Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist @ the American Art Museum
The Harlem Renaissance comes alive in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s newest show, Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist. The exhibit consists of eighty works including paintings, murals, prints and book illustrations that are a testament to Douglas’s range of talent and his contributions to modern American art.
Douglas was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1899 and taught and studied in Kansas and Nebraska before moving to New York in 1925. His arrival in New York coincided with the Harlem Renaissance, and the movement factored heavily into his work. A connection to Washington is found through Alain Locke, a professor of philosophy who taught at Howard University, and who inspired many of the writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance.
Douglas has been called the Father of African American art, and his paintings display elements of cubism as well as shapes from Ancient Egyptian and West African art. Many of his works are like Aspiration, above, with layered images and similar color schemes. His paintings represent the African American struggle for political and creative freedoms, and though they are so dynamic, it's important to recognize that Douglas was not only a painter, and some of his drawings and illustrations are also on display.
He is also known for his murals, and he made a series for the Cravath Memorial Library at Nashville’s Fisk University and Greensboro’s Bennett College. His more famous series, Aspects of Negro Life, four murals in the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library, examines how African American experience fits with the American dream and display artistic risks. The murals dealt with subjects such as slavery, emancipation, education and African American contributions to American culture.
Douglas’s work is an important contribution to American art, and it’s great to see so many different examples of his talents on display. The exhibit, which was organized by the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, is the first national retrospective of Douglas’s art.
Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist runs through August 3. The Smithsonian American Art Museum is located in the Reynolds Center at 8th and F Streets, NW. The Center is open daily from 11:30 a.m.-7:00 p.m.
Aaron Douglas, Aspiration, 1936, Oil on canvas,
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum
purchase from the estate of Thurlow E. Tibbs Jr., the
Museum Auxiliary, American Art Trust Fund,
Unrestricted Art Trust Fund, and private donations
from the people of the Bay Area