Art
The following Art materials are several of the pieces, collections, and artists recommended for the EDIBA reading room.
Charles Henry Alston
- Charles Henry Alston
A pivotal figure within the Harlem Renaissance, Charles Alston was passionately dedicated to empowering African Americans through cultural enrichment and artistic advancement. In his distinguished career as an artist and an educator, he continually sought to reclaim and explore racial identity and its complicated implications. Inspired by the modern idiom of Modigliani and Picasso, as well as African art, Alston’s work addresses both the personal and communal aspects of the black experience. - Dancing CoupleAlston, Charles, 1907-1977
Credit Line: Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Anonymous Loan in memory of Marcus Mitchell - Seated FigureAlston, Charles Henry, 1907-1977, American [artist]
1970 - Modern medicineAlston, Charles Henry, 1907-1977, American [artist]
Alma Thomas
- Portrait of Alma Thomas
During the 1960s Alma Thomas emerged as an exuberant colorist, abstracting shapes and patterns from the trees and flowers around her. Her new palette and technique — considerably lighter and looser than in her earlier representational works and dark abstractions — reflected her long study of color theory and the watercolor medium. As a black woman artist, Thomas encountered many barriers; she did not, however, turn to racial or feminist issues in her art, believing rather that the creative spirit is independent of race or gender. - Orange glowThomas, Alma, 1891-1978, American [artist]
- Blue abstractionThomas, Alma, 1891-1978, American [artist]
- Elysian fieldsThomas, Alma, 1891-1978, American [artist]
1973 [2 images]
KEHINDE WILEY
- Kehinde Wiley
Los Angeles native and New York based visual artist, Kehinde Wiley has firmly situated himself within art history’s portrait painting tradition. As a contemporary descendent of a long line of portraitists, including Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian, Ingres, among others, Wiley, engages the signs and visual rhetoric of the heroic, powerful, majestic and the sublime in his representation of urban, black and brown men found throughout the world.
Ruth Asawa
- Ruth Asawa
Born on a farm in Southern California, Asawa began her arts education when she was a teenager and she and her family were among the thousands of persons of Japanese descent who were forcibly interned by the US government during World War II. It was at the internment camp that Asawa began taking classes in painting and drawing. After her release, Asawa studied to be a teacher but was unable to get a license because of her Japanese heritage, so she enrolled at Black Mountain College, an experimental art school in North Carolina. Asawa took classes from and worked alongside fellow artists Josef Albers, Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, and R. Buckminster Fuller - AbstractionAsawa, Ruth, 1926-2013
- Untitled [study of triangles]Asawa, Ruth,
1946-1949
Kerry James Marshall
- Kerry James Marshall
A contemporary American artist whose distinctive body of work engages audiences on issues of black identity. A recipient of the MacArthur Foundation's "genius grant," he has exhibited extensively at prestigious institutions around the globe and held numerous solo exhibitions
Ideas/Options
- Woman's burdenReflects the suffering by Ugandan women following the loss of relatives to war and AIDS. Beauty is depicted to "harbour" death; the owls and vultures on the trees are agents of death; the hoot of the owl announces death
- Minority and Women Faculty RecruitmentBoycott classes April 17 [poster] Women's Alliance and Minority Student Alliance [Harvard University]
- Untitled by Copley, William, 1919-1996Materials/Techniques: Screen print
Dimensions: 53.1 x 65.5 cm (20 7/8 x 25 13/16 in.) - Black Wall StreetDavis, Noah, American painter, born 1983 [painter]
Materials/Techniques: painting (image-making)
Dimensions: 152.4 x 157.5 cm. - Icon for My Man SupermanHendricks, Barkley L., American artist, 1945-2017 [artist] 1969
Materials/Techniques: oil paint
Materials/Techniques: acrylic paint
Materials/Techniques: aluminum leaf
Materials/Techniques: canvas
Dimensions: 151.1 x 121.9 cm. - Jim Crow by Basquiat, Jean-MichelMaterials/Techniques: canvas
Materials/Techniques: mixed technique
Materials/Techniques: Acrylic and oil paintstick on canvas
Dimensions: 206 x 244 cm. - Abstract CompositionZeid, Fahrelnissa, Turkish painter, 1901-1991 [painter (artist)]
Materials/Techniques: oil paint
Materials/Techniques: canvas
Dimensions: 90 x 70 cm. - Aspects of Negro life: the Negro in an African settingDouglas, Aaron, 1899-1979, American [artist]
One of four murals (the "Aspects of Negro Life" series) which were commissioned from Aaron Douglas by the Public Works Administration in 1934 for the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library - The 1920s...The Migrants Cast Their Ballotsby Lawrence, Jacob,(1917-2000)
Materials/Techniques: Screen print printed in seven colors on plus-white Domestic Etching paper - Photograph of Aaron Douglas with Arthur SchomburgDouglas presents "Aspects of Negro life: Song of the towers" to Arthur Schomburg
- Misshipeshu, water god, and Miskinuk, the turtleMorrisseau, Norval [artist]
Materials/Techniques: oil on canvas
Materials/Techniques: canvas
Dimensions: 133.4 x 92.7 cm. - Red hills and bonesO'Keeffe, Georgia, 1887-1986, American [artist]
Materials/Techniques: oil on canvas
Materials/Techniques: canvas
Dimensions: 30 x 40"
Collections
- National Gallery of Art- African American Artists in the Collection
Explore a selection of works by African American artists included in the collection of the National Gallery of Art. Choose from the images below to view paintings, photographs, works on paper, and sculpture ranging from a still-life painting by Robert Seldon Duncanson to modern and contemporary pieces by Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Alma Thomas, Sam Gilliam, Kara Walker, and more. - Asian American Art
SAAM’s collection includes many remarkable artworks that reflect the profound and longstanding contributions of Asian American and Asian diasporic artists in the United States. - The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942 – 1946
The Art of Gaman showcases arts and crafts made by Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps during World War II. Soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, all ethnic Japanese on the West Coast—more than two-thirds of whom were American citizens by birth—were ordered to leave their homes and move to ten inland internment camps for the duration of the war.
Renwick Gallery (Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street NW)
Diversity in Art
- Harvard Undergraduate Student Art CollectiveThe Harvard Undergraduate Student Art Collective is concerned with organizing and curating events and exhibitions of Harvard student art. Each spring since 2008, the Harvard Student Art Collective hosts the Harvard Student Art Show, the largest student art exhibition on campus. It is a student-curated, month-long exhibition that displays artwork submitted by individuals throughout the university. Additionally, the Harvard Student Art Collective also hosts smaller art events throughout the school year. The Harvard Student Art Collective believes that student artists deserve spaces in which to share their work on campus, and aims to celebrate the truly incredible community of artists the university has to offer.
- The Black Arts Collective: The Students Creating Space for Black Arts on CampusHarvard’s lack of diversity within established arts organizations can make it especially difficult for Black students to break into the campus creative scene. By Monica Zheng
- Six Native Artists and Their Works Receive Major RecognitionThe upcoming 2023 Renwick Invitational explores how Indigenous worldviews and the present moment inform what Native artists are making today