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8 min read. Looking to deepen your knowledge of Black artists? Explore the connections between eight pairs of artists in our collection. Some share a similar approach to artmaking, others a specific subject. A few even knew each other personally—two were roommates and two are closely related. Alma Thomas and Sylvia Snowden.
- Black Art & Artists in Our Collection - National Gallery of Art
Explore Black art and artists in our collection, along with...
- Black Art & Artists in Our Collection - National Gallery of Art
Feb 1, 2023 · This list is meant to shine a light on artists who have prominence within institutions, but are often excluded from mainstream conversations meant to amplify overlooked Black artists or canonize them as leading figures of art history.
- Joshua Johnson
- Edmonia Lewis
- Henry Ossawa Tanner
- Horace Pippin
- Augusta Savage
- Romare Bearden
- Jacob Lawrence
- Aaron Douglas
- Alma Thomas
- Jean-Michele Basquiat
Joshua Johnson was a portrait painterliving and working in 18th and 19th-century Baltimore. While little is known about his background (there are conflicting reports regarding whether or not he was enslaved), over 100 portraits are attributed to the artist. All of these pieces are rendered in a characteristically naive style and most share a distin...
Sculptor Edmonia Lewis has the distinction of being the first African American and Native American artist to rise to national and international prominence. Born free in Upstate New York, Lewis began her career as a sculptor in Boston. Early success funded a trip to Rome, Italy, where she spent most of her career. Her Neoclassicalsculpture often tou...
After being rejected by many art schools due to his race, Henry Ossawa Tannerenrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1879. This made him the Academy's only African American student. While there, he studied under Thomas Eakins and was influenced by his progressive approach to art. Ossawa Tanner later moved to France, where he was embrac...
Self-taught painter Horace Pippinonce said that his time served in WWI “brought out all the art in me.” In fact, he took up art to rehabilitate his arm after being shot in battle. In the 1930s, he began painting on stretched fabric and often revisited themes related to the war. As his career continued, he painted landscapes, as well as political an...
In 1918, a groundbreaking movement emerged in New York City. Known today as the Harlem Renaissance, this “golden age” of art, literature, and music transformed the Harlem neighborhood into a cultural hub for African Americans, with Augusta Savage‘s many contributions at its core. Savage was a Florida-born sculptor. In 1921, she moved to New York Ci...
Born in 1911, Romare Bearden was a prolific creative who was not only a visual artist but also an author and songwriter. Throughout his long career, he experimented with different mediums, including oil paint and collage. His early work was influenced by Mexican muralists like Diego Rivera, while he later evolved into a more abstract style. In the ...
Jacob Lawrence was born in New Jersey in 1918. At just 23 years old, he completed his Migration Series. This colorful collection of paintings tells the story of the Great Migration, a mass exodus of over 6 million African Americans fleeing the segregated South to urbanized areas across the country. Imagined as avant-garde shapes and rendered in bri...
Born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1899, Aaron Douglasworked in a glass factory and steel foundry in order to earn money for college. After graduating in 1922 with his degree in fine arts, he taught in the Kansas City, Missouri area before heeding the call of Johnson to head to New York City to be part of the creative scene in Harlem. Once in New York, Dou...
Alma Thomasspent her whole life breaking new ground. When she graduated from Howard University in 1924, she became the first graduate of the school's new fine arts department. She then spent the next 35 years at Washington, D.C.'s Shaw Junior High School as an art teacher, where she helped shape young minds. Many people would be satisfied with that...
New York City would continue to serve as a catalyst for Black artists for decades, with Jean-Michel Basquiat among the Big Apple's most famous artists—and contemporary art's most universally recognized figures. Basquiat was born in Brooklyn to a Puerto Rican mother and a Haitian father in 1960. As a teenager, he helped pioneer and popularize street...
To celebrate Black History Month, we’re bringing stories of Black American artists to the forefront. Collectively, their work in our collection explores universal themes of beauty, kinship, and the time-honored tradition of responding to the artists who preceded and inspired them.
Explore Black art and artists in our collection, along with exhibitions, events, and resources for educators. Artists featured include Gordon Parks, Romare Bearden, Kara Walker, and more.
SAAM is home to one of the most significant collections of works by African American artists in the world. These artworks span three centuries of creative expression in various media, including painting, sculpture, textiles, and photography, and represent numerous artistic styles, from realism to neoclassicism, abstract expressionism, modernism ...
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Jun 9, 2000 · Lawrence's interest in depicting scenes from black American history and from the Harlem world around him, as well as the Egyptian-like angularity of his figures and his later visual references to African art, ultimately reflect the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance.
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