Brief Bios of Artists in
Masterworks by 20th Century African American Artists

BENNY ANDREWS (1930- )
Andrews grew up in a creative environment, despite poverty. His father was a fine artist who used personal creativity as his guide. Andrews graduated from The Art Institute of Chicago in 1958. He was discouraged by the prevailing exclusion of African-American artists from exhibitions, gallery representation, museum exhibitions and collections, and has spoken out against those injustices throughout his career. In 1960, the Forum Gallery represented him in New York, where one of his mentors, Raphael Soyer, was also represented. He won a John Hay Whitney fellowship in 1965 and traveled to Georgia to create his Auto Biographical Series. Andrews' adept orchestration of everyday materials of varied textures to evoke home, sharecropper poverty and the tough spirituality of survivors is apparent in the series. His Bicentennial Series of the mid-1970s is a wry, quasi-surreal commentary on the equality of all men and the inalienable rights guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence. Much of his work of the later 1980s and early 1990s evokes his African cultural heritage and his distilled memories of his familial and spiritual heritage in the rural south. His 1994 Cruelty and Sorrow Series and the 1996 Langston Hughes Series of work such as Black Justice are commentaries on atrocities throughout the world. Andrews' works appear in the collections of The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; and Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, Connecticut.

ROMARE BEARDEN (1912-1988)
Bearden graduated from New York University with a BS in mathematics then drew illustrations for Collier's and Saturday Evening Post. He decided to become a professional artist in 1936 with the support of fellow Harlem Renaissance painters and musicians. Prominent modern art dealer Samuel Kootz had a one-man exhibition of Bearden's work in 1940. His early paintings were influenced by Italian Renaissance masters and such modern artists as Georges Rouault and Pablo Picasso. Bearden began to create more personal works of art in the early 1960s with quasi-cubistic collages, some of which are rooted in African sculptural forms. In the early and mid 1970s, the artist's love for his musical heritage and his current musical interests blossomed visually in The Blues Series. In the late 1980s Bearden's Mecklenberg Autumn Series of mottled collages and his fluid, pure Caribbean watercolors demonstrated his command of that spontaneous medium. Bearden's works appear in the collections of The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.; Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

RALPH BELL (1913-1995)
Dean Campbell and his art instructor/therapist at Orient State Hospital near Columbus, Ohio introduced Bell to painting. His therapist convinced Bell to try painting with a stylus on his head because his hands and arms were crippled. Bell became enthralled with painting and the personal expressive freedom that he gained from it. Bell's first works were in watercolor, the medium in which he was most prolific. The early works have a blocky, exaggerated, carving of forms associated with German Expressionist woodcuts, which were inspired by African and Oceanic carvings. His middle period watercolors are distinguished by their fluid, curvilinear wet-on-wet washes of saturated color. Bell's watercolors are activated by dashes, dots and calligraphic gestures. He created a small but excellent series of watercolors in the late 1980s characterized by their frenetic lines. He dipped the end of a pencil into watercolor to create them. Bell's acrylic paintings on canvas, masonite, and wooden paneled doors have much of the fresh, personally articulated calligraphy of his drawings. In the early 1990s Bell's paintings evolved toward a denser, more palpable physicality of paint handling relieved by open breathing areas of white canvas. Bell's paintings appear in the collections of Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Frank W. Hale Black Cultural Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio; McArthur Foundation, Chicago, Illinois; Springfield Museum of Art, Ohio.

WILLIAM HAWKINS (1895-1990)
Hawkins was a self-taught artist who began drawing when he was a little boy and painted sporadically through the years. He worked as a house painter, construction driver, flophouse manager and scrap merchant. His dynamic, painterly style was forged with an optimistic, hard charging, survivor mindset. His paintings from the early 1980s have reductive, powerful decorative patterning, dynamic handling of pictorial space and iconic subject matter that yield an extraordinary purity of expression. Hawkins' paintings in the middle to late 1980s have rich painterly execution and more compositional animation than his early works. Some, such as Speckled Buildings, are singular in their harmonious color orchestration, surface animation and pictorial unity. In many of his middle and later period paintings he began to incorporate collage and assemblage in his paintings. Hawkins' creative mixture of mass media advertisements with visceral paint handling has yielded works that are provocative, inventive statements about our media-flooded American culture. Hawkins' paintings appear in the collections of Akron Art Museum, Ohio; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton.

WILLIAM JOHNSON (1901-1970)
Johnson studied at the National Academy of Design, New York from 1921-1926. He studied figural painting with Charles Hawthorne, a very accomplished painter. Johnson also studied with Hawthorne at his summer school in Provincetown, Massachusetts from 1924-1926. He studied briefly with Ashcan School artist George Luks in 1926. Johnson traveled to France, Corsica, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Norway and Tunisia during the next 12 years and studied the cultures of these countries. Johnson became familiar with the aesthetic vocabulary of the Fauvists, German Expressionists and Austrian Expressionists, which was partially derived from African art. However, many of his most personal and enduring paintings of 1930-1938 were less stylized. His reductive, incisive portraits such as Jim and Girl in Green Dress are outstanding works from this period. After he returned to New York in 1938, the focus of his art became his rural southern heritage, urban New York living, religious themes and people who were close to him. Many of those works have flat, Post Impressionist derived, decorative patterning, animated steeped colors and interwoven simplified forms with an expressive attenuation of features. In some of his finest works of this period, such as L'il Sis, he suspends his dominant figures in a ground of emotionally charged color that is an effective formal and emotional foil for the figure. Johnson's works appear in the collections of Howard University, Washington D.C.; Library Congress, Washington, D.C.; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Morgan State University Gallery of Art, Baltimore, Maryland; National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.; Newark Museum, New Jersey.

JACOB LAWRENCE (1917- )
Lawrence was awarded a scholarship to American Artists School in New York in 1937 where he studied the life of Haitian leader Toussaint L'Ouverture and began a series of paintings on that subject. Lawrence painted figures in repetitive ideographic format, punctuated by vivid colors, amidst many stark black forms, in flat modern-colored patterns have become core elements of his style throughout his career. Historical themes of America with a focus on African American heroes and abolitionists predominate in many of his successful series such as The Life of Frederic Douglas, The Life of Harriet Tubman, The Migration of the Negro, The Life of John Brown, and Harlem. Lawrence's sensitive, simplified use of gestures as universal symbols for play, joy, suffering and poverty are an important aspect of his work. The thematic and stylistic affinities with Jose Orozco, the great Mexican muralist, are particularly evident and effective in the Harriet Tubman series and the Harlem series. Lawrence's staccato juxtaposition of black and white lends a tense dynamism to his art. In the Nigerian Series of 1964 and the Builders paintings of the 1970s there is a continuing shift toward unity, harmony and building a cohesive human community. Lawrence's works appear in the collections of Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.

JOHN B. MURRY (1908-1988)
Murry spent most of his life as a sharecropper. Shortly after he retired in the late 1970s he had a profound religious experience that led to his creation of drawings while speaking in tongues, which is similar to West African divining rituals. He rarely traveled except to view his art in his later years in Atlanta. His subject matter was abstract and ordained by God, according to Murry. The beautiful color harmonies, inventive use of line and pictorial unity of his work is extraordinary. Murry's earliest works are more representational. There is less frenetic use of line and less refined calligraphy than in the later works. His drawings of the early 1980s are distinguished by a mystical tracery fused with quasi-representational gnomes defined by quivering lines. Murry's drawings between 1985-1988 have a rich, yet delicate, diversity of handling and sophisticated pictorial unity that is unmatched by most of his earlier efforts. His color harmonies of that time are rich and varied as well.

ELIJAH PIERCE (1892-1984)
Pierce began to carve at the age of seven. His uncle, Lewis Wallace, a chair and basket maker, taught Pierce how to work with wood. In 1920 he was issued a preacher's license. During the 1930s and 1940s, he preached throughout the Midwest and South during the summers. Pierce's subjects are religious narratives, fables, free masonry symbols, heroes and animals. His early carvings from 1920s-1940s were spare, concise, flat and mellow in coloration. The carvings created later in the 1950s and 1960s were a little more complex, more rounded at times and more deeply incised. As Pierce's work became known to the national art community in the early 1970s, his repertoire of subjects expanded partially to accommodate those who were interested in his work and because of the uneasy racial and political environment. He carved more political and social commentary and focused more on pop imagery and animals. Pierce's wry wit becomes evident in many carvings created after the mid-1960s. Pierce's work appears in the collections of Akron Museum of Art; Columbus Museum of Art; High Museum of Art, Georgia; Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin; Museum of American Folk Art, New York.

HORACE PIPPIN (1888-1946)
Pippin fought in World War I, maintained a journal of drawings and was haunted by terrible wartime experiences. He began to paint cigar boxes as a diversion. He painted his distinctive burnt wood panels in the winter of 1925 through 1932 and then sporadically later in life. Densely engraved broad, black lines from hot pokers gave them strength and a homegrown innocence. His juxtaposition of rich, pure colors on warm colored wood panels have great visual resonance. The works' flattened, decorative patterning appealed to modern art connoisseurs. Pippin's themes were his African American heritage, abolition narratives, sporting adventures, national hero portraits and still lifes. Many of Pippin's later works are on fabric. Reductive power, sophisticated patterns, spatial tension and iconic themes make them some of America's most enduring historical narrative paintings. Pippin's work appears in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania; The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Arts and Artifacts Division, The New York Public Library, New York.

MARY TILLMAN SMITH (1904-1995)
Smith's formal education was minimal. She worked as a tenant farmer and cook most of her life and began painting in 1980 to pretty-up her yard and to pay homage to God. Her early paintings were created on large tin roofing sheets and on plywood. Most of her works depicted humans in elemental, monumental poses on vibrant unmodulated grounds. The saturated ground bleeding through the bold black form punctuated by yellow dabs of paint in Single Black Figure on Red with Yellow has much in common with raw German Expressionist works and the Abstract Expressionist paintings of Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell. The visual tension between ground and figure in this painting is riveting. Smith's stark bold lettering in some paintings, such as I Don't No No Bity, gives them a compelling urgency. The letters recall primitive calligraphy that work independently of their literal meaning to visually unify the composition. The excellent quality of many of Smith's early works was not always maintained in later paintings created to meet the greater demand for her work.

ALMA THOMAS (1891-1978)
Thomas, who received degrees from Howard University and Columbia University, was vice-president of a fine, modern art gallery in Washington D.C. in the 1940s. She studied with the artist Jacob Kainen at American University in 1957 and developed an interest in color theory and abstract art and was stimulated by Washington Color Field painters such as Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Gene Davis. Thomas was as inspired by the creative use of color by the Fauvists, Expressionists and Tachists. Thomas worked in an animated, colorful mosaic-like manner in the late 1960s and 1970s, which is her best known style. Her handling of myriad tiles of paint in her mature compositions (circa 1966-1976) brings a kinetic tension to her paintings that enliven her art. She was fascinated by the astronauts' journey to the moon in 1969 and that enthusiasm influenced her subject matter for several years. She loved to watch light play on her mother's gardens. Her color and evanescent light are integral parts of her finest work. -more- She taught art in the public schools for decades. Thomas loved working with children and was inspired by their creativity and energy. She painted most of her finest paintings in her 70s and 80s. Thomas' work appears in the collections of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.

ROBERT THOMPSON (1937 -1966)
Thompson studied in Provincetown with Hans Hoffman, the great color theorist in 1957-58. Abstract Expressionist, Jan Muller also influenced him at that time. In the fall of 1958 he returned to the University of Louisville where he studied Renaissance painting intensively. In the early winter of 1958, Thompson moved to New York, where he became a friend of the artist, Red Grooms. He studied and painted in France and Spain in the early 1960s and joined the prominent Martha Jackson Gallery in New York in 1963. Thompson traveled to Rome in 1965 and died there in 1966. He was very successful at fusing Fauvist color and visceral Abstract Expressionist energy with classical Renaissance motifs. Thompson’s work appears in the collections of the National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C. and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

BILL TRAYLOR (1854-1947)
Traylor moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1939 after his wife died. He spent his days on the street drawing with a pencil and straight edge on discarded sheets of cardboard. Charles Shannon, a young artist who befriended him in the spring of 1939, provided Traylor with brushes poster paints, pencils and most importantly, camaraderie and financial assistance. Traylor's work was rooted in a great sense of humor, excellent aesthetic sense and a rich storehouse of tales. His work evolved from the depiction of flat linear blacksmith shop tools to simplified geometric baskets to representational animal drawings and the amusing and animated Exciting Event narratives. His last stylistic and thematic focus was in his 1941-42 series of interactive figures and geometric constructions in which forms are masterfully placed on the cardboard to create an amusing effect, lend animation, create an illusion of space and emphasize the importance of the figures in a composition. Traylor also had a great understanding of the communicative power of exaggerated gestures. Traylor's work appears in the collections of High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama; Museum of American Folk Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

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