Tag: ArtAboveReality

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Fallen Through The Cracks

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Geoffrey Holder

Geoffrey Holder. © Estate of Geoffrey Holder.
Geoffrey Holder. © Estate of Geoffrey Holder.

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Geoffrey Holder

Fallen Through The Cracks – Geoffrey Holder

Geoffrey Holder

#FallenThroughTheCracks – Geoffrey Lamont Holder was born on August 1, 1930, in Port of Spain, Trinidad. He was an actor, dancer, musician, and artist. He was educated at Tranquility School and Queen’s Royal College in Port of Spain but made his performance debut at seven years old in his brother Boscoe Holder’s dance company.

Seeing him perform in The Virgin Islands, choreographer Agnes de Mille invited Holder to work with her in New York where he joined Katherine Dunham’s dance school and taught folkloric forms. From 1955 to 1956, he performed with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet as a principal dancer but left the ballet to make his Broadway debut in the musical House of Flowers.

Geoffrey Holder. © Estate of Geoffrey Holder.
Geoffrey Holder, Woman With Flower, 1955. © Estate of Geoffrey Holder.

In 1973, he played a henchman in the James Bond movie Live and Let Die and also contributed to the film’s choreography. In 1975, Holder won two Tony Awards for direction and costume design of The Wiz, the all-black musical version of The Wizard of Oz. He was the first black man to be nominated in either category. He also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design. 

Holder was a prolific painter, ardent art collector, author, and music composer. As a painter, he won a Guggenheim Fellowship in fine arts in 1956. In popular culture, Holder is known for portraying Nelson in the 1992 film Boomerang with Eddie Murphy. Geoffrey Holder died in New York City on October 5, 2014, at the age of 84.

(Text paraphrased from Wikipedia and other sources. All Images are the property of the copyright owners. This clip is for educational purposes.)

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Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Tina Allen

Tina Allen, © Estate of Tina Allen. Source: The Museum of Uncut Funk.
Tina Allen, © Estate of Tina Allen. Source: The Museum of Uncut Funk.

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Tina Allen

Fallen Through The Cracks – Tina Allen

Tina Allen

#FallenThroughTheCracks – Tina Allen was born Tina Powell on December 9, 1949, in Hempstead, New York.  She was a sculptor known for her monuments to prominent African Americans. Her sculpture focused on writing black history in bronze and emphasizing the contributions and aspirations of the African Diaspora. She was 13 years old when she began sculpting. Instead of following the assignment to make an ashtray, she made a bust of Aristotle instead. 

His artistic endeavors often reflected his strong anti-war stance, as many works critiqued the Vietnam War and warfare in general. A pivotal moment in Joseph’s career was in 1968 when he, alongside Benny Andrews and others, established the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC). This coalition arose as a reaction to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Harlem on My Mind” exhibition, which notably excluded Black artists. Joseph emphasized the importance of Black Art being curated by individuals who deeply understood the Black experience.

Tina Allen, © Estate of Tina Allen. Source: The Museum of Uncut Funk.
Tina Allen, © Estate of Tina Allen. Source: The Museum of Uncut Funk.

One of her best-known works is a 13-foot bronze likeness of #AlexHaley, which was installed in the Haley Heritage Square Park in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1998. Her statue of #GeorgeWashingtonCarver is the focal point of the George Washington Carver Garden at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. Her 12-foot bronze monument to #SojournerTruth is displayed in Memorial Park Battle Creek, Michigan and the bust of #FrederickDouglass is on display at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; it was featured in a scene in the movie Akeelah and the Bee.

Allen also crafted a bronze medallion for the Women of Essence awards, which annually honor Black women of outstanding accomplishment and achievement. Tina Allen passed away on September 9, 2008, in Los Angeles, CA.

(Text paraphrased from Wikipedia and other sources. All Images are the property of the copyright owners. This clip is for educational purposes.)

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Fallen Through The Cracks Projects

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Don Hogan Charles

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Don Hogan Charles

Fallen Through The Cracks – Don Hogan Charles

Don Hogan Charles

#FallenThroughTheCracks – Don Hogan Charles was born “Daniel James Charles” on September 9, 1938, in New York City. He studied engineering at City College of New York before dropping out to pursue photography. He was the first African-American staff photographer hired by The New York Times. He remained on staff for 43 years until his retirement in 2007.

Charles started as a freelance photographer and appeared in major international publications with commercial clients including Oscar de la Renta, and Pan American World Airways. During his tenure at the New York Times, he photographed notable subjects including Coretta Scott King, John Lennon, Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali.

Photography by Don Hogan Charles, © Estate of Don Hogan Charles
Photography by Don Hogan Charles, © Estate of Don Hogan Charles

His work focused on local hangouts and everyday people but he is most known for his extensive coverage of figures of the civil rights era. One of his most iconic photos is the photo of Malcolm X holding an M1 carbine while peeking out a window. The photo was commissioned by Ebony Magazine and became a symbol of the lengths the civil rights leader would go to, to protect his family. “By Any Means Necessary”. 

In 1967, Charles captured a photo of a young boy with his hands up walking in front of soldiers during the Newark riots, one of more than 150 racial riots in the country that summer. Charles’ work is in the collections of the Museum Of Modern Art and the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Don Hogan Charles passed away on December 15, 2017, in Harlem, NY. 

(Text paraphrased from Wikipedia and other sources. All Images are the property of the copyright owners. This clip is for educational purposes.)

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Fallen Through The Cracks Projects

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Varnette Patricia Honeywood

Varnette P. Honeywood Birthday, 1974,© Estate of Varnette P. Honeywood
Varnette P. Honeywood Birthday, 1974,© Estate of Varnette P. Honeywood

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Varnette Patricia Honeywood

Fallen Through The Cracks – Varnette Patricia Honeywood

Varnette Patricia Honeywood

#FallenThroughTheCracks – Varnette Patricia Honeywood was born on December 27, 1950, in Los Angeles, CA. She was a painter, writer, and businesswoman who created paintings and collages depicting African-American life. She is highly regarded for using color and light, patterns, and textures. Creating positive visual images for Black children became one of her major goals. She focused on the history of African Americans, their sufferings and triumphs, and celebrated the strength and leadership of Black women. She often described her work as “figurative abstraction.”

She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Spelman in 1972, her Master of Science in Education, and her teaching credentials from the University of Southern California (USC) in 1974. She also earned an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Spelman College in 2005. Honeywood used her educational training to teach multicultural arts and crafts programs to minority children in public schools and as a graduate student, she taught art at the Los Angeles Central Juvenile Hall.

Varnette P. Honeywood Birthday, 1974,© Estate of Varnette P. Honeywood
Varnette P. Honeywood Birthday, 1974,© Estate of Varnette P. Honeywood
Varnette P. Honeywood Birthday, 1974,© Estate of Varnette P. Honeywood
Varnette P. Honeywood,© Estate of Varnette P. Honeywood

Camille Cosby discovered Honeywood’s work on note cards and she and her husband Bill Cosby started collecting her works. This led to the inclusion of Honeywood’s artwork, including her 1974 painting “Birthday”, on the walls of the Huxtable living room on the set of The Cosby Show. She had been asked to create a painting to be included in the show’s pilot and different examples of her paintings were cycled through during the show’s run.

Honeywood’s artwork can still be seen on various television shows, movies, and book covers. She is recognized by contemporary artists today for her significant contribution, helping to envision and shape Black visual culture. Varnette Honeywood died at age 59 on September 12, 2010, in Los Angeles after fighting cancer. 

(Text paraphrased from Wikipedia and other sources. All Images are the property of the copyright owners. This clip is for educational purposes.)

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Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Frederick James Brown

Portrait of American artist Frederick J Brown (1945 - 2012) as he poses in front of one of his paintings, New York, 1984. (Photo by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)
Portrait of American artist Frederick J Brown (1945 - 2012) as he poses in front of one of his paintings, New York, 1984. (Photo by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Frederick James Brown

Fallen Through The Cracks – Frederick James Brown

Frederick James Brown

#FallenThroughTheCracks – Frederick James Brown was born on February 6, 1945, in Greensboro, Georgia. His family moved to Chicago and he was near the steel mills on Chicago’s Southside. There, he was exposed to the blues by musicians in the neighborhood such as #MuddyWaters and #HowlinWolf. Brown attended Chicago Vocational High School and then attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale, graduating in 1968 with a degree in Art.

In 1970, Brown moved from Chicago to New York City’s SoHo neighborhood which at the time was home to a variety of creatives. He collaborated with musicians, painters, and videographers and contributed to performing arts productions. The 2002 documentary film 120 Wooster Street depicts Frederick Brown’s loft studio, which grew to be a central gathering place for artists, musicians, writers, and dancers. 

Portrait of American artist Frederick J Brown (1945 – 2012) as he poses in front of one of his paintings, New York, 1984. (Photo by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)
Frederick J. Brown, John Coltrane, 2005 © Estate of Frederick J. Brown.

Brown taught art at the Central College of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1985 and 1987. In 1988, he had the first solo exhibition by a Western artist at the Museum of the Chinese Revolution (now the National Museum of China) in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China exhibiting 100 pieces of artwork. His style ranges from abstract expressionism to figurative as his artwork was influenced by historical, religious, narrative, and urban themes.

In September 2008 Brown organized a symposium of artists, musicians, dancers, and poets at Cornell University on the Creative Movement of the 1970s. His work is part of the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery, as well as the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Mo. Frederick J. Brown died on May 5th, 2012 in Scottsdale, AZ.

(Text paraphrased from Wikipedia and other sources. All Images are the property of the copyright owners. This clip is for educational purposes.)

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Fallen Through The Cracks Projects

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Selma Burke

Selma Burke and her bust off Booker T. Washington, © Estate of Selma Burke.
Selma Burke and her bust off Booker T. Washington, © Estate of Selma Burke.

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Selma Burke

Fallen Through The Cracks – Selma Burke

Selma Burke

#FallenThroughTheCracks – Selma Hortense Burke was born on December 31, 1900, in Mooresville, North Carolina. She was a sculptor and a member of the Harlem Renaissance movement. She described herself as “a people’s sculptor” and created many pieces of public art, often portraits of prominent African-American figures. She worked in a wide variety of media including wood, brass, alabaster, and limestone as she examined human emotion and familial relationships in expressionistic form.

Burke traveled to Europe twice in the 1930s, first on a Rosenwald fellowship to study sculpture in Vienna in 1933-34 and in 1936 where she met Henri Matisse, who praised her work. Burke began teaching for the Harlem Community Arts Center under the leadership of sculptor Augusta Savage. She would go on to work for the Works Progress Administration on the New Deal Federal Art Project.  In 1936, one of her works, a bust of Booker T. Washington was given to Frederick Douglass High School in Manhattan. Burke won a graduate school scholarship to Columbia University, where she would receive a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1941.

Selma Burke and her portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt, © Estate of Selma Burke.
Selma Burke and her bust of Booker T. Washington, © Estate of Selma Burke.

Burke’s best-known work is a portrait honoring President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Four Freedoms. In 1943, she competed in a national contest to win a commission for the sculpture, created from sketches made during a 45-minute sitting with Roosevelt at the White House. Burke was a member of the first group of women – along with Louise Nevelson, Alice Neel, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Isabel Bishop – to receive lifetime achievement awards from the Women’s Caucus for Art, in 1979.

Back in Mooresville, black children were banned from use of the public library. Burke donated a bust of a local doctor on the condition that the ban was removed. The town accepted. Selma Burke died at the age of 94 on August 29, 1995, in New Hope, Pennsylvania. (Text paraphrased from Wikipedia and Smithsonian).

(Text paraphrased from Wikipedia and other sources. All Images are the property of the copyright owners. This clip is for educational purposes.)

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Fallen Through The Cracks

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Beverly Buchanan

Beverly Buchanan, Orangeburg County Family House, © Estate of Beverly Buchanan.
Beverly Buchanan, Orangeburg County Family House, © Estate of Beverly Buchanan.

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Beverly Buchanan

Fallen Through The Cracks – Beverly Buchanan

Beverly Buchanan

#FallenThroughTheCracks – Beverly Buchanan was born on October 8, 1940, in Fuquay, North Carolina. She was an artist whose work included painting, sculpture, video, and land art and is revered for her exploration of Southern vernacular architecture through her art. Her creations feature paintings and sculptures on the “shack,” an essential residence associated with poor people.

In 1962, Buchanan graduated from Bennett College, in Greensboro, North Carolina, a historically black women’s college, with a Bachelor of Science degree in medical technology. She went on to attend Columbia University, where she received a master’s degree in parasitology in 1968, and a master’s degree in public health in 1969. Buchanan decided not to medical school due to her desire to dedicate more time to her art. She wanted to “express the images, stories, and architecture of her African American childhood”.

Beverly Buchanan, Orangeburg County Family House, © Estate of Beverly Buchanan.
Beverly Buchanan, Tom’s House, 1995. © Estate of Beverly Buchanan.

In 1971, Buchanan enrolled in a class taught by Norman Lewis at the Art Students League in New York City where Lewis and Romare Bearden became friends and mentors. Her art takes the form of stone pedestals, bric-a-brac assemblages, funny poems, self-portraits, and sculptural shacks and possesses themes of identity, place, and collective memory. In 1981, Buchanan created Marsh Ruins, a temporal land art sculpture at “The Marshes of Glenn” near Saint Simons Island in coastal Georgia. She planted three concrete forms and covered them with layers of tabby, a mixture used in slave living quarters. This work bears witness to the unmarked histories of enslaved peoples. On July 4, 2015, Buchanan died in Ann Arbor, Michigan at seventy-four. 

(Text paraphrased from Wikipedia and other sources. All Images are the property of the copyright owners. This clip is for educational purposes.)

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Fallen Through The Cracks

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Hughie Lee-Smith

Hughie Lee-Smith, Aftermath, 1960. © Estate of Hughie Lee-Smith.
Hughie Lee-Smith, Aftermath, 1960. © Estate of Hughie Lee-Smith.

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Hughie Lee-Smith

Fallen Through The Cracks – Hughie Lee-Smith

Hughie Lee-Smith

#FallenThroughTheCracks – Hughie Lee-Smith was born on September 20, 1915, in Eustis, Florida. He was an artist and teacher whose paintings continually featured outlying subjects and desolate urban settings. His work references surrealism, social realism, and cubism within an indiscernible narrative. Critics have spoken of his work in comparison to artists Giorgio de Chirico and Edward Hopper.

He attended East Technical High School where he was president of the art club and ran track with Olympian  Jesse Owens. In 1938, Lee-Smith graduated with honors from the Cleveland School of Art and worked for the Federal Arts Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). He was concerned about the contribution art could make to the struggle for social justice and racial equality. 

Hughie Lee-Smith, Rooftops, 1961. © Estate of Hughie Lee-Smith.
Hughie Lee-Smith, Rooftops, 1961. © Estate of Hughie Lee-Smith.
Hughie Lee-Smith, Aftermath, 1960. © Estate of Hughie Lee-Smith.
Hughie Lee-Smith, Aftermath, 1960. © Estate of Hughie Lee-Smith.

While in the Navy for a 19-month stint, he was one of three African-American artists commissioned to do “morale-building paintings” of Black shipmen. He also painted a mural entitled History of the Negro in the U.S. Navy and did portraits of the first Black naval officers. Many years after winning a top prize for painting from the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1953, he recalled “I was no longer called a black artist, Negro artist, or colored boy. When I won that prize, all of a sudden, there was no longer a racial designation.” In 1994 he was commissioned to paint the official portrait of #DavidDinkins, former Mayor of New York City, for the New York City Hall. Hughie Lee-Smith died of cancer on February 23, 1999, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

(Text paraphrased from Wikipedia and other sources. All Images are the property of the copyright owners. This clip is for educational purposes.)

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Fallen Through The Cracks

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Lois Mailou Jones

Lois Mailou Jones, Self-Portrait 1940, © Smithsonian American Art Museum
Lois Mailou Jones, Self-Portrait 1940, © Smithsonian American Art Museum

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Lois Mailou Jones

Fallen Through The Cracks – Lois Mailou Jones

Lois Mailou Jones

#FallenThroughTheCracks – Lois Mailou Jones was born on November 3, 1905, in Boston, Massachusetts. She was an artist and educator who is often associated with the #HarlemRenaissance. She worked with different mediums, techniques, and influences and her work evolved in response to her extensive travels throughout Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. She felt that her greatest contribution to the art world was “proof of the talent of black artists” and wished to be known as a painter with no labels.

She founded the art department at Palmer Memorial Institute, a historically black prep school, in Sedalia, North Carolina. She prepared her students for a competitive arts career by inviting working designers and artists into her classroom for workshops. Jones developed as an artist through visits and summers spent in #Harlem during the onset of the Harlem Renaissance or New Negro Movement. In 1937, Jones received a fellowship to study in Paris at the #AcadémieJulian. She completed approximately 40 paintings and more than 30 watercolors during her time in France.

Lois Mailou Jones, Self-Portrait 1940, © Smithsonian American Art Museum
Painting by Lois Mailou Jones, © Estate of Lois Mailou Jones.
Painting by Lois Mailou Jones, © Estate of Lois Mailou Jones.

In 1954, Jones was a guest professor at Centre D’Art and Foyer des Artes Plastiques in Port-au-Prince, #Haiti, where the government invited her to paint Haitian people and landscapes. In 1955, she unveiled portraits of the Haitian president and his wife commissioned by United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1968, she documented work and interviews of contemporary Haitian artists for Howard University’s “The Black Visual Arts” research grant. In 1973, Jones received the “Women artists of the Caribbean and Afro-American Artists” grant from Howard University. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton collected one of her island seascapes, Breezy Day at Gay Head, while they were in the White House. Her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other collections around the world. Lois Mailou Jones died in 1998 at the age of 92. 

(Text paraphrased from Wikipedia and other sources. All Images are the property of the copyright owners. This clip is for educational purposes.)

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Fallen Through The Cracks

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Horace Pippin

Horace Pippin, School Studies, 1944
Horace Pippin, School Studies, 1944

Fallen Through The Cracks – Black Artists in History: Horace Pippin

Fallen Through The Cracks – Horace Pippin

Horace Pippin

#FallenThroughTheCracks – Horace Pippin was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on February 22, 1888. In World War I, Pippin served in K Company, the 3rd Battalion of the 369th infantry regiment, known as the famous Harlem Hellfighters, a predominately Black unit in a segregated US Army. He started painitngin the 1920s as a way to rehabilitate his injured arm. He began painting on stretched fabric and  burning designs into wood panels and adding emphasis to highlight specific components of the image. His first oil painting, The Ending of the War, Starting Home (1930–1933), depicts a scene informed by his experience at the Battle of Sechault, where he was shot.

Pippin’s oeuvre includes a variety of subjects and compositional strategies. His works include scenes inspired by his service in World War I, landscapes, portraits, and biblical subjects. Some of his most-prominent works address the U.S.’s history of slavery and racial segregation. His painting of John Brown Going to his Hanging (1942) is in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and is part of a trilogy on the abolitionist sometimes credited with igniting the Civil War.

Horace Pippin, Uncle Tom, 1944
Horace Pippin, School Studies, 1944

In the eight years between his national debut in the Museum of Modern Art’s traveling exhibition “Masters of Popular Painting” (1938) and his death at the age of fifty-eight, Pippin’s recognition grew exponentially across the country and internationally. In the catalog for one of his memorial exhibitions in 1947, critic Alain Locke described Pippin as “a real and rare genius, combining folk quality with artistic maturity so uniquely as almost to defy classification.”

Pippin painted about 140 works, many in museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Barnes Foundation. He was the first African American artist to be the subject of a monograph, Selden Rodman’s Horace Pippin: A Negro Painter in America of 1947. The New York Times eulogized him as the “most important Negro painter” in American history. Horace Pippin died on July 6, 1946, in Chester County, PA.

(Text paraphrased from Wikipedia and other sources. All Images are the property of the copyright owners. This clip is for educational purposes.)