This is a brief survey of the art and visual culture of the 1930s and 40s. As usual, this file is so large, you may just want to look at it here on slideshare.
4. 1930s • Art was patronized by US government; i.e.. photography and murals. • Racial/ethnic-based enclaves emerged. • Social realism documented lives of America’s poor.
13. Interview Excerpt: "Why did you start singing while you work? When I started peddling that was in 1932, that's when I started singing...'Heighho, fish man, bring down you dishpan,' that's what started it. 'Fish ain't but five cent a pound....' It was hard times then, the Depression, and people can hardly believe fish is five cents a pound, so they started buying. There was quite a few peddlers and somebody had to have something extra to attract the attention. So when I came around, I started making a rhyme, it was a hit right away."...On the street whatever comes to mind I say it, if I think it will be good. The main idea is when I got something I want to put over I just find something to rhyme with it. And the main requirement for that is mood. You gotta be in the mood. You got to put yourself in it. You've got to feel it. It's got to be more or less an expression, than a routine. Of course, sometimes a drink of King Kong liquor helps."Transcript #21051622 http://rs6.loc.gov/wpaintro/clyde.html
38. Aaron Douglas (1934) An Idyll of the Deep South , Schomburg Center, New York Public Library
39. Dreams Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow. -Langston Hughes (1902 – 67)
49. 1940s • due to WWII, the art center shifted from Paris • American absorbed Cubism, Surrealism, Dada • continued to develop “American” style; i.e.. national identity, urbanism and experience of living
50. Planting the Seeds of Abstract Expressionism American isolationalism/ regionalism Social conscious Reconciliation between the poetry of Surrealism and the spatial issues of Cubism
78. What then was I to paint? Slowly I found that I must paint those things that were meaningful to me–that I could honestly paint in the shapes and colors I felt belonged to them. What shall I paint? Stories.” – Ben Shahn
The full clip can be found online in the Prelinger Archives or you can check out the DVD from PPLD. http://ppld.org/
130,000 images
At 16, Parks found himself homeless and did everything he could do make money, from waiting tables to playing piano in a brothel to mopping floors. As Parks tells it, his first foray into photography came after he found a magazine left behind by a passenger on a train. A portfolio inside the magazine, documenting the terrible living conditions of migrant workers inspired Parks to buy his first camera, a Voightlander Brilliant, at a pawnshop in Seattle. "I bought what was to become my weapon against poverty and racism," he says
7 children 32 years old
At 16, Parks found himself homeless and did everything he could do make money, from waiting tables to playing piano in a brothel to mopping floors. As Parks tells it, his first foray into photography came after he found a magazine left behind by a passenger on a train. A portfolio inside the magazine, documenting the terrible living conditions of migrant workers inspired Parks to buy his first camera, a Voightlander Brilliant, at a pawnshop in Seattle. "I bought what was to become my weapon against poverty and racism," he says
African-American Art Harlem Rennaissance A New Negro – A Visual Art Nationalism / Primativism / Atavism Aaron Douglas Lois Mailou jones Jacob Lawrence Norman Lewis Elizabeth Catlett
African-American Art Harlem Rennaissance A New Negro – A Visual Art Nationalism / Primativism / Atavism Aaron Douglas Lois Mailou jones Jacob Lawrence Norman Lewis Elizabeth Catlett
African-American Art Harlem Rennaissance A New Negro – A Visual Art Nationalism / Primativism / Atavism Aaron Douglas Lois Mailou jones Jacob Lawrence Norman Lewis Elizabeth Catlett
African-American Art Harlem Rennaissance A New Negro – A Visual Art Nationalism / Primativism / Atavism Aaron Douglas Lois Mailou jones Jacob Lawrence Norman Lewis Elizabeth Catlett
African-American Art Harlem Rennaissance A New Negro – A Visual Art Nationalism / Primativism / Atavism Aaron Douglas Lois Mailou jones Jacob Lawrence Norman Lewis Elizabeth Catlett
African-American Art Harlem Rennaissance A New Negro – A Visual Art Nationalism / Primativism / Atavism Aaron Douglas Lois Mailou jones Jacob Lawrence Norman Lewis Elizabeth Catlett
African-American Art Harlem Rennaissance A New Negro – A Visual Art Nationalism / Primativism / Atavism Aaron Douglas Lois Mailou jones Jacob Lawrence Norman Lewis Elizabeth Catlett
African-American Art Harlem Rennaissance A New Negro – A Visual Art Nationalism / Primativism / Atavism Aaron Douglas Lois Mailou jones Jacob Lawrence Norman Lewis Elizabeth Catlett
African-American Art Harlem Rennaissance A New Negro – A Visual Art Nationalism / Primativism / Atavism Aaron Douglas Lois Mailou jones Jacob Lawrence Norman Lewis Elizabeth Catlett
Gorky was born in the village of Khorgom, situated on the shores of Lake Van. It is not known exactly when he was born: it was sometime between 1902 and 1905. (In later years Gorky was vague about even the date of his birth, changing it from year to year.) In 1910 his father emigrated to America to avoid the draft, leaving his family behind in the town of Van.
André Breton, the leader of the Surrealist group, assigned this work its title based on a meal he shared with Gorky, during which Breton associated an artichoke leaf with an owl. Both artists were members of the European artistic avant-garde living in exile in New York during World War II. Gorky's interest in unpremeditated or automatic gestures was aided by his use of thin, liquid paint, which he poured onto the canvas, allowing it to seep freely into the support. The shapes in this painting, while vaguely recognizable, never fully describe any one thing and therefore encourage free association— a mainstay of Surrealist intellectual activities.
his oeuvre is a phenomenal achievement in its own right, synthesizing Surrealism and the sensuous color and painterliness of the School of Paris with his own highly personal formal vocabulary.
He was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt Davis and Helen Stuart Davis. His parents both worked in the arts. His father was the art editor of the Philadelphia Press while his mother was a sculptor. Davis studied painting, and art under Robert Henri, the leader of the early modern art group the Eight; he was one of the youngest painters to exhibit in the controversial Armory Show of 1913.
his oeuvre is a phenomenal achievement in its own right, synthesizing Surrealism and the sensuous color and painterliness of the School of Paris with his own highly personal formal vocabulary.
his oeuvre is a phenomenal achievement in its own right, synthesizing Surrealism and the sensuous color and painterliness of the School of Paris with his own highly personal formal vocabulary.