The Harlem Renaissance

1
The Harlem Renaissance

• Time End of WWI to 1935
• Two-ness Who you think you are vs what you
  preceive others to think you are (W.E.B. Du
  Bois).
• Common themes alienation, marginality, the use
  of folk material, the use of the blues tradition,
  the problems of writing for an elite audience.

2
The Great Migration

• Harlem is the new suburb (1904)
• Educated African Americans move in
• White Flight
• WWI causes mass movement of African Americans
  from the south
• Find jobs
• Sick of southern racism

3
The Effects

• Racial consciousness
• Back to Africa" (Marcus Garvey)
• Racial integration
• Music (jazz, spirituals and blues)
• Art (painting, sculpture, photography)
• Dance
• Writing (poetry, plays, novels, etc)

4
Notable Poets

• Claude McKay
• Countee Cullen
• Langston Hughes
• Jean Toomer
• Jessie Redmon Fauset
• Paul Lawrence Dunbar

5
Notable Artists

• W. H. Johnson
• Lois Mailou Jones
• Sargent Johnson
• Aaron Douglas
• Palmer Hayden
• Jacob Lawrence
• Archibald Motley Jr.

6
Notable Musicians

• Louis Armstrong
• Josephine Baker
• Duke Ellington
• Billie Holiday
• Jelly Roll Morton
• Bessie Smith

7
Example ArtAaron DouglasInto Bondage 1936
List words that describe this painting.
8
Example PoemClaude McKay (1889-1948)America

• Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
• And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
• Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
• I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
• Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
• Giving me strength erect against her hate.
• Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
• Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
• I stand within her walls with not a shred
• Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
• Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
• And see her might and granite wonders there,
• Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,
• Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
• List words that describe this poem.

9
Example Song

• They Can't Take That Away From Me
  Billie Holiday, 1937
• List words that describe this song.

10
Artists
11
Aaron Douglas (1898-1979)

• Aaron Douglas was the Harlem Renaissance artist
  whose work best exemplified the 'New Negro'
  philosophy. He painted murals for public
  buildings and produced illustrations and cover
  designs for many black publications including The
  Crisis and Opportunity. In 1940 he moved to
  Nashville, Tennessee, where he founded the Art
  Department at Fisk University and taught for
  twenty nine years.

12
Into Bondage
1936Oil on canvas Aaron Douglas
13
Aspects of Negro Life 62 Song of the Towers
1934 Oil on canvas Aaron Douglas
14
Aspects of Negro Life The Negro in an African
Setting 1934 Oil on canvas Aaron Douglas
15
Archibald Motley Jr. (1891-1980)

• Archibald Motley Jr. labored in Chicago while
  teaching himself the fundamentals of painting and
  practicing his technique. His first solo exhibit
  came in 1928 in New York, and displayed his
  fascination with aspects of African American
  culture such as music, voodoo, and mysticism.
  After winning the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1929,
  he traveled and studied in Paris, where upon his
  return, he began painting scenes of nightlife and
  gambling in response to Prohibition. Despite his
  African American heritage and the rise of the
  Harlem Renaissance movement, Motley was a member
  of Ashcan school that did not devote itself to
  any ethnicity.

16
Blues 1929 Oil on canvas Archibald J. Motley Jr.
17
Mending Socks 1924Oil on canvasArchibald J.
Motley Jr.
18
Nightlife 1943 Oil on canvas Archibald J. Motley
Jr.
19
Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000)

• Lawrence's work recounts the African-American
  experience in this country. Although he has been
  labeled a protest artist and social realist, in
  truth he considered himself first and foremost an
  artist. His images convey the hopes, dreams, and
  courage of the black community. He often captured
  life observed on the streets of post-Depression
  Harlem. He also recorded another history of
  America, one that was told to him by his family,
  neighbors, and friends. Lawrence's art is human
  and accessible, with a quiet dignity and
  understatement that makes it all the more
  powerful. He is the first African-American artist
  to have his work included in the permanent
  collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

20
Dust to Dust (The Funeral) 1938Gouache on
paper Jacob Lawrence
21
Crippled Child on Crutches 1935 Pastels on
paper Jacob Lawrence
22
Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1998)

• Lois Mailou Jones was a pioneering artist of the
  Harlem Renaissance. Born in New England, her life
  was still clouded by the prejudices of an
  everyday African American life. She began her
  career after attending the School of the Museum
  of Fine Art in Boston. Afterwards, she went
  through the racial barriers to exhibit her works
  to the world. She perservered through many
  roadblocks and prejudices, without ever losing
  her passion to express herself through art.

23
Les Fetiches 1938Oil on linen Loïs Mailou Jones
24
Textile Design for Cretonne 1928 Loïs Mailou
Jones
25
Ascent of Ethiopia 1932 Painting Lois Mailou
Jones
26
William H. Johnson

• William H. Johnson entered the Harlem Renaissance
  during its making. He came to New York in 1918
  from Florence, South Carolina, to embark on his
  career. He became a student at the National
  Academy of Design. He was educated there for five
  years, during which he learned from greats such
  as George Luks and Charles Hawthorne. He then
  traveled to places in North Africa and Europe to
  paint and find residence. It was by the
  suggestion of Hawthorne that he traveled to Paris
  in 1826, where he settled, painted, and studied
  the works of modern European masters.

27
Swing Low Sweet Chariot 1939 Oil on
board William H. Johnson
28
A View Down Akersgate, Oslo 1935 Oil on burlap
William H. Johnson
29
Street Musicians 1937 Oil on canvas William H.
Johnson
30
Sargent Johnson

• Johnson lived and worked in the Bay Area during a
  time of great diversity in intellectual,
  cultural, and artistic production. Influenced by
  what was known as the Negro Renaissance of the
  1920s, he focused his early work on the issue of
  racial identity, seeking to show the natural
  beauty and dignity of African Americans. Bay Area
  art communities were flourishing when Johnson
  arrived in 1915, and he later became influential
  in an artistic environment that would develop its
  own variety of Modernism.

31
Mask ca. 1930-1935 copper on wood base Sargent
Johnson
32
Forever Free 1933 Sculpture Sargent Johnson
33
Mask 1933 Sculpture Sargent Johnson
34
Palmer Hayden (1890-1973)

• Born Peyton Hedgeman, he was given the name
  Palmer Hayden by his white commanding sergeant
  during World War I. In his town of brith, Wide
  Water, Virginia, he was often referred to as a
  self trained artist. He was a student at Cooper
  Union in New York and pursued independent studies
  at Boothbay Art Colony in Maine. He studied and
  painted in France, where he lived for some
  years.Hayden's reputation emanates from his
  realistic depictions of folklore and Black
  historical events. He, like Douglas, was also
  among the first Black American artists to use
  African subjects and designs in his painting.

35
The Big Bend Tunnel 1940 Oil on canvas Palmer Hayden

36
The Janitor Who Paints ca. 1930 oil on canvas
Palmer Hayden
37
Beale Steet Blues 1938 Painting Palmer Hayden
38
James VanDerZee (1886-1983)

• Many of VanDerZee's photographs celebrate the
  life of the emergent black middle class. Using
  the conventions of studio portrait photography,
  he composed images that reflected his clients'
  dignity, independence, and material comfort,
  characterizing the time as one of achievement,
  idealism, and success. VanDerZee's photographs
  portray the Harlem of the 1920s and 1930s as a
  community that managed to be simultaneously
  talented, spiritual, and prosperous.

39
Evening Attire 1922Gelatin silver print James
VanDerZee
40
His Ladys Corsage 1931Vintage gelatin silver
print James VanDerZee
41
Alpha Phi Alpha Basketball Team
1926 Photograph James Van Der Zee
42
Augusta Savage (1892-1962)

• Augusta Savage was a world-famous
  African-American sculptor. Born in Florida, she
  had her first formal art training in New York
  City at Cooper Union, the school recommended to
  her by Solon Gorglum. While she studied, she
  supported herself by doing odd jobs, including
  clerking and working in laundries. In 1926 she
  exhibited her work at the Sesquicentennial
  Exposition in Philadelphia. That same year she
  was awarded a scholarship to study in Rome.
  However, she was unable to accept the award
  because she could not raise the money she would
  have needed to live there. Later, she did study
  in Europe.

43
Lift Every Voice and Sing 1939 Scupture Augusta
Savage
44
Gamin 1930 Painted Plaster Augusta Savage
45
Musicians
46
Billy Holiday (1915-1959)

• The first popular jazz singer to move audiences
  with the intense, personal feeling of classic
  blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American
  pop vocals forever. Almost fifty years after her
  death, it's difficult to believe that prior to
  her emergence, jazz and pop singers were tied to
  the Tin Pan Alley tradition and rarely
  personalized their songs only blues singers like
  Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey actually gave the
  impression they had lived through what they were
  singing.

• They Can't Take That Away From Me 
• Summertime
• Getting Some Fun Out Of Life 

47
Duke Ellington (1899-1974)

• Born 29 April 1899 in Washington DC, composer,
  bandleader, and pianist Edward Kennedy ("Duke")
  Ellington was recognized in his lifetime as one
  of the greatest jazz composers and performers.
  Nicknamed "Duke" by a boyhood friend who admired
  his regal air, the name stuck and became
  indelibly associated with the finest creations in
  big band and vocal jazz. A genius for
  instrumental combinations, improvisation, and
  jazz arranging brought the world the unique
  "Ellington" sound that found consummate
  expression in many of his works

• East St. Louis Toodle-Oo
• The Mooche
• It Don't Mean A Thing

48
Ethel Waters (1900-1977)

• Ethel Waters was a popular black American singer
  and actress. She gained recognition as a singer
  of both blues and popular songs. Waters starred
  in several Broadway musicals, and introduced a
  number of well-known songs during her stage
  career. She also appeared in dramatic roles.
• Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania. She
  began singing in nightclubs and in vaudeville
  when she was 17 years old.

• Smile!
• Am I Blue?
• Guess Who's In Town

49
Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)

• Louis Daniel Armstrong was an American jazz
  musician. Armstrong was a charismatic, innovative
  performer whose musical skills and bright
  personality transformed jazz from a rough
  regional dance music into a popular art form.
  Probably the most famous jazz musician of the
  20th century, he first achieved fame as a
  trumpeter, but towards the end of his career he
  was best known as a vocalist and was one of the
  most influential jazz singers.

• Skid-Dat-De-Dat
• Potato Head Blues
• Gut Bucket Blues

50
Fletcher Henderson (1898-1952)

• Fletcher Henderson was very important to early
  jazz as leader of the first great jazz big band,
  as an arranger and composer in the 1930s, and as
  a masterful talent scout. Yet, at the height of
  the swing era, Henderson's band was little-known.

• Ain't She Sweet?
• Alabamy Bound
• One Of These Days

51
Josephine Baker (1906-1975)

• Josephine Baker grew up in St. Louis, Missouri,
  but left home at an early age and began
  performing on stage. She appeared in the chorus
  lines of all-black revues on vaudeville, and
  travelled to Paris in 1925 as part of La Revue
  Negre. Her lithe body and clowning around on
  stage caused a sensation, and by the 1930s she
  was so successful she had her own nightclub.
  Baker was famous for her exotic outfits and
  uninhibited sexuality, her trademarks being a
  leopard on a leash, a skirt made of feathers and
  a dance in which she wore bananas on her head and
  not much else.

• Blue Skies
• Bye Bye Blackbird
• Sleepy Time Gal

52
Jelly Role Morton (1890-1941)

• Piano player Jelly Roll Morton was a pioneer of
  modern American jazz. He grew up in New Orleans
  and began playing in saloons and brothels when he
  was still a boy. In later years he performed solo
  and with his band, the Red Hot Peppers, and he is
  particularly remembered for a series of
  recordings he made in Chicago for RCA Victor in
  the 1920s. Morton is often credited with mixing
  individual improvisation within rehearsed group
  arrangements, a format which became a staple of
  jazz.

• Honeysuckle Rose
• Wolverine Blues
• Jelly Roll Blues

53
Bessie Smith (1894-1937)

• Bessie Smith is largely regarded as the most
  popular and successful blues singer of 1920s and
  1930s, and she has had an enormous influence on
  singers throughout the history of American
  popular music, including Mahalia Jackson, Janis
  Joplin, and Norah Jones.

• See If I Care
• Down Hearted Blues
• Gulf Coast Blues