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.