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{{Short description|Visual arts of the people of African descent in the United States of America}}{{More citations needed|date=July 2021}}{{African American topics sidebar}}{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2022}}African-American art is a broad term describing visual art created by African Americans. The range of art they have created, and are continuing to create, over more than two centuries is as varied as the artists themselves.WEB, Art by African Americans {{!, Highlights {{!}} Smithsonian American Art Museum|url=https://americanart.si.edu/art/highlights/african-american|access-date=February 23, 2021|website=americanart.si.edu}} Some have drawn on cultural traditions in Africa, and other parts of the world, for inspiration. Others have found inspiration in traditional African-American plastic art forms, including basket weaving, pottery, quilting, woodcarving and painting, all of which are sometimes classified as “handicrafts” or “folk art”.WEB, Langford, Ellison, December 16, 2019, Finding the thread: The tradition of African-American quilting,scalawagmagazine.org/2019/12/black-quilters-georgia/, February 23, 2021, Scalawag (magazine), Scalawag, WEB, Crafts and Slave Handicrafts: An Overview,www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/crafts-and-slave-handicrafts-overview, February 23, 2021, Encyclopedia.com, Many have also been inspired by European traditions in art, as well as personal experience of life, work and studies there. Like their western colleagues, many work in Realist, Modernist and Conceptual styles, and all the variations in between, including America’s home-grown Abstract expressionist movement, an approach to art seen in the work of Howardena Pindell, McArthur Binion and Norman Lewis, among others.NEWS, O’Grady, Megan, February 12, 2021, Once Overlooked, Black Abstract Painters Are Finally Given Their Due, T: The New York Times Style Magazine]],www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/t-magazine/black-abstract-painters.html, February 23, 2021, 0362-4331, Like their peers, African-American artists also work in an array of media, including painting, print-making, collage, assemblage, drawing, sculpture and more.WEB, Stidhum, Tonja Renée, On The 25th Anniversary Of His Death, We Remember And Honor Iconic Tennis Player Arthur Ashe - Blavity,blavity.com/25th-anniversary-death-remember-honor-arthur-ashe, February 23, 2021, Blavity News & Politics, Their themes are similarly varied, although many also address, or feel they must address, issues of American Blackness.NEWS, Smith, Melissa, April 29, 2019, Young Black Artists Are More in Demand Than Ever—But the Art World Is Burning Them Out, ArtNet,news.artnet.com/market/young-black-artists-burning-out-1523446, WEB, The Miseducation of the Black Artist,thepioneeronline.com/42286/opinions/the-miseducation-of-the-black-artist/, February 25, 2021, The Pioneer, Once known as the “sculptor of horrors”, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller favored a mix of conceptual realism and symbolism, and took inspiration from ghost stories.JOURNAL, Davidson and P. Biddle, Benjamin, The Sculpture of Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller,danforth.framingham.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/TMA.SeptOct20-REV.pdf, The Magazine Antiques, September/October 2020, 34–40, Mentored by Henry Osawa Tanner, critiqued by Auguste Rodin, and exhibited in the 1903 Salon,WEB, Lewis, Femi, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller: Visual Artist of the Harlem Renaissance,www.thoughtco.com/meta-vaux-warrick-fuller-45194, October 4, 2022, ThoughtCo, she recognized that a continued career relied on “meet[ing] requests for race-based work from the leading Black scholars, activists, and luminaries who controlled the commission pipeline”.WEB, The Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller Collection – Danforth,danforth.framingham.edu/exhibition/meta-fuller/, February 25, 2021, danforth.framingham.edu, By accepting that reality, W. E. B. Du Bois became one of her patrons, and she became the first African-American woman recipient of a federal commission ... for progress-themed dioramas for Jamestown’s tercentennial ... and, later, for the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation”, but it all came at some cost.Another extreme is illustrated by an artist like Emory Douglas, the former minister of culture for the Black Panther Party, whose art was consciously radical, and has since become iconic.NEWS, October 27, 2008, The revolutionary art of Emory Douglas, Black Panther, The Guardian,www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2008/oct/28/emory-douglas-black-panther, February 24, 2021, 0261-3077, “[C]redited with popularising the term ‘pigs’ for corrupt police officers”, his best-known imagery was often harshly critical of the existing power structure, openly violent and, like all political iconography, intended to persuade.WEB, October 24, 2008, Fight the power: Alex Rayner meets the former Black Panthers’ minister of culture,www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/oct/25/emory-douglas-black-panthers, February 24, 2021, The Guardian, {{Multiple image| image1 = Edmonia Lewis by Henry Rocher.jpg

Edmonia Lewis was commissioned to do President Grant’s portrait, {{circa>1870}}.| image2 = Archives of American Art - Augusta Savage - 2371.jpg| align = left| direction = horizontal| total_width = 325

Augusta Savage with Realization, her Works Progress Administration>WPA Federal Art Project, 1938.| header = Three sculptors| image3 = Vauxwarrickfuller.jpg| caption3 = Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller was Rodin’s protegee, 1910.}}Sculptor Edmonia Lewis, by contrast, financed her first trip to Europe in 1865 by selling sculptures of abolitionist John Brown and Robert Gould Shaw, the Union Colonel who led the enlisted black 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the Civil War.WEB, Edmonia Lewis - Smithsonian American Art Museum,artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/edmonia-lewis/gQJi3NKm3VagLg, February 24, 2021, Google Arts & Culture, She would later incorporate issues of race more subtly, using modern themes and ancient symbols in Neoclassical sculpture to suggestive ends.WEB, Alexandra Kiely, February 13, 2020, The Fabulous Sculpture and Mysterious Life of Edmonia Lewis,www.dailyartmagazine.com/the-fabulous-sculpture-and-mysterious-life-of-edmonia-lewis/, February 24, 2021, DailyArt Magazine, In response to a bust Lewis had made of her, her patron Anna Quincey Waterston wrote admiringly of her: ″Tis fitting that a daughter of the race / Whose chains are breaking should receive a gift / So rare as genius.″The grandchild of slaves, print artist and sculptor Elizabeth Catlett was also an activist. Although some of her art includes confrontational symbols from the Black Power movement, she is best-known for her portrayals of African-American heroes: MLK, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman — and strong maternal women.WEB, Elizabeth Catlett {{!, Artist Profile|url=https://nmwa.org/art/artists/elizabeth-catlett/|access-date=February 24, 2021|website=NMWA}}NEWS, Rosenberg, Karen, April 4, 2012, Elizabeth Catlett, Sculptor With Eye on Social Issues, Is Dead at 96 (Published 2012), The New York Times,www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/arts/design/elizabeth-catlett-sculptor-with-eye-on-social-issues-dies-at-96.html, February 24, 2021, 0362-4331, WEB, BLack, Female And An Inspirational Modern Artist,www.npr.org/2012/02/12/146603768/black-female-and-an-inspirational-modern-artist, February 24, 2021, NPR.org, Sculptor Augusta Savage’s work was similarly uplifting. In a large commission for the 1939 New York World’s Fair, Lift Every Voice and Sing, which is often described as the Black National Anthem, inspired a called Lift Every Voice and Sing, also known as The Harp as it depicted black singers as the strings of the instrument.WEB, Blain, Keisha N., March 3, 2017, The most important black woman sculptor of the 20th century deserves more recognition,timeline.com/the-most-important-black-woman-sculptor-of-the-20th-century-deserves-more-recognition-af0ed7084bb1, February 24, 2021, Timeline, Medium (website), Medium, Richard Hunt, is a sculptor born on Chicago’s South Side in 1935. A recurrent theme of his work is the integration and expression of the African American history and culture, despite his focus on his own freedom as an artist to work in an abstract mode or one referential or suggestive of his subjects. A descendant of slaves brought to this country through the port of Savannah, Georgia, Richard Hunt has singularly made the largest contribution to public art in the U.S.; more than 160 public sculpture commissions grace prominent locations in 24 states and Washington D.C. As a 19-year-old, Richard Hunt taught himself how to weld. Only two years later, he gained national recognition when the Museum of Modern Art acquired his sculpture, Arachne. Another Richard Hunt sculpture, Hero Construction, now stands as the centerpiece of The Art Institute of Chicago. Richard Hunt has held over 150 solo exhibitions and is represented in more than 100 public museums.BOOK, Introduction by Courtney J. Martin. Text by John Yau, Jordan Carter, LeRonn Brooks. Interview by Adrienne Childs., Richard Hunt, 2022, Gregory R. Miller & Co., 9781941366448,www.artbook.com/9781941366448.html, Painter Faith Ringgold, who is known for her politicized art, has been described as having a “gorgeous gut punch”.NEWS, Morris, Bob, June 11, 2020, Faith Ringgold Will Keep Fighting Back, The New York Times,www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/arts/design/faith-ringgold-art.html, February 23, 2021, 0362-4331, Her (The American People Series 20: Die|The American People Series #20: Die) which depicts a bloody clash between Cubist black and white figures, was hung opposite Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in the newly renovated MOMA in 2019, the better to start a conversation between the “savage force” of their respective compositions.NEWS, Farago, Jason, October 3, 2019, The New MoMA Is Here. Get Ready for Change. (Published 2019), The New York Times,www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/arts/design/moma-renovation.html, February 23, 2021, 0362-4331, BOOK, Weschler, Lawrence, ‘Destroy this mad brute’: The African root of World War I, January 31, 2017, Bloomsbury USA, 9781632867186, Conceptual artist Fred Wilson focuses on other kinds of composition, “juxtaposing wildly anomalous items, such as a slave statue and a set of fine china”. A 1999 MacArthur “genius grant” recipient, his work encourages “unpacking and upending assumptions about race and history surrounding each”.WEB, Chung, Evan, September 26, 2019, Fred Wilson uses the museum as his palette,www.pri.org/stories/2019-09-26/fred-wilson-uses-museum-his-palette, February 23, 2021, The World from PRI, Radio, WEB, September 12, 2019, Pace Chelsea Reopens With Fred Wilson’s ‘Chandeliers’,www.surfacemag.com/articles/pace-gallery-opening-fred-wilson-chandeliers/, February 23, 2021, Surface (magazine), Surface, Narrative artists like Jacob Lawrence use history painting to tell a story in images, as his own Migration Series shows. The 60-panel epic depicts the relocation of a million African Americans to the industrialized North after World War II.WEB, Introduction {{!, Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series|url=https://lawrencemigration.phillipscollection.org/culture/introduction|access-date=February 23, 2021|website=lawrencemigration.phillipscollection.org}} As in the cases of Kehinde Wiley{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} and Amy Sherald,WEB, Fikes, Robert, November 25, 2018, Amy Sherald (1973- ) •,www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/sherald-amy-1973/, February 23, 2021, history painting can also involve portraiture; in this instance, the official portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama, respectively.Artists like Horace Pippen and Romare Bearden chose more ordinary subject matter, relying on contemporary life to inspire uncontroversial imagery. The influential Henry Tanner did, too, in paintings like The Banjo Lesson and the Thankful PoorWEB, Henry Ossawa Tanner,www.biography.com/artist/henry-ossawa-tanner, February 23, 2021, Biography, although those paintings — like many of his landscapes and Biblical scenes — often seem illuminated from within. The first African-American to enroll in the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1880, Tanner studied with Realist painter Thomas Eakens. He went on to become the first African-American artist to earn international acclaim. He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1910 and designated an honorary chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honor in 1923.WEB, Henry Ossawa Tanner {{!, American painter|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Ossawa-Tanner|access-date=February 23, 2021|website=Encyclopedia Britannica}} Early African-American art Pre-colonial, Antebellum and Civil War eras {{Multiple image| image2 = Patrick Reason engraving.jpg| image1 = John Bush powder horn carving.png| direction = vertical| caption2 = Engraving of a chained female slave by Patrick H. Reason, 1835. Often circulated with the caption “Am I not a woman and a sister?”

John Bush (provincial soldier)>John Bush, 1754| header = Early African-American Art| align = left| image3 = PowersBibleQuilt 1898.jpg| caption3 = Harriet Powers, Bible quilt, Mixed Media. 1898.}}The earliest evidence of African-American art in the United States is the work of skilled craftsmen slaves from New England. Two categories of slave craft items survive from colonial America: articles that were created for personal use by slaves and articles created for public use. Examples from between the 17th century and the early 19th century include: small drums, quilts, wrought-iron figures, baskets, ceramic vessels, and gravestones.Sharon F. Patton, African-American Art, Oxford University Press, 1998.BOOK, Lewis, Samella, African American Art and Artists, 2003, University of California Press, Many of Africa’s most skilled slave artisans were hired out by slave owners. With the consent of their masters, some slave artisans were also able to keep a small percentage of the wages earned in their spare time to save enough money to purchase their freedom, and that of their family members.Romare Bearden, Harry Henderson, A History of African-American Artists. From 1792 to the Present. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993.The public works of art produced by slave craftsmen were an important contribution to the Colonial economy. In New England and the Mid-Atlantic colonies, slaves were apprenticed as goldsmiths, cabinetmakers, engravers, carvers, portrait painters, carpenters, masons and iron workers. The construction and decoration of the Janson House, built on the Hudson River in 1712, was the work of African-Americans. Many of the oldest buildings in Louisiana, South Carolina and Georgia were built by craftsmen slaves.In the mid-18th century, John Bush was a powder horn carver and soldier with the Massachusetts militia fighting with the British in the French and Indian War.USA Today. May 2005, Vol. 133 Issue 2720, pp. 48–52. 5p.WEB,journals.psu.edu/wph/article/viewFile/7624/7397, The Great Warpaths, Patrick H. Reason, Joshua Johnson, and Scipio Moorhead were among the earliest known portrait artists, from the period of 1773–1887. Patronage by some white families allowed for private tutoring in special cases. Many of these sponsoring whites were abolitionists. The artists received more encouragement and were better able to support themselves in cities, of which there were more in the North and border states.Harriet Powers (1837–1910) was an African-American folk artist and quilt maker from rural Georgia, United States, born into slavery. Now nationally recognized for her quilts, she used traditional appliqué techniques to record local legends, Bible stories and astronomical events on her quilts. Only two of her late quilts have survived: Bible Quilt 1886 and Bible Quilt 1898. Her quilts are considered among the finest examples of 19th-century Southern quilting.Kyra E. Hicks (2009), This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers’ Bible Quilt and Other Pieces.Harriet Powers {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071018043355earlywomenmasters.net/powers/index.html |date=October 18, 2007}}, Early Women MastersLike Powers, the women of Gee’s Bend developed a distinctive, bold and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African-American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity. Although widely separated by geography, they have qualities reminiscent of Amish quilts and Modern art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present.www.quiltsofgeesbend.com/history/" title="web.archive.org/web/20040222230415www.quiltsofgeesbend.com/history/">The Quilts of Gees Bend. At one time, scholars believed slaves sometimes used quilt blocks to alert other slaves to escape plans during the time of the Underground Railroad,Raymond Dobard Jr., Ph.D., and Jacqueline Tobin, Hidden in Plain View, 1999.{{where|date=January 2011}} but most historians do not agree. Quilting remains alive as form of artistic expression in the African-American community. Reconstruction After the Civil War, it became increasingly acceptable for African American-created works to be exhibited in museums, and painters and sculptors increasingly produced works for this purpose.WEB, Host Europe GmbH – www.widewalls.ch,www.widewalls.ch/, November 18, 2020, www.widewalls.ch, These were works mostly in the European Romantic and Classical traditions of landscapes and portraits. Edward Mitchell Bannister, Henry Ossawa Tanner and Edmonia Lewis are the most notable from this period. Others include Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, a female artist who, like Edmonia Lewis, was a sculptor, as well as Grafton Tyler Brown and Nelson A. Primus.WEB, George, Alice, Sculptor Edmonia Lewis Shattered Gender and Race Expectations in 19th-Century America,www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/sculptor-edmonia-lewis-shattered-gender-race-expectations-19th-century-america-180972934/, February 25, 2021, Smithsonian (magazine), Smithsonian, The goal of widespread recognition across racial boundaries was first eased within America’s big cities, including Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, New York, and New Orleans. Even in these places, however, there were discriminatory limitations. Abroad, however, African Americans were much better received. In Europe — especially Paris, France — these artists were freer to experiment with techniques outside traditional western art. Freedom of expression was much more prevalent in Paris and, to a lesser extent, Munich and Rome.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}} Contemporary art {{Multiple image| image1 = Self Portrait of Archibald Motley.jpg| caption1 = Self portrait, 1920| image2 = Archibald Motley Self.JPG| caption2 = Self portrait, 1933| total_width = 325| header = Archibald Motley| align = left}}{{Multiple image| image1 = “Douglass argued against poor Negroes leaving the South” - NARA - 559103.jpg| caption1 = Jacob Lawrence gained recognition at age 23 for his 60-panel Migration Series, depicting the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. The name of this panel is Douglass Argued Against Poor Negroes Leaving the South| image2 = Portrait of Jacob Lawrence LCCN2004663192.tif| direction = vertical| total_width = 200| caption2 = Portrait of Jacob Lawrence, 1941.| align = right| header = Jacob Lawrence}} The Harlem Renaissance {{See also|Harlem Renaissance|Chicago Black Renaissance|Black Renaissance in D.C.}}The Harlem Renaissance refers to an enormous flourishing in African-American art of all kinds, including visual art. Ideas that were already widespread in other parts of the world at the time had begun to spread into U.S. artistic communities during the 1920s. Notable artists in this period included Richmond Barthé, Aaron Douglas, Lawrence Harris, Palmer Hayden, William H. Johnson, Sargent Johnson, John T. Biggers, Earle Wilton Richardson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Archibald Motley, Augusta Savage, Hale Woodruff and photographer James Van Der Zee.{{citation needed|date=April 2020}}William E. Harmon, an art patron and aficionado, established the Harmon Foundation in 1922, and it served as a large-scale patron of African-American art until 1967, generating interest in, and recognition for, artists who might have otherwise remained unknown. The Harmon Award and the annual “Exhibition of the Work of Negro Artists” further contributed to the support, as did the William E. Harmon Foundation Award for Distinguished Achievement Among Negroes, which although not limited to visual artists was awarded to several of them, including Hale Woodruff, Palmer Hayden and Archibald Motley. In 1929, the funding temporarily ended as a result of the Great Depression, only to resume mounting exhibitions and offering funding once the economy revived artists like Jacob Lawrence, Laura Wheeler Waring and others.{{cn|date=March 2023}}By 1933, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Public Works of Art Project was attempting to provide support for artists in 1933, but their efforts proved ineffective. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935, and that program succeeded at providing all American artists, and especially African-American artists, with a means to earn a living in a devastated economy. By the middle of the 1930s, more than 250,000 African Americans were involved with the WPA,WEB, Artists of the New Deal,www.history.com/topics/great-depression/artists-of-the-new-deal, February 24, 2021, HISTORY, including Jacob Lawrence, Gwendolyn Knight, sculptor William Artis; painter and children’s book illustrator Ernest Crichlow, cartoonist and illustrator Elton C. Fax, photographer Marvin Smith, Dox Thrash, who invented the printmaking method carborundum Mezzotint, painters Georgette Seabrooke and Elba Lightfoot, best known for their Harlem Hospital murals; Chicago printmaker Eldzier Cortor; and renowned Illinois-based artist Adrian Troy and many others. Many of these artists found themselves drawn to the interwar movement known as Social Realism, which reflected the politics and socioeconomic views of a generation that had been drafted into WWI, only to dance through the Roaring 1920s and crash in the Great Depression.Important cities with significant black populations and important African-American art circles included Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The WPA led to a new wave of important black art professors. Mixed media, abstract art, cubism, and social realism became not only acceptable, but desirable. Artists of the WPA united to form the 1935 Harlem Artists Guild, which developed community art facilities in major cities. Leading forms of art included drawing, sculpture, printmaking, painting, pottery, quilting, weaving and photography. In 1939, however, the costly WPA and its projects all were terminated.{{citation needed|date=April 2020}} In 1943, James A. Porter, a professor in the Department of Art at Howard University, wrote the first major text on African-American art and artists, Modern Negro Art.{{citation needed|date=April 2020}} Mid-century {{Multiple image| image1 = Sunday Morning Breakfast by Horace Pippin, 1943.jpg| caption1 = Sunday Morning Breakfast by Horace Pippin, 1943.| image2 = “After Church” - NARA - 559046.tif| caption2 = Romare Bearden, After Church, n.d.| total_width = 450| align = left}}In the 1950s and 1960s, few African-American artists were widely known or accepted. Despite this, the Highwaymen, a loose association of 26 African-American artists from Fort Pierce, Florida, created idyllic, quickly realized images of the Florida landscape and peddled some 200,000 of them from the trunks of their cars. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was impossible to find galleries interested in selling artworks by a group of unknown, self-taught African Americans,Painting Florida {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061108193514www.highwaymen.bigstep.com/generic4.html |date=November 8, 2006}} so they sold their art directly to the public rather than through galleries and art agents. Rediscovered in the mid-1990s, they are recognized today as an important part of American folk history,The Highwaymen {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071018072750go-star.com/framer/highwaymen.htm |date=October 18, 2007}} By Ken Hall.Updates & Snapshots 2006 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080311011426www.gibson-highwaymen.com/generic81.html |date=March 11, 2008}} and the current market price for an original Highwaymen painting can easily bring in thousands of dollars. In 2004, the original group of 26 were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.The Florida Highwaymen Currently eight of the 26 are deceased, including A. Hair, H. Newton, Ellis and George Buckner, A. Moran, L. Roberts, Hezekiah Baker and, most recently, Johnny Daniels. The full list of 26 can be found in the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, as well as various highwaymen and Florida art websites.After the Second World War, some artists took a global approach, working and exhibiting abroad, in Paris, and as the decade wore on, relocated gradually in other welcoming cities such as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Stockholm: Barbara Chase-Riboud, Edward Clark, Harvey Cropper, Beauford Delaney, Herbert Gentry,Bearden. R., in An Ocean Apart: American Artists Abroad. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem. Bill Hutson, Clifford Jackson,Malone, L., in An Ocean Apart: American Artists Abroad. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem. Sam Middleton,Williams, J. A., in An Ocean Apart: American Artists Abroad. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem. Larry Potter, Haywood Bill Rivers, Merton Simpson, and Walter Williams.Driskell, David C., in An Ocean Apart: American Artists Abroad. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem.Mercer, Valerie (1996), Explorations in the City of Light. New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem.Some African-American artists did make it into important New York galleries by the 1950s and 1960s: Horace Pippin, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Richard Hunt, William T. Williams, Norman Lewis, Thomas Sills,I. C. K., (1957), “The Surprise of Painter Tom Sills”, The Village Voice, p. 17. and Sam Gilliam were among the few who had successfully been received in a gallery setting. Richard Hunt was the first African American visual artist to serve on the National Council on the Arts, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. Hunt was the fourth African American on the council, after Marian Anderson, Ralph Ellison, and Duke Ellington. In 1971, Richard Hunt was the first African American sculptor to have a major solo retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s led artists to capture and express the changing times. Galleries and community art centers developed for the purpose of displaying African-American art, and collegiate teaching positions were created by and for African-American artists. Some African-American women were also active in the feminist art movement in the 1970s. Faith Ringgold made work that featured black female subjects and that addressed the conjunction of racism and sexism in the U.S., while the collective Where We At (WWA) held exhibitions exclusively featuring the artwork of African-American women.JOURNAL, Brown, Kay, The Emergence of Black Women Artists: The Founding of ‘Where We Ar’, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2011, 2011, 29, 118–127, 10.1215/10757163-1496399, 194127365, By the 1980s and 1990s, hip-hop graffiti began to predominate in urban communities. Most major cities had developed museums devoted to African-American artists. The National Endowment for the Arts provided increasing support for these artists.{{cn|date=March 2023}} Late 20th/early 21st century missing image! - E.J.Martin.1990.jpg - upMidnight Golfer by Eugene J. Martin , mixed media collage on rag paper, 1990.Kara Walker, a contemporary American artist, is known for her exploration of race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her artworks. Walker’s silhouette images work to bridge unfinished folklore in the Antebellum South and are reminiscent of the earlier work of Harriet Powers. Her nightmarish yet fantastical images incorporate a cinematic feel. In 2007, Walker was listed among Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in The World, Artists and Entertainers”.Kruger, Barbara (2007)www.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100/article/0,28804,1595326_1595332_1616818,00.html" title="web.archive.org/web/20070505051000www.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100/article/0,28804,1595326_1595332_1616818,00.html">“Kara Walker”, Time online. Retrieved July 26, 2007. Textile artists are part of African-American art history. According to the 2010 Quilting in America industry survey, there are 1.6 million quilters in the United States.Kyra E. Hicks (2010), 1.6 Million African American Quilters: Survey, Sites, and a Half-Dozen Art Quilt Blocks. One historic non profit organization with several members who are quilters and fiber artists is Women of Visions, Inc. located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. WOV Inc artists past and present work in a variety of mediums. Those who have shown internationally include Renee Stout and Tina Williams Brewer.Influential contemporary artists include Larry D. Alexander, Laylah Ali, Amalia Amaki, Emma Amos, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dawoud Bey, Camille Billops, Mark Bradford, Edward Clark, Willie Cole, Robert Colescott, Louis Delsarte, David Driskell, Leonardo Drew, Mel Edwards, Ricardo Francis, Charles Gaines, Ellen Gallagher, Herbert Gentry, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, Jerry Harris, Joseph Holston, Richard Hunt, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, Katie S. Mallory, M. Scott Johnson, Rashid Johnson, Joe Lewis, Glenn Ligon, James Little, Edward L. Loper Sr., Alvin D. Loving, Kerry James Marshall, Eugene J. Martin, Richard Mayhew, Sam Middleton, Howard McCalebb, Charles McGill, Thaddeus Mosley, Sana Musasama, Senga Nengudi, Joe Overstreet, Martin Puryear, Adrian Piper, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Gale Fulton Ross, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, John Solomon Sandridge, Raymond Saunders, John T. Scott, Joyce Scott, Gary Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Renee Stout, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Stanley Whitney, William T. Williams, Jack Whitten, Fred Wilson, Richard Wyatt Jr., Richard Yarde, and Purvis Young, Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas, Barkley Hendricks, Jeff Sonhouse, William Walker, Ellsworth Ausby, Che Baraka, Emmett Wigglesworth, Otto Neals, Dindga McCannon, Terry Dixon (artist), Frederick J. Brown, and many others.{{citation needed|date=August 2021}} Galleries Art Early African-American (Selection was limited by availability.)File:Edward Mitchell Bannister - Pleasant Pastures - 1983.95.66 - Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg|Painter Edward Mitchell Bannister, Pleasant Pastures, 1887.File:Grafton Tyler Brown, Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, 1887.tif|Painter Grafton Tyler Brown, Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, 1887.File:Edmonia Lewis - Old Arrow Maker.jpg|Sculptor Edmonia Lewis, Old Arrow Maker, 1872.File:The Annunciation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, W1899-1-1-pma, by Henry Ossawa Tanner.jpg|Painter Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation, 1898. Harlem Renaissance (Selection was limited by availability.)File:Self-portrait by Malvin Gray Johnson, 1934, Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg|Self-portrait by painter Malvin Gray Johnson, 1934.File:William H. Johnson.JPG|Photo by the painter William H. Johnson, 1931.File:Evening Attire.jpg|Photographer James Van Der Zee’s photo of a woman in evening attire, 1922.File:Three Friends, by William H. Johnson.jpg|William H. Johnson’s Three Friends, c. 1945.File:“Getting Religion” - NARA - 559118.tif|Archibald Motley, Gettin’ Religion, 1948.File:Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Ethiopia Awakening.jpg|Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller’s Ethiopia Awakening, 1921.File:Heirlooms by Laura Wheeler 1916 New York Watercolor Club Exhibition catalog.png|Laura Wheeler’s Heirlooms, 1916. Contemporary (Selection was limited by availability.)File:The Artwork of Larry D. Alexander 005.jpg|Larry D. Alexander, Send in the Clown, 2007.File:AdrianPiper65AliceDownRbtHole.png|Adrian Piper{{’}}s Alice Down the Rabbit Hole, 1965.File:Howardeena Pindell painting “Queens, Festival”.jpg|Howardeena Pindell’s Queens, Festival, 2007. Artists Harlem Renaissance (Selection was limited by availability.)File:Archives of American Art - Charles Alston - 2465 CROPPED.jpg|Painter, sculptor, illustrator and muralist Charles Alston in 1939.File:Archives of American Art - Henry W. Bannarn - 3156 CROPPED.jpg|Sculptor and character artist Henry W. Bannarn in 1937.File:Richmond Barth, sculpturing - NARA - 559178.jpg|Sculptor Richmond Barthé working on a clay figure, n.d.File:Romare Bearden.jpg|Artist Romare Bearden, photographed in his military uniform in 1944.File:Leslie Bolling, wood whittler at work - NARA - 559230.jpg|Sculptor Leslie Bolling carving a sculpture, n.d.File:BeaufordDelaney1952.jpg|Modernist painter Beauford Delaney in 1952.File:Aaron Douglas - NARA - 559198.tif|Painter and illustrator Aaron Douglas, n.d.File:Palmer Hayden, painting - NARA - 559179.jpg|Painter Palmer Hayden working on a landscape, n.d.File:Sargent Johnson, painting - NARA - 559180.jpg|Artist Sargent Johnson, assessing his own sculpture, n.d.File:Lois Jones, artist and teacher - NARA - 559227.jpg|Artist Loïs Mailou Jones in 1936.File:Augusta Savage, H-HNE-20-87.jpg|Sculptor Augusta Savage, photographed between 1935 and 1947.File:Hale Woodruff, artist and teacher - NARA - 559225.jpg|Painter Hale Woodruff at work on a canvas, c. 1936. Contemporary (Selection was limited by availability.)File:MarkBradfordPortrait4.jpg|Painter and collagist Mark Bradford in 2016.File:Cole Portrait 3.jpg|Sculptor, printer, and conceptual and visual artist Willie Cole in 2004.File:5 STAR STUDIO SHOT.jpg|Artist Leonardo Drew in Brooklyn studio in 2012.File:David C. Driskell.jpg|Artist, scholar and curator David C. Driskell in 2016.File:Jerry Harris 2008.jpeg|Sculptor and collagist Jerry Harris in 2008.File:20081202 Rashid Johnson at the Rubell Family Collection.jpg |Conceptual post-black artist Rashid Johnson in 2008.File:Eugene J. Martin.jpg|Painter, collagist and draftsman Eugene J. Martin in 1990.File:Sana Musasama and Janet Olivia Henry for OHP.png|Artists Sana Musasama and Janet Olivia Henry in 2019.File:Howardena Pindell at Rose Art Museum.jpg|Painter and mixed media artist Howardena Pindell in 2019.File:AdrianPiper2005Berlin.png|Conceptual artist Adrian Piper in 2005.File:Faith Ringgold, April 2017-1.jpg|Painter and mixed media sculptor Faith Ringgold in 2017.File:Betye Saar.jpg|Assemblage artist Betye Saar in 2017.File:Raymond Saunders, CCAC Oakland 1995.jpg|Multimedia painter Raymond Saunders in 1995.File:LornaSimpsonApr09 cropped.jpg|Photographer and multimedia artist Lorna Simpson in 2009. Collections of African-American art Many American museums hold works by African-American artists, including Smithsonian American Art MuseumWEB, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery,americanart.si.edu/, americanart.si.edu, April 4, 2020, Colleges and universities with important collections include Fisk University, Spelman College and Howard University.WEB, Museum of Fine Art {{!, Spelman College |url=https://www.spelman.edu/about-us/museum-of-fine-art |website=www.spelman.edu |access-date=April 4, 2020}} Other important collections of African-American art include the Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art, the Paul R. Jones collections at the University of Delaware and University of Alabama, the David C. Driskell Center’s art collection, the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Mott-Warsh collection. See also African-American culture African-American literature African-American music Black Arts Movement (Black Art: In the Absence of Light) Chicano art Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor The Highwaymen (landscape artists) James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art List of African-American visual artists Visual art of the United States References {{Reflist|30em}} Sources Romare Bearden, Harry Henderson, A History of African-American Artists. From 1792 to the Present, New York: Pantheon Books, 1993. Driskell, David C. (2001), The Other Side of Color: African American Art in the Collection of Camille O. and William H. Cosby Jr. Pomegranate. {{ISBN|978-0-7649-1455-3}} Sylvester, Melvin R. www.liunet.edu/cwis/cwp/library/aavaahp.htm" title="web.archive.org/web/20070509035918www.liunet.edu/cwis/cwp/library/aavaahp.htm">African Americans in Visual Arts: A Historical Perspective. Long Island University. Retrieved January 23, 2005. BOOK, Perry, Regenia A.,libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/150414, Selections of nineteenth-century Afro-American art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972, External links {{Commons category|African American art}} www.dos.state.fl.us/news/communications/pressRelease/pressRelease.cfm?id=48" title="web.archive.org/web/20080918074223www.dos.state.fl.us/news/communications/pressRelease/pressRelease.cfm?id=48">Secretary of State Glenda E. Hood Announces 2004 Hall of Fame Inductees www.highwaymenartist.com/about.html" title="web.archive.org/web/20090921062535www.highwaymenartist.com/about.html">Promoting Natural Florida Through the Arts blackartblog.blackartdepot.com/" title="web.archive.org/web/20210312023850blackartblog.blackartdepot.com/">Blog About African American Artists, Photographers, Galleries & Museums Jake Adam York, “Medicine as Memory: Radcliffe Bailey at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art”, Southern Spaces, January 26, 2012. {{African American topics}}{{Feminist art movement in the United States}}{{Authority control}}