African American Fine Art

And The Harlem Renaissance….

By: Joan Butterfield
www.richartistpoorartist.com

Fine art collecting is a major industry as well as a hobby today, purely and simply
because of the sheer amount of money that is poured into the arts as a result of it. New
talented artists develop as a result of the hunger for good art today, and that can only
be a good thing because those individuals are carrying on the work of the past artists
that they aspire to be like. In no race is that more evident than in the African
Americans. Past artists did their best to establish a cultural identity away from that
imposed on them by whites in the latter part of the 19th Century and earlier part of the
20th Century, and young artists are now establishing their own identity. It is fair to say
though, that the Harlem Renaissance established an African American identity that
other artists could follow.

The era of the Harlem Renaissance, 1920-40, is one of the most renowned in black art
history, and effectively defined as a political, social and cultural beginning in art for
individuals that may not have had their voices heard otherwise. As a result, terms such
as identity, heritage and cultural consciousness are frequently mentioned, especially
concerning cultural, racial and gender boundaries at this time. However, each
commentator seems to have a unique perception of these boundaries – where they
were, what they meant and the impact they had on black society during this era. This
mirrors the attitudes of the artists of the 1920-40 period. The era produced diverse
African American work because of their unique perceptions on how best to represent
and advance the race – whether it was looking for cultural roots in Africa, portraying
modern city life or exemplifying certain members of the race. No one view of the
world was the same, even if there were certain common themes to be found between
artists.

Artists like Archibald Motley Jnr, Lois Mailou Jones and Doris Ulmann all played a
part in ensuring that the African American voice was heard in this period and then
continued afterwards to establish the boundaries that they had already set. The art that
was produced in this period can certainly be considered as fine art and is now
displayed in some of the most visited museums in the world. They arguably began the
tradition of African American fine art that continues today and effectively broke into
a previously white dominated cultural industry back in their day, although some
artists did not get the recognition that they deserved then.

Ullman and other individuals like James Van Der Zee are not artists in the traditional
sense of the world but still challenged boundaries like Motley and Mailou Jones. They
were photographers and thus it can be argued that their work is not exactly fine art,
but within modern boundaries the majority of individuals associated with the arts
would accept their work as fine art now. Their photographs are truly astonishing and
most definitely works of art.

The era of the Harlem Renaissance was anything but a failure, as some critics have
tended to brand it in the past. It built a stable foundation for future African American
artists to build upon, and these four artists contributed to that foundation in numerous
ways, and they certainly pushed back gender and racial boundaries thus paving the
way for a change in attitudes concerning black artists and society in general. In terms
of the modern day, their fine art is highly collectable because of this and that fact
alone, without any of the political and cultural connotations associated with it, made
sure that the fine art of the Harlem Renaissance can be truly appreciated as great. It
now occupies its rightful place on the walls of museums all over the world, soon to be
joined no doubt by some of the modern artists that have the same dreams of success
that those artists did back then!