Here are 10 trailblazing Black visual artists who have shaped history. From sculptors to painters, photographers, directors, or illustrators Whatever they were, throughout history black people who worked in the visual arts have managed to carve out a place for themselves in the art world that is not insignificant. Through breaking down cultural barriers or denying conventional professions for their own creativity in any given field of art, these artists combined their respective efforts. The combined effect of their work is not only a testimony of the African American experience but also a powerful expression of cultural resistance.
Next is a look at 10Black visual artists who defied expectations and left an irreversible mark on American history.
Jean-Michel Basquiat: From Graffiti to Iron Count Before he became a globally recognized Neo-Expressionist painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat–a Brooklyn native–was known as “Samo” or was out drinking beer and tagging subway cars with graffiti. In order to make a living, Basquiat sold apparel and postcards bearing his street art. However, a turning point occurred when his work was included in a group exhibition. His distinctive style, characterized by the use of a crown motif to symbolize Black power, social dichotomies, and historical references, soon attracted attention. By the mid- 1980s Basquiat was collaborating with Andy Warhol, and his original paintings sold for $50,000 each. Tragically, Basquiat’s life came to an end after he took heroin at the age of 27.Italic text
Edmonia Lewis: A Pioneer in Sculpture
Born of African American and Native American descent, Edmonia Lewis, was born around 1844 in Greenbush, New York. She was the first professional sculptor to represent both communities and the only black woman of her time to gain recognition in America’s art scene. Upon graduation from Oberlin College, Lewis moved to Boston, where she came to public attention with her bust of Civil War hero Colonel Robert Shaw. With the money from her own works, she travelled to Rome to carry on learning. Her own heritage and the trials of her own time are represented in her Neoclassical sculptures such as Arrow Maker and Forever Free.
James Van Der Zee: Documented Harlem Renaissance
James Van Der Zee, born in Massachusetts in 1886, became a noted photographer of middle-class black life during the Harlem Renaissance. Van Der Zee worked mainly out of a commercial studio; he took wedding photographs, family portraits and pictures of such blacks as Marcus Garvey and Bill Bojangles Robinson. His career experienced a resurgence when in 1969 The Metropolitan Museum of Art held a major exhibition of his oeuvre. His later years found Van Der Zee still pursuing his craft, working with such famous figures as Jean-Michel Basquiat, receiving an award from President Jimmy Carter and the Living Legacy Award before passing away in 1983.
Augusta Savage: A Powerful Female Sculptor Augustus Savage comes from Green Cove Springs, Florida. She began sculpting clay as a child because her father did not like it and wanted to put me to work. In 1915, Savage won a prize at the county fair in Clay County and had her talent praised by the press. This inspired her to study art. Moving to New York in the 1920s, she studied at Cooper Union and was a prominent artists of the Harlem Renaissance, creating busts of such figures as W.E.B. Du Bois. Despite racial discrimination she has always made a major social impact, both establishing organizations to assist black artists and producing such important works as The Harp, which was featured at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
Gordon Parks: A Visionary Photographer and Director Born in Kansas in 1912, Gordon Parks bought his first camera as a 25-year old. He picked this up when handed on coffee breaks to take photographs for the Farm Security Administration showing scenes from America’s Dust Bowl years and photographs of migrant workers in California using cheap cameras “disposable” film that he took out of his pocket as many times again to fill up other people’s books. With the federal government he produced some of his most famous photos, among them that iconic picture showing three boys on the floor of a bus – one of them white and two black – making circles of soup out balled-up paper. Parks, who later worked for LIFE magazine for 20 years, has photographed such prominent figures as Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. He also made a name for himself in film, becoming the first Black director of a major movie with The Learning Tree in 1969 and then achieving blockbuster success with Shaft in 1971.
After serving in World War II, Lawrence continued to document African-American life with his vibrant and narrative-driven paintings. He later turned his talents to teaching and for a while was a professor at the University of Washington. He gave some art that he had produced to various non-profit organizations in the hope they would be able to contribute with something positive.
Brooklyn-born Lorna Simpson is known for her concept mial photography, and in tackling such themes of race, culture, gener and idencty as art and what should be seen under any circumstances. After receiving degrees from the School of Visual Arts and from the University of California School at San Diego, she tissue no in the mid-18th with her large scale “photo-text” works as they were called. Lated on Simpson expanded this practice to include video installations further exploring issues of public sex acts and Black female identity. Her work has been shown all over the world in galleries, and in 2007 the Whitney Museum mounted a 20-year retrospective of her the artist.
Kara Walker, a paniter and silhoinettist, is known for her provacatie work that addresses such themes as Black history, the stereotypes of genler and identity. After graduating from the Rhode Island school of Design, Walker got noticed with her Black-paper silhouette mural Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as it Occurred between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart. Despite criticism from conservatisation s in say areas of play about Black stereotypes, Walker has continued to produce influential work–only receiving numerous awards and has taught at Columbia University.
E. Simms Campbell: Breaking Barriers in Illustration
In 1933,right up until his death in 1971 E. Simms Campbell was a regular illustrator and cartoonist for Esquire with occasionally only one week out of two that he did not contribute to the magazine.
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Campbell’s name has been linked with Marilyn Monroe’s and Nat King Cole’s among others and over 55 images of Camilla appeared in Esquire between 1936-1945 alone.
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“I personally do not like black people,” he once confessed in a 1962 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times’ Marshall Grombacher. “Unless they’re very quaint and colorful or have their war horses with them.
He died on December 10, 1971.
Horace Pippin: A Self-Taught Painter of the Black Experience
Born in Pennsylvania in 1888, Horace Pippin was a self-taught painter who specialized in the portrayal of African American life, religious themes, and landscapes. In his early twenties, a war injury crippled his right arm. Pippin mastered painting single-handedly, pushing a poker into the forearm of his injured limb and utilizing that end as a base for holding brushes. His folksy style of art won considerable attention on its merits, and he saw his works exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1938. Pippin’s genre paintings and biblically inspired scenes–both of which have been shown at prestigious institutions all across the United States–keep his memory alive to this day.
Their works not only explored new boundaries for their respective fields but also had a permanent and significant impact on the whole world of art and its history in America, thereby providing an encouragement that future Black artists felt they could break free from existing norms as well as putting forth their original views.
