Kehinde Wiley: African-American Artist

The Black Arts movement refers to a period of “furious flowering” of African American creativity beginning in the mid-1960’s and continuing through much of the 1970’s (Perceptions of Black). Linked both chronologically and ideologically with the Black Power Movement, The BAM recognized the idea of two cultural Americas: one black and one white. The BAM pressed for the creation of a distinctive Black Aesthetic in which black artists created for black audiences. The movement saw artistic production as the key to revising Black American’s perceptions of themselves, thus the Black Aesthetic was believed to be an integral component of the economic, political, and cultural empowerment of the Black

One the most distinguished artists of the twentieth century, Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City and spnt part of his child hood in Pennsylvania. After his parents split up in 1924, he went with his mother and siblings to New York, settling in Harlem. "He trained as a painter at the Harlem Art Workshop, inside the New York Public Library's 113 5th Street branch. Younger than the artists and writers who took part in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, Lawrence was also at an angle to them: he was not interested in the kind of idealized, fake-primitive images of blacks - the Noble Negroes in Art Deco guise - that tended to be produced as an antidote to the toxic racist stereotypes with which white popular culture had flooded

One of the reasons why folk art best represents racial pride is because it does not imitate other people’s art. In “Heritage” (Doc. A) and “Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem” (Doc. B), they use a lot of the styles that the great writers would have used. Such writers would have included Shakespeare

Jacob Lawrence was an African American painter, who was known for his portraits of the African American life. He was best known for his series titled, the Migration. Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on September 7th of 1917. After his parents separated, Lawrence and his younger siblings were put into the foster care system until his mother could support her children in New York. His education into the world of art was not only formal, but informal as well. It was formal because he learned from after-school community workshops at Utopia House and later at the Harlem Art Workshop. However, it was informal because he could observe the rhythms and activity of the streets of Harlem. Not only was he a painter but he was active as a teacher, in contrast Lawrence was active as both a painter and art educator. In 1946, he began teaching at Black Mountain College in North Carolina and would go on to teach at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and the New School for Social Research in New York. In 1971, Lawrence became a professor of painting at the University of Washington in Seattle. “Later on in his career, he was also known for his serigraphs (silkscreens), many of them versions of series of paintings completed in earlier years, as well as for his book illustrations. Lawrence was still drawing and painting in preparation for still another series of works when he died in Seattle in 2000.” (Capozzola)

The intersection of social movements and Art is one that can be observed throughout the civil right movements of America in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. The sixties in America saw a substantial cultural and social change through activism against the Vietnam war, women’s right and against the segregation of the African - American communities. Art became a prominent method of activism to advocate the civil rights movement. It was a way to express self-identity as well as the struggle that people went through and by means of visual imagery a way to show political ideals and forms of resistance. To examine how a specific movement can have a profound effects on the visual art, this essay will focus on the black art movement of the 1960s and

Jacob Lawrence was born on September 17, 1917, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States.He died in his sleep on June 9, 2000, in Seattle, Washington, United States due to natural causes. Lawrence was an artist/painter. He is regarded as “one of the most acclaimed African- American artists of the twentieth century.” Jacob Lawrence should be remembered because of his skill with the paintbrush as well as his achievement in successfully depicting the struggles of African Americans. He is an inspirational figure because he had the courage and ability to criticize society through methods such as cubism. He should be honored for his contributions to modern cultural art because he took advantage of his opportunity to make art and used the chance

Society seems to change and advance so rapidly throughout the years but there has always seemed to be a history, present, and future when it comes to the struggles of the African Americans. The hatred of a skin tone has caused people to act in violent and horrifying ways including police brutality, riots, mass incarcerations, and many more. There are three movements the renaissance, civil rights, and the black lives matter movements that we have focused on. Our artist come from different eras but have at least one similarity which is the attention on black art.

In America, there was a painter named Kehinde Wiley, who was born in Los Angeles, California in 1977. As a little boy, his parents knew that he wanted to become an artist. His family supported him to achieve his dream, and he went to an art school in Russia at the age of 12. He went to both San Francisco Art Institute and Yale University to pursue art. Wiley has received numerous awards such as the “Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant Recipient”, "Americans for the Arts, Young Artist Award for Artistic Excellence", "USA Network, Character Approved Award", "Canteen Magazine, Artist of the Year Award; New York City Art Teachers Association/United Federation of Teachers, Artist of the Year Award" and the “Pratt Legend Award”. His arts and studies

The miraculous life of Jacob Lawrence’s is said to be the most distinguished and accomplished African American Artist of his time. At a young age, Little Jacob Lawrence was introduced to art in Harlem, New York. He had always had a love for the arts, He began to develop his craft at an after-school program and further moving on to the Harlem Art Workshop then securing a scholarship to the American Artists School located in New York. He had the odds stacked against him; he further perfected his art during the great depression years which also at a time when African Americans had a harsh struggle with segregation and just trying to stay alive. His paint brush has captured everything from slave revolts to ghetto life to the destruction of the war.

The paintings and sculptures that first appear as a general and social commentary on the depiction of African Americans in the 18th and 19th century art canon, painted by contemporary artist Titus Kaphar, have given a voice to Black figures in the historical and artistic context. In The Preacher 's Wife (2010), a painting part of the ‘Classical Disruption’ exhibition, Kaphar seeks to explore the role of black women and their misrepresentation in the 18th and 19th art historical trajectories. Recreating paintings by great American artists such as Copley and Eakins, Kaphar reconstructs social and historical narratives (Berzon). While maintaining a common denominator throughout his works, Kaphar’s art has been recognized for inserting African Americans in paintings and telling the narrative of their absence and exclusion from the art historical canon. A graduate of Yale Art School, Kaphar also credits the contemporary style of his art to his studies at De Anza College in Cupertino where he took an African American Literature class that introduced to the art of the Harlem Renaissance with Omonike Weusi Puryear. Yale and De Anza College, collectively, contributed to the way Kaphar gives form and authority not only to black men, but also to the women who have been objectified or erased altogether from the art historical canon (Frank).

Richard Hunt is a sculptor whose work largely draws on abstraction, crafting organic shapes with industrial materials. His approach to his art is one that is based on compulsion, as he combines various curvilinear and angular forms to form an ambiguous hybrid that captures the African American experience. By crafting an unconventional layering of different shapes, Hunt is able to create a conceptual piece that is open to interpretation. Similarly, Betye Saar aims to promote thought-provoking reflection. By carefully utilizing racial stereotypes into her artistic vision, Saar is able to manipulate racist devices into a more positive message. Her exaggeration of certain caricatures of African American life served as a new symbol for

Kerry James Marshall, an African American painter and sculptor born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama creates a stunning exhibit Mastry, exclusively exhibited in museums of two major cities: Chicago and Los Angelos. Through his large scale paintings and sculptures Marshall embodies the history and culture of African Americans to reflect on the lives and identity of African-Americans, what it means to be an African-American, and how the answers to these questions changed over time. Kerry James Marshall’s exhibit Mastry portrays nearly 80 vivid works centered around African American history from the civil rights era to the present African – American movement--history in the making. Marshall utilizes acrylic paint on panel, canvas, wood, etc with

A man of prestige education and high intellectual understanding for the world around him. Equally important were the artist of the Harlem renaissance. “For the first time the black artist could take control of the images of Black America.” (Haskins, 136). Previous to this time period the essence of black beauty was defined by a white American society. Artist such as Aaron Douglas depicted an accurate image of Black America and reflected upon the hearts of African Americans. Douglas’s art stood as a visual aid and illustrated the marvelous celebration of heritage and black identity that took place in the

The subject matter exhibited in this representational work of art is four people that are gathered around rigid rocks. The two figures on the left are black, young-adult women, and a younger black boy on the right is looking up at a tall older white male in the center. Even though the use of silhouettes hides fine details, the women and the child portray exaggerated stereotypical racial features. The women are wearing head wraps, which are exclusive to women of African descent, the boy has Afro shaped hair, and all three have large protruding lips. Their clothes are worn down and ragged compared to the man’s attire. The white male’s features are less obvious, but the texture of his hair and lack of lip definition is apparent.

Art is something that can only be achieved with the manipulation of the imagination. This is successful when using objects, sounds, and words. Richard Wright and Amira Baraka brought the power of art into the limelight. Wright’s perception of art was for it to be used as a means of guidance, one that could uplift the Negro towards bigger and better goals. Baraka’s perspective of art was for it to be used as an active agent, one that could kill and then imprint society permanently. Baraka and Wright both wanted the Negro to see that there was a much brighter future ahead of them. Both wanted art to leave a stain, a stain that could not be easily erased, washed, or bleached. Both believed that Black Art had no need to be silent but instead daring.