2. Mets Lose Here!! Yankees Buy Pennant Here!! Can you see any evidence from this map that this is an African American community? Giants Stink Here! Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City, was the center of the African American political, cultural, and artistic movement in the 1920s and early 1930s.
9. Langston Hughes 1902-1967 Langston Hughes wrote, “ Harlem was in vogue.” Black painters and sculptors joined their fellow poets, novelists, actors, and musicians in a creative outpouring that established Harlem as the international capital of Black culture.
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11. Zora Neale Hurston 1891-1960 American writer Zora Neale Hurston was remarkable in that she was the most widely published black woman of her day. She authored more than fifty articles and short stories as well as four novels, two books on folklore, an autobiography, and a number of plays. At the height of her success she was known as the “Queen of the Harlem Renaissance.”
12. A Jamican born immigrant and social activist, Marcus Garvey is credited with spearheading the “Back to Africa” movement. Garvey created the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) and advocated that African Americans should move back to Africa to “redeem” it, and that the European colonial powers should leave it. He advocated a worldwide African culture and is credited with inspiring the Rastafari Movement and the Nation of Islam.
13. Duke Ellington 1899-1974 Duke Ellington brought a level of style and sophistication to Jazz that it hadn't seen before. By the time of his passing, he was (and still is) considered amongst the world’s greatest composers and musicians .
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15. The visual art of the Harlem Renaissance was an attempt at developing a new African-American aesthetic in the fine arts. Thematic content included Africa as a source of inspiration, African-American history, folk idioms, and social injustice. Believing that their life experiences were valuable sources of material for their art, these artists created an iconography of the Harlem Renaissance era.
16. Henry Ossawa Tanner The Banjo Lesson, 1893 Painter Henry Tanner wanted to show a positive image of the African-American by highlighting the sense of dignity which is shown here in the touching moment of the elder teaching the boy how to play the banjo. Tanner also chose the banjo because of its African origin and its being the most popular musical instrument used by the slaves in early America
17. Window Cleaning, 1935 “ I refuse to compromise and see blacks as anything less than a proud and majestic people.” Aaron Douglas 1898-1979
18. Johnson arrived in Harlem when the Renaissance was in the making. While there he created several paintings that dealt with political and social Harlem. Chain Gang is one example. William H. Johnson 1901-1970 Chain Gang. 1939
20. Palmer Hayden, The Janitor Who Paints, 1937 In this symbolic self-portrait artist Palmer Hayden is at work in his basement studio, surrounded by the tools of his dual professions, a palette, brushes and easel, and a garbage can, broom, and feather duster. The painter’s studio is also his bedroom, and his bed, night table, alarm clock, and a framed picture of a cat are seen in the background.
22. Gwathmey was raised in Virginia, but it was not until his return to the South after years of art schooling in New York that he began to empathize with the African-American experience. He commented, “If I had never gone back home, perhaps I would never have painted the Negro.” Robert Gwathmey 1903-1988 Custodian, 1963
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Hinweis der Redaktion
The artist is painting a portrait of a young mother seated and holding her well-bundled baby with its curious hypnotic stare. Nothing seems amiss in the painting; the artist wears a shirt, tie, and beret, the attractive mother is clad in a checkered dress, and a cat sleeps peacefully on the floor. When this painting was x-rayed several years ago, however, the under-painting revealed some startling discoveries. The well, dressed, beret-wearing janitor-artist was originally painted as a ludicrous, bald man with a bean-shaped head; the baby was grinning buffoon, and the the mother was depicted as an unflattering servant. Ironically, the cat in the framed picture was painted over a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. The present version, considerably more attractive and flattering, was undoubtedly altered by Hayden in response to widespread criticism of his works by his peers who felt that Hayden was caricaturing blacks for the amusement of whites.