that explored the African American cultural and historical experience. The importance that the movement placed on Black autonomy is apparent through the creation of institutions such as the Black Arts Repertoire Theatre School (BARTS), created in the spring of 1964 by Baraka and other Black artists.

The opening of BARTS in New York City often overshadow the growth of other radical Black Arts groups and institutions all over the United States. In fact, transgressional and international networks, those of various Left and nationalist (and Left nationalist) groups and their supports, existed far before the movement gained popularity. [12] Although the creation of BARTS did indeed catalyze the spread of other Black Arts institutions and the Black Arts movement across the nation, it was not solely responsible for the growth of the movement. Although the Black Arts Movement was a time filled with black success and artistic progress, the movement also faced social and racial ridicule. The leaders and artists involved called for Black Art to define itself and speak for itself from the security of its own institutions.

For many of the contemporaries the idea that somehow black people could express themselves through institutions of their own creation and with ideas whose validity was confirmed by their own interests and measures was absurd. While it is easy to assume that the movement began solely in the Northeast, it actually started out as "separate and distinct local initiatives across a wide geographic area, " eventually coming together to form the broader national movement. [12] New York City is often referred to as the "birthplace" of the Black Arts Movement, because it was home to many revolutionary Black artists and activists. However, the geographical diversity of the movement opposes the misconception that New York (and Harlem, especially) was the primary site of the movement. In its beginning states, the movement came together largely through printed media.

Journals such as Liberator, The Crusader, and Freedomways created a national community in which ideology and aesthetics were debated and a wide range of approaches to African-American artistic style and subject displayed. [12] These publications tied communities outside of large Black Arts centers to the movement and gave the general black public access to these sometimes exclusive circles. As a literary movement, Black Arts had its roots in groups such as the Umbra Workshop. Umbra (1962) was a collective of young Black writers based in Manhattan's Lower East Side; major members were writers Steve Cannon, [15] Tom Dent, Al Haynes, David Henderson, Calvin C. Hernton, Joe Johnson, Norman Pritchard, Lennox Raphael, Ishmael Reed, Lorenzo Thomas, James Thompson, Askia M. Touré (Roland Snellings; also a visual artist), Brenda Walcott, and musician-writer Archie Shepp. Touré, a major shaper of "cultural nationalism, " directly influenced Jones. Along with Umbra writer Charles Patterson and Charles's brother, William Patterson, Touré joined Jones, Steve Young, and others at BARTS.

Umbra, which produced Umbra Magazine, was the first post-civil rights Black literary group to make an impact as radical in the sense of establishing their own voice distinct from, and sometimes at odds with, the prevailing white literary establishment. The attempt to merge a black-oriented activist thrust with a primarily artistic orientation produced a classic split in Umbra between those who wanted to be activists and those who thought of themselves as primarily writers, though to some extent all members shared both views. Black writers have always had to face the issue of whether their work was primarily political or aesthetic. Moreover, Umbra itself had evolved out of similar circumstances: in 1960 a Black nationalist literary organization, On Guard for Freedom, had been founded on the Lower East Side by Calvin Hicks. Its members included Nannie and Walter Bowe, Harold Cruse (who was then working on The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 1967), Tom Dent, Rosa Guy, Joe Johnson, LeRoi Jones, and Sarah E.

On Guard was active in a famous protest at the United Nations of the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs Cuban invasion and was active in support of the Congolese liberation leader Patrice Lumumba. From On Guard, Dent, Johnson, and Walcott along with Hernton, Henderson, and Touré established Umbra. Another formation of black writers at that time was the Harlem Writers Guild, led by John O.

Killens, which included Maya Angelou, Jean Carey Bond, Rosa Guy, and Sarah Wright among others. But the Harlem Writers Guild focused on prose, primarily fiction, which did not have the mass appeal of poetry performed in the dynamic vernacular of the time.

Poems could be built around anthems, chants, and political slogans, and thereby used in organizing work, which was not generally the case with novels and short stories. Moreover, the poets could and did publish themselves, whereas greater resources were needed to publish fiction. That Umbra was primarily poetry- and performance-oriented established a significant and classic characteristic of the movement's aesthetics. When Umbra split up, some members, led by Askia Touré and Al Haynes, moved to Harlem in late 1964 and formed the nationalist-oriented Uptown Writers Movement, which included poets Yusef Rahman, Keorapetse "Willie" Kgositsile from South Africa, and Larry Neal. Accompanied by young "New Music" musicians, they performed poetry all over Harlem.

Members of this group joined LeRoi Jones in founding BARTS. Jones's move to Harlem was short-lived. , and left BARTS in serious disarray.

BARTS failed but the Black Arts center concept was irrepressible, mainly because the Black Arts movement was so closely aligned with the then-burgeoning Black Power movement. The mid-to-late 1960s was a period of intense revolutionary ferment. Beginning in 1964, rebellions in Harlem and Rochester, New York, initiated four years of long hot summers. Watts, Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, and many other cities went up in flames, culminating in nationwide explosions of resentment and anger following Martin Luther King, Jr. Nathan Hare, author of The Black Anglo-Saxons (1965), was the founder of 1960s Black Studies. Expelled from Howard University, Hare moved to San Francisco State University, where the battle to establish a Black Studies department was waged during a five-month strike during the 1968-69 school year. As with the establishment of Black Arts, which included a range of forces, there was broad activity in the Bay Area around Black Studies, including efforts led by poet and professor Sarah Webster Fabio at Merrit College. The initial thrust of Black Arts ideological development came from the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), a national organization with a strong presence in New York City. Both Touré and Neal were members of RAM. After RAM, the major ideological force shaping the Black Arts movement was the US (as opposed to "them") organization led by Maulana Karenga.

Also ideologically important was Elijah Muhammad's Chicago-based Nation of Islam. These three formations provided both style and conceptual direction for Black Arts artists, including those who were not members of these or any other political organization.

Although the Black Arts Movement is often considered a New York-based movement, two of its three major forces were located outside New York City. As the movement matured, the two major locations of Black Arts' ideological leadership, particularly for literary work, were California's Bay Area because of the Journal of Black Poetry and The Black Scholar, and the Chicago-Detroit axis because of Negro Digest/Black World and Third World Press in Chicago, and Broadside Press and Naomi Long Madgett's Lotus Press in Detroit. The only major Black Arts literary publications to come out of New York were the short-lived (six issues between 1969 and 1972) Black Theatre magazine, published by the New Lafayette Theatre, and Black Dialogue, which had actually started in San Francisco (1964-68) and relocated to New York (1969-72). Although the journals and writing of the movement greatly characterized its success, the movement placed a great deal of importance on collective oral and performance art. Public collective performances drew a lot of attention to the movement, and it was often easier to get an immediate response from a collective poetry reading, short play, or street performance than it was from individual performances. The people involved in the Black Arts Movement used the arts as a way to liberate themselves.

The movement served as a catalyst for many different ideas and cultures to come alive. This was a chance for African Americans to express themselves in a way that most would not have expected. In 1967 LeRoi Jones visited Karenga in Los Angeles and became an advocate of Karenga's philosophy of Kawaida.

Kawaida, which produced the "Nguzo Saba" (seven principles), Kwanzaa, and an emphasis on African names, was a multifaceted, categorized activist philosophy. Jones also met Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver and worked with a number of the founding members of the Black Panthers.

Additionally, Askia Touré was a visiting professor at San Francisco State and was to become a leading (and long-lasting) poet as well as, arguably, the most influential poet-professor in the Black Arts movement. Playwright Ed Bullins and poet Marvin X had established Black Arts West, and Dingane Joe Goncalves had founded the Journal of Black Poetry (1966). This grouping of Ed Bullins, Dingane Joe Goncalves, LeRoi Jones, Sonia Sanchez, Askia M.

Touré, and Marvin X became a major nucleus of Black Arts leadership. As the movement grew, ideological conflicts arose and eventually became too great for the movement to continue to exist as a large, coherent collective. Many discussions of the Black Arts movement posit it as the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept.

[17] The Black Aesthetic refers to ideologies and perspectives of art that center on Black culture and life. This Black Aesthetic encouraged the idea of Black separatism, and in trying to facilitate this, hoped to further strengthen black ideals, solidarity, and creativity. In his well-known essay on the Black Arts Movement, Larry Neal attests.

When we speak of a'Black aesthetic' several things are meant. First, we assume that there is already in existence the basis for such an aesthetic. Essentially, it consists of an African-American cultural tradition. But this aesthetic is finally, by implication, broader than that tradition.

It encompasses most of the usable elements of the Third World culture. The motive behind the Black aesthetic is the destruction of the white thing, the destruction of white ideas, and white ways of looking at the world. Amiri Baraka's poem "Black Art" serves as one of his most controversial, yet poetically profound supplements to the Black Arts Movement. In this piece, Baraka merges politics with art, criticizing poems that are not useful to or adequately representative of the Black struggle. First published in 1966, a period particularly known for the Civil Rights Movement, the political aspect of this piece underscores the need for a concrete and artistic approach to the realistic nature involving racism and injustice.

Serving as the recognized artistic component to and having roots in the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts Movement aims to grant a political voice to black artists including poets, dramatists, writers, musicians, etc. Playing a vital role in this movement, Baraka calls out what he considers to be unproductive and assimilatory actions shown by political leaders during the Civil Rights Movement. He describes prominent Black leaders as being on the steps of the white house... Kneeling between the sheriff's thighs negotiating coolly for his people.

[19] Baraka also presents issues of euro-centric mentality, by referring to Elizabeth Taylor as a prototypical model in a society that influences perceptions of beauty, emphasizing its influence on individuals of white and black ancestry. [19] Baraka aims his message toward the Black community, with the purpose of coalescing African Americans into a unified movement, devoid of white influences. "Black Art" serves as a medium for expression meant to strengthen that solidarity and creativity, in terms of the Black Aesthetic.

Baraka believes poems should "shoot. Come at you, love what you are" and not succumb to mainstream desires.

He ties this approach into the emergence of hip-hop, which he paints as a movement that presents live words. And live flesh and coursing blood. "[19] Baraka's cathartic structure and aggressive tone are comparable to the beginnings of hip-hop music, which created controversy in the realm of mainstream acceptance, because of its "authentic, un-distilled, unmediated forms of contemporary black urban music. [20] Baraka believes that integration inherently takes away from the legitimacy of having a Black identity and Aesthetic in an anti-Black world. Through pure and unapologetic blackness, and with the absence of white influences, Baraka believes a black world can be achieved.

Though hip-hop has been serving as a recognized salient musical form of the Black Aesthetic, a history of unproductive integration is seen across the spectrum of music, beginning with the emergence of a newly formed narrative in mainstream appeal in the 1950s. Much of Baraka's cynical disillusionment with unproductive integration can be drawn from the 50s, a period of rock and roll, in which "record labels actively sought to have white artists "cover" songs that were popular on the rhythm-and-blues charts"[20] originally performed by African-American artists. The problematic nature of unproductive integration is also exemplified by Run-DMC, an American hip-hop group founded in 1981, who became widely accepted after a calculated collaboration with the rock group Aerosmith on a remake of the latter's "Walk This Way" took place in 1986, evidently appealing to young white audiences. [20] Hip-hop emerged as an evolving genre of music that continuously challenged mainstream acceptance, most notably with the development of rap in the 1990s. A significant and modern example of this is Ice Cube, a well-known American rapper, songwriter, and actor, who introduced subgenre of hip-hop known as "gangsta rap, " merged social consciousness and political expression with music. With the 1960s serving as a more blatantly racist period of time, Baraka notes the revolutionary nature of hip-hop, grounded in the unmodified expression through art. This method of expression in music parallels significantly with Baraka's ideals presented in "Black Art, " focusing on poetry that is also productively and politically driven. "The Revolutionary Theatre" is a 1965 essay by Baraka that was an important contribution to the Black Arts Movement, discussing the need for change through literature and theater arts. He says: We will scream and cry, murder, run through the streets in agony, if it means some soul will be moved, moved to actual life understanding of what the world is, and what it ought to be. Baraka wrote his poetry, drama, fiction and essays in a way that would shock and awaken audiences to the political concerns of black Americans, which says much about what he was doing with this essay.

[21] It also did not seem coincidental to him that Malcolm X and John F. Kennedy had been assassinated within a few years, since Baraka believed that every voice of change in America had been murdered, which led to the writing that would come out of the Black Arts Movement. In his essay, Baraka says: The Revolutionary Theatre is shaped by the world, and moves to reshape the world, using as its force the natural force and perpetual vibrations of the mind in the world.

We are history and desire, what we are, and what any experience can make us. With his thought-provoking ideals and references to a euro-centric society, he imposes the notion that black Americans should stray from a white aesthetic in order to find a black identity. In his essay, he says: The popular white man's theatre like the popular white man's novel shows tired white lives, and the problems of eating white sugar, or else it herds bigcaboosed blondes onto huge stages in rhinestones and makes believe they are dancing or singing. " This, having much to do with a white aesthetic, further proves what was popular in society and even what society had as an example of what everyone should aspire to be, like the "bigcaboosed blondes" that went "onto huge stages in rhinestones.

Furthermore, these blondes made believe they were "dancing and singing" which Baraka seems to be implying that white people dancing is not what dancing is supposed to be at all. These allusions bring forth the question of where black Americans fit in the public eye. Baraka says: We are preaching virtue and feeling, and a natural sense of the self in the world.

All men live in the world, and the world ought to be a place for them to live. Baraka's essay challenges the idea that there is no space in politics or in society for black Americans to make a difference through different art forms that consist of, but are not limited to, poetry, song, dance, and art. According to the Academy of American Poets, many writers--Native Americans, Latinos/as, gays and lesbians, and younger generations of African Americans have acknowledged their debt to the Black Arts Movement. [4] The movement lasted for about a decade, through the mid-1960s and into the 1970s.

This was a period of controversy and change in the world of literature. One major change came through in the portrayal of new ethnic voices in the United States. English-language literature, prior to the Black Arts Movement, was dominated by white authors. African Americans became a greater presence not only in the field of literature but in all areas of the arts. Theater groups, poetry performances, music and dance were central to the movement.

Through different forms of media, African Americans were able to educate others about the expression of cultural differences and viewpoints. In particular, black poetry readings allowed African Americans to use vernacular dialogues.

This was shown in the Harlem Writers Guild, which included black writers such as Maya Angelou and Rosa Guy. These performances were used to express political slogans and as a tool for organization. Theater performances also were used to convey community issues and organizations. The theaters, as well as cultural centers, were based throughout America and were used for community meetings, study groups and film screenings.

Newspapers were a major tool in spreading the Black Arts Movement. In 1964, Black Dialogue was published, making it the first major Arts movement publication. The Black Arts Movement, although short, is essential to the history of the United States. It spurred political activism and use of speech throughout every African-American community. It allowed African Americans the chance to express their voices in the mass media as well as become involved in communities.

It can be argued that "the Black Arts movement produced some of the most exciting poetry, drama, dance, music, visual art, and fiction of the post-World War II United States" and that many important "post-Black artists" such as Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, and August Wilson were shaped by the movement. The Black Arts Movement also provided incentives for public funding of the arts and increased public support of various arts initiatives. The Arts Council of England's (ACE) Decibel initiative produced a summary in 2003 in association with The Guardian newspaper. An international exhibition, Back to Black - Art, Cinema and the Racial Imaginary, was held at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2005.

A 2006 major conference Should Black Art Still Be Beautiful? Organized by OOM Gallery and Midwest, examined the development of contemporary Black cultural practice and its future in Britain.

On April 1, 2006, New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK, held a conference in honour of the late Donald Rodney. Gallery 32 and Its Circle, a 2009 art exhibition hosted at Loyola Mount University's Laband Art Gallery, [26] featured artwork displayed the eponymous gallery, which featured black artists in the Los Angeles area and played an integral role in the Black Arts movement in the area.

A recently redeveloped African and Asian Visual Arts Archive is located at the University of East London (UEL). While African American art of the 18th and 19th centuries continued to reflect African artistic traditions, the earliest fine art made by professional African American artists was in an academic Western style. Among the leading black sculptors of the 19th century were Eugene Warbourg and Mary Edmonia Lewis, the first professional African American sculptor.

The most distinguished African American artist who worked in the 19th century was Henry Ossawa Tanner, who painted African American genre subjects and reflects the realist tradition. In the early 20th century, the most important aesthetic movement in African American art was the Harlem Renaissance or the'New Negro' movement of the 1920s. The Harlem district of New York became the'cultural capital of black America'. Practicing in New York, Stuart Davis was heavily influenced by African American culture and jazz music, though he was not an African American. Aaron Douglas consciously incorporated African imagery into his work.

The most important African American photographer of that period was James Van Der Zee, who photographed people and scenes in Harlem for more than 50 years. During and immediately after World War II there arose to prominence a new school of African American artists, many of whom were the so-called'children of the Harlem Renaissance'. During the 1950s African American art was dominated by Abstract Expressionism and realism; their significant practitioners included Charles Alston, Romare Bearden and James Wells.

In the 1960s and 1970s new classifications appeared in African American art based on continuing developments in abstract art and the rise of the figurative style known as Black Expressionism. The most prominent African American abstract painter was Sam Gilliam, based in Washington, DC. Martin Puryear emerged during the 1980s as a leading African American abstract sculptor. In the 1980s African American art was the subject of a number of pioneering exhibitions, such as Black Art-Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African American Art (Dallas Museum of Art, 1989), that brought together the works of African, Caribbean and African American academic and folk artists. Today's artists, such as Kara Walker and Fred Wilson, continue to grapple with the complex issues of African American history and identity in contemporary visual art.