African American Artist Spiral Painting Spike Lee 20 X 16 Inches Merton Simpson

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US, Item: 176277810578 AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTIST SPIRAL PAINTING SPIKE LEE 20 X 16 INCHES MERTON SIMPSON .

ARTIST: Merton Simpson(American, 1928-2013)

TITLE: Portrait of Spike Lee

DATE: 2000

SIGNATURE:  Signed lower right

MEDIUM: Oil and collage on canvas

SIZE: 20 x 16 in. 

this painting was previously at Susan Halper gallery. You can find it by searching google with search terms

spike lee SUSAN HALPER

Spiral was a collective of African-American artists initially formed by Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Norman Lewis, and Hale Woodruff on July 5, 1963. It has since become the name of an exhibition, Spiral: Perspectives on an African-American Art Collective.

Merton Simpson was a member of the Spiral Group which was formed by fellow artists and colleagues Romare Bearden, Al Hollingsworth, and Hale Woodruff. The purpose of Spiral was to gather African-American artists to discuss political and social issues, the Civil Rights Movement. The group was formed in part as a response to A. Philip Randolph's call for a "new visual order" that would be created in part by artists' contribution to the Black Freedom struggle. Members of the group worked together in obtaining buses to travel to the March on Washington in 1963. The focus of the group shifted from a more explicitly political trend to one that was more aesthetic and artistic. Bearden introduced Spiral members to collage work and the black and white artwork the group created reflected the political turmoil of the time



Simpson, Merton Daniel. (Charleston, SC, 1928-New York, NY, 2013)    

Bibliography and Exhibitions

MONOGRAPHS AND SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

Charleston (SC). Gibbes Art Gallery. MERTON D. SIMPSON: The Journey of an Artist. 1995. Unpag. (20 pp.) exhib. cat., color illus., bibliog. Text by curator Angela D. Mack. 4to (22 x 29 cm.), wraps. First ed.

Charleston (SC). Home Book Shop. MERTON SIMPSON. 1949. Solo exhibition.

Galerie Noir d'Ivoire. MERTON D. SIMPSON: Ancestral Improvisations. March 27-April 11, 1992. Solo exhibition. Brochure with text by Allen Stone. [The Merton D. Simpson Papers, 1956-1994, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina.]

Greenville (SC). Greenville County Museum of Art and Hampton III Gallery, Taylors, SC. MERTON SIMPSON: Confrontations. November 24, 2010-March 13, 2011. Dual-venue solo exhibition of Simpson's best-known works, his "Confrontation" series of the 1960s. The Greenville exhibition includes fifteen large figurative expressionistic paintings created between 1968 and 1972, The Hampton III exhibition includes smaller works from the Confrontation series and paintings from the early years of Simpson’s career.(November 18-December 31, 2010.)

Hollingsworth, Alvin C. MERTON SIMPSON, Artist. 1979. In: Black Art vol. 3, no. 2 (1979).

Howard, David [Dir.]. MERTON SIMPSON: The Artist Spirit as Statement (video). San Francisco: Visual Studios, 1992. [The Merton D. Simpson Papers, 1956-1994, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina.]

New York (NY). Bill Hodges Gallery. MERTON D. SIMPSON: Paintings from a Life in Art. May 12-June 25, 2005. 40 pp. exhib. cat., 37 color illus. 8vo, wraps. Ed. of 1000.

Pittsburgh (PA). Chatham College Art Gallery. MERTON D. SIMPSON. 1968. Solo exhibition.

Simpson, Merton D. The MERTON D. SIMPSON Papers, 1956-1994. 1956-1994. Housed: South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Charleston.

Washington (DC). Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Oral history interview with MERTON D. SIMPSON, November 1968. 1968. Interview by Albert Murray. Sound recordings: 1 sound tape reel (1 hour, 50 min.) ; 7 in. Transcript: 62 pp. [Transcript at Smithsonian website: http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/simpso68.htm.]

Washington (DC). Barnett Aden Gallery. MERTON D. SIMPSON. May, 1951. Exhib. cat. Intro. by Robert Gwathmey. Solo exhibition. (Simpson's first solo exhibition.) [Review: "At Barnett Aden," Washington Post, May 1951.]

Washington (DC). Barnett Aden Gallery. MERTON D. SIMPSON. March, 1956. Exhib. cat. Foreword by Leo Manso. Solo exhibition.

GENERAL BOOKS AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

ATLANTA (GA). Atlanta University. Atlanta University Contemporary Art Collection. 1959. 38 pp., 22 b&w illus., biogs. and illus. for: Charles Alston, Jacob Lawrence, William Palmer, and Hale Woodruff; list of 186 African American artists whose works were the prize winner purchases from the annual Atlanta University shows, 1942-1959, with titles of works. Prizewinners: 1942: William Carter, Frederick C. Flemister, Edward L. Loper, Charles Alston, Lois Mailou Jones; 1943: John Wilson, Hughie Lee-Smith, Mark Hewitt, Henry W. Bannarn, Frederick D. Jones; 1944: Cecil D. Nelson, Jr., John Farrar, John Wilson, Walter W. Smith, Frank W. Neal, Vernon Winslow, William E. Artis, Selma Burke, Mark Hewitt, James Dallas Parks, John Wilson; 1945: Henry W. Bannarn, John Wilson, Frederick Flemister, John N. Robinson (as John D.), Robert Willis, Margery W. Brown (as Marjorie), William E. Artis, Richmond Barthé, Mark Hewitt, Jenelsie Walden Holloway (as Jenelse Walden), Margaret G. Burroughs (as Margaret Goss); 1946: Joseph Delaney, Charles White, Ellis Wilson, Franklin M. Shands (painting), Leonard Cooper, Franklin M. Shands (watercolor), Richmond Barthé, Elizabeth Catlett, Charles White, Wilmer Jennings, Roy DeCarava; 1947: Frank H. Alston, Jr., Frank Neal, John Wilson, Joseph D. Atkinson, Calvin Burnett, Julia Ann Fields, William Artis, Samella Sanders (Lewis), H.E. Chandler, Hayward L. Oubré, Frank A. Wyley; 1948: Henry Bannarn, Rose Piper, Jacob Lawrence, Clarence Shivers, Calvin Burnett, William E. Pajaud, Richmond Barthé, Houston E. Chandler (sculpture), Bob Blackburn, Houston E. Chandler (prints), Hayward L. Oubré; 1949: Lois Mailou Jones, Cecil D. Nelson, Jr., Frederick D. Jones, Jr., Romeyn Van Vleck Lippman, Walter A. Simon, Charles W. Stallings, Jewel Simon, Charles White, Samella Sanders (Lewis), James H. Malone; 1950: John Howard, James Reuben Reed, Merton D. Simpson, William Hayden, Warren L. Harris, Estella W. Johnson, Eddie F. Jordan, John W. Rhoden, Samella Sanders (Lewis), Bob Blackburn, John T. Biggers; 1951: Merton D. Simpson, Walter A. Simon, Hale A. Woodruff, Richard W. Dempsey, Donald H. Roberts, Gladys W. Renwick, William E. Artis, Charles W. Stallings, Charles White, Charles W. Enoch Jr., John Wilson; 1952: Harvey W. Lee, Jr., Fred Jones, Ernest Crichlow, Samuel A. Countee, Lois Mailou Jones, Donald H. Roberts, Guy L. Miller, William E. Artis, John Wilson, Elizabeth Catlett, Patricia C. Walker; 1953: Walter H. Simon, Irvin H. Turner, Thomas E. Goodwin, Charles White, Romeyn Van Vleck Lippman, Jewel Woodward (as Woodard) Simon, John T. Biggers (sculpture), Hayward L. Oubré, Leroy C. Weaver, John T. Biggers (print), Robert A. Daniel; 1954: Jean Flowers, Romeyn Van Vleck Lipmann, Frederick D. Jones, Jr., Harper T. Phillips, John Wilson (watercolor), Henry Bannarn, Jack Jordan, Margaret S. Collins, John Wilson (print), Charles W. Stallings, Samella S. Lewis; 1955: William E. Rice, John Wilson, James Yeargans, Lois Mailou Jones, Margaret T. Burroughs, Archie Taylor, Henry W. Bannarn, Jewel Woodward (as Woodard) Simon, Howard E. Lewis, Jimmie Mosely, Robert A. Daniel; 1956: Merton D. Simpson, Frederick D. Jones, Jr., Irene V. Clark, Leonard H. Jones, Lewis H. Stephens, Gerald F. Hooper, Marion Perkins, Elizabeth Catlett, Samella Sanders Lewis, Calvin Burnett, Charles W. Stallings; 1957: Thomas Jefferson Flanagan, Benjamin Britt, Geraldine McCullough, Walter Wallace, Jewel Woodard Simon, John Wilson (watercolor), Hayward L. Oubré (sculpture), Jack Jordan, John Wilson (print), Hayward L. Oubré (print), Howard E. Lewis; 1958: Irene V. Clark, James Watkins, Cullen C. Lowe, Benjamin Britt, June Hector, William S. Carter, Guy L. Miller, Gregory Ridley, Barbara L. Gallon, Tommie E. Price, Zenobia Hammonds; 1959: David C. Driskell, Mildred A. Braxton, James Yeargans, James Watkins, Vivian Williams, Leedell Moorehead, William E. Artis, Alfred Stevenson, Hubert C. Taylor, John W. (as H.) Arterbery, Anna E. Costley. 8vo, blue paper covers, lettered in brown. First ed.

ATLANTA (GA). Atlanta University. Ninth Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Prints by Negro Artists. 1950. Group exhibition. Purchase award winngers included: Bob Blackburn, John T. Biggers, William Hayden, Warren L. Harris, John Howard, Estella W. Johnson, Eddie Jack Jordan (as Eddie F.), Samella Sanders (Lewis), James Reuben Reed, John W. Rhoden, Merton D. Simpson.

ATLANTA (GA). Atlanta University. Tenth Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Prints by Negro Artists. 1951. Group exhibition. Purchase award winners included: Merton D. Simpson (Charles Hope Landscape Award), Walter A. Simon (Best of Show - figure painting), Hale A. Woodruff (Painting award), William E. Artis (Sculpture award), Richard W. Dempsey (Popular vote winner), Donald H. Roberts, Gladys W. Renwick, Charles W. Stallings, Charles White (Graphic arts award), Charles W. Enoch Jr., John Wilson.

ATLANTA (GA). High Museum of Art. Highlights from the Atlanta University Collection of Afro-American Art. October-November, 1973. Unpag. (37 pp. plus errata slip) exhib. cat., illus. Intro. by Thomas D. Jarrett; foreword by Gudmund Vigtel; text by Richard A. Long. Over 70 artists listed. Includes: James Adair, Jackie W. Adams, Charles Alston, Frank Herman Alston, Jr., Benny Andrews, John W. Arterbery, Joseph Atkinson, William E. Artis, Herman Kofi Bailey, Mike Bannarn, Ernie Barnes, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Bob Blackburn, Shirley Bolton, Eva Booker, Mildred A. Braxton, Arthur L. Britt, Margery Brown, Selma Burke, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, William S. Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Houston E. Chandler, Irene V. Clark, Floyd Coleman, Robert Colescott, Margaret S. Collins, William Leonard Cooper, Anne A. Costley, Samuel A. Countee, Ernest Crichlow, Robert A. Daniel, Roy DeCarava, Joseph Delaney, Richard Dempsey, David Driskell, Charles Enoch, John Farrar, Julia A. Fields, Thomas J. Flanagan, Frederick Flemister, Jean Flowers, Otis Galbreath, Barbara L. Gallon, Sam Gilliam, Charles Haines, Zenobia Hammonds, Edwin A. Harleston, William A. Harper, Palmer C. Hayden, William M. Hayden, June Hector, Mark Hewitt, Leon Hicks, Jenelsie Holloway, John Miller Howard, Richard Hunt, Wilmer Jennings, Estella W. Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, Fred Jones, Leonard Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Samella Lewis, Norma Morgan, Marion Perkins, John Rhoden, Franklin M. Shands, Jewel Simon, Merton Simpson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Charles White, Robert Willis, Ellis Wilson, Hale Woodruff, et al. [Traveled to: Baltimore Museum of Art, January 15-February 24, 1974; Jacksonville Art Museum, FL, March 15-April 15; Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, June 1-July 15, 1974; Delta Fine Arts, Inc., Winston-Salem, NC; Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston; Studio Museum in Harlem; DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago.] 4to (28 cm.), wraps. First ed.

BALTIMORE (MD). Murphy Fine Arts Center, Morgan State College. Salute to the Barnett Aden Gallery. November 24-December 20, 1968. Exhib. cat., illus. Includes: A. B. Jackson, James C. McMillan, David Driskell, James V. Herring, James L. Wells, William H. Johnson, Sue Jane Mitchell Smock, Charles White, Samuel Brown, Hughie Lee-Smith; drawings: Norman Lewis, Adolphus Ealey, James Porter, Carroll Sockwell; oil paintings: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Aaron Douglas, Laura Wheeler Waring, Elizabeth Catlett, Lee-Smith, Edward M. Bannister, Ellis Wilson, Merton Simpson, Lois Mailou Jones, Aaron Douglas, Charles Sebree, Eldzier Cortor, John Farrar, Norman Lewis, David Driskell, Hale Woodruff, Archibald Motley, Romare Bearden, William E. Scott, Charles Davis, Charles White; watercolors: W. H. Johnson, Alma Thomas, Jacob Lawrence, Samuel Brown; sculpture: Elizabeth Catlett, Selma Burke.

BEVERLY HILLS (CA). Steve Turner Gallery. Not Just February: Works by African American Artists 1817-2002. April 5-May 11, 2002. Exhib. cat. Group exhibition. Included: Grafton Tyler Brown, William H. Johnson, Merton Simpson, Hughie Lee-Smith, Artis Lane, John Outterbridge, Michael Ray Charles, et al.

BEVERLY HILLS (CA). Steve Turner Gallery. Transatlantic Jazz: Herbert Gentry, Merton D. Simpson. May 24-June 29, 2002. Poster size sheet folded to make a catalogue, 10 color plates of paintings spanning 50 years, 4 b&w photos of artists, substantial text on the influence of jazz on these two painters.

BIRMINGHAM (AL). Birmingham Museum of Art. Spiral: Perspectives on an African-American Art Collective. December 5, 2010-March 6, 2011. Group exhibition. Included: Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Romare Bearden, Calvin Douglass, Perry Ferguson, Reginald Gammon, Felrath Hines, Alvin Hollingsworth, Norman Lewis, William Majors, Richard Mayhew, Earl Miller, Merton Simpson, James Yeargans, Hale Woodruff. [Traveled to: Studio Museum in Harlem, July 14-October 23, 2011.]

BROOKLYN (NY). Brooklyn Museum of Art. Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties. March 7-July 6, 2014. 176 pp. exhib. cat., color and b&w illus., notes, bibliog., index. Texts by Kellie Jones, Connie H. Choi, Teresa A Carbone, Cynthia A. Young; chronol. by Dalila Scruggs. Includes: Chalres Alston, Benny Andrews, Emma Amos, Romare Bearden, Frank Bowling, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase-Riboud, LeRoy P. Clarke, Roy DeCarava, Jeff Donaldson, Emory Douglas, Melvin Edwards, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, Ben Hazard, Barkeley Hendricks, Jae Jarrell, Daniel Larue Johnson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Tom Lloyd, Ademola Olugebefola, John Outterbridge, Joe Overstreet, Gordon Parks, Ben Patterson, Noah Purifoy, Faith Ringgold, John T. Riddle, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Robert A. Sengstacke, Merton D. Simpson, Moneta J. Sleet, Jr., Bob Thompson, Charles White, Jack Whitten, William T. Williams, Ernest C. Withers. Dozens of others mentioned in passing. [Traveled to: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, August 30-December 14, 2014.] 4to (11.2 x 9.7 in.), boards. First ed.

CATTELL, JACQUES, ed. Who's Who in American Art 16. New York: Bowker, 1984. Curators who are not also artists are included in this bibliographic entry but are not otherwise listed in the database: We are NOT going to go through all of these volumes over the decades; this one is catalogued simply to record the degree to which living African American artists had entered the conciousness of the mainstream American art world as of 1984. [Should be consulted along with Falk's Who Was Who in American Art (1985) to complete the "awareness list" as of the mid-1980s.] 160 artists are included here along with 1000 pages of far more obscure white artists: p. 21, Benny Andrews, 33, Ellsworth Ausby, 50, Richmond Barthé; 57, Romare Bearden, 76, John Biggers, 83, Betty Blayton, 98, Frank Bowling, 108, Arthur Britt, 112, Wendell Brooks, 116, Marvin Brown, 117-18, Vivian Browne, 121, Linda Goode Bryant, 128, Calvin Burnett, 129, Margaret Burroughs, 132, Carole Byard, 133, Walter Cade, 148, Yvonne Pickering Carter, 168, Claude Clark, 178-79, Floyd Coleman, 179, Robert Colescott, 181, Paul Collins, 184, James Conlon, 188-89, Arthur Coppedge; 191, Eldzier Cortor, Averille Costley-Jacobs, 198, Allan Crite; 210, D'Ashnash-Tosi [Barbara Chase-Riboud], 213-14, Alonzo Davis, 219-20, Roy DeCarava, 222, Avel DeKnight, 226, Richard Dempsey, 228, Murry DePillars, 237, Raymond Dobard, 239, Jeff Donaldson, 243, John Dowell, 246, David Driskell, 256, Allan Edmunds, 256-57, James Edwards, 260, David Elder, 265, Whitney John Engeran, 267, Marion Epting, 270, Burford Evans, 271, Minnie Evans, 271-72, Frederick Eversley, 277, Elton Fax, 304, Charlotte Franklin, 315, Edmund Barry Gaither (curator), 317, Reginald Gammon, 325, Herbert Gentry, 326, Joseph Geran, 328, Henri Ghent (curator), 332, Sam Gilliam, 346, Russell Gordon, 354, Rex Goreleigh, 361, Eugene Grigsby, 375, Robert Hall, 380, Leslie King-Hammond (curator), 381, Grace Hampton, 385, Marvin Harden, 406, Barkley Hendricks, 418, Leon Hicks, 414, Freida High-Wasikhongo, 424-25, Al Hollingsworth, 428, Earl Hooks, 433, Humbert Howard, 439, Richard Hunt, 450, A. B. Jackson, Oliver Jackson; 451, Suzanne Jackson, 454, Catti James, Frederick James, 464, Lester L. Johnson; 467, Ben Jones, 467-68, Calvin Jones, 469, James Edward Jones, Lois Jones, 471, Theodore Jones, 489, Paul Keene; 492, James Kennedy, 495-96, Virginia Kiah, 535, Raymond Lark, 540-41, Jacob Lawrence, 546, Hughie Lee-Smith, 557, Samella Lewis, 586, Cheryl Ilene McClenney (arts admin.), 595, Anderson Macklin, 620, Philip Lindsay Mason, 625, Richard Mayhew, 597, Oscar McNary, 598, Kynaston McShine (curator), 610, 637, Marianne Miles a.k.a. Marianne; 638, Earl Miller, 640-41, Lev Mills, 649, Evangeline Montgomery; 653, Norma Morgan, 655, Keith Morrison, 657, Dewey Mosby (curator), 671, Otto Neals, 693, Ademola Olugebefola, 700, Hayward Oubré, John Outterbridge, Wallace Owens, 702, William Pajaud, 706, James Parks, 710, Curtis Patterson, 711, Sharon Patton (curator), 711-12, John Payne, 720, Regenia Perry (curator), 724, Bertrand Phillips; 727, Delilah Pierce, 728, Vergniaud Pierre-Noël, 729, Stanley Pinckney, Howardena Pindell, 744, Leslie Price, Arnold Prince, 747, Mavis Pusey, 752, Bob Ragland, 759, Roscoe Reddix, 763, Robert Reid, 768, John Rhoden, 772, John Riddle, Gregory Ridley, 774, Faith Ringgold, 778, Lucille Roberts, 803, Mahler Ryder, 804, Betye Saar, 815, Raymond Saunders, 834, John Scott, 841, James Sepyo, 857, Thomas Sills, 859, Jewel Simon, 861, Merton Simpson, Lowery Sims (curator); 865, Van Slater, 869, Dolph Smith, 873, Vincent Smith, 886, Francis Sprout, 890-91, Shirley Stark, 898, Nelson Stevens, 920, Luther Stovall, 909, Robert Stull, 920, Ann Tanksley, James Tanner, 924, Rod Taylor, 922, William Bradley Taylor [Bill Taylor], 929, Elaine Thomas, 946, Curtis Tucker, 949, Leo Twiggs, 970, Larry Walker, 977, James Washington, 979, Howard Watson, 994, Amos White, 995, Franklin White, 996 Tim Whiten, 1001-2, Chester Williams, 1003, Randolph Williams, Todd Williams, Walter Williams, William T. Williams, 1005, Edward Wilson, George Wilson, 1005-6, John Wilson, 1007, Frank Wimberley, 1016, Rip Woods, 1017, Shirley Woodson, 1019, Bernard Wright, 1025, Charles Young, 1026, Kenneth Young, Milton Young.

CHARLESTON (SC). Gibbes Art Gallery. Reflections of a Southern Heritage: 20th Century Black Artists of the Southeast. September 6-October 28, 1979. Unpag. (52 pp.) exhib. cat., annotated b&w illus. throughout with biographical information on each artist. Intro. by Leo F. Twiggs. Artists listed are Charles Alston, Benny Andrews, William Artis, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Arthur L. Britt, Benjamin Britt, Francis H. (Sonny) Brown, Yvonne Pickering Carter, Claude Clark, Eldzier Cortor, David C. Driskell, Adolphus Ealey, Minnie Evans, Thomas Jefferson Flanagan, Fred Flemister, Edwin Augustus Harleston, Palmer Hayden, James V. Herring, Terry Hunter, Wilmer Jennings, Jesse Jeter, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, Larry Francis Lebby, Henri Linton, Lev Mills, Jimmie Mosley, Archibald Motley, James A. Porter, Lee Ransaw, James Reuben Reed, Gregory Ridley, Arthur Rose, Augusta Savage, Merton Simpson, Hughie Lee-Smith, Alma Thomas, Leo F. Twiggs, James Watkins, Edward B. Webster, James Lesesne Wells. An additional film series featured: "Two Centuries of Black American Art," "Made in Mississippi: Black Folk Art and Crafts" and "Black Art of the U.S.A." [Traveled to: Greenville County Museum of Art, November 9-December 6, 1979; Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC, January 13-February 17, 1980.] [Review: Lynne Langley, "Charleston Black Arts Festival Focuses on Twentieth Century Work," The News and Courier (Charleston), September 7, 1979: 11 artists mentioned by name (with several misspellings); no illus.] 8vo (24 x 16 cm.), wraps. First ed.

CLEMSON (SC). ARTS Center and Clemson University. State Art Collection: The African American Voice. January 15-February 29, 2008. Group exhibition. Curated by Harriett Green, visual arts director at the SC Arts Commission. Included: 37 works by 24-25 artists and artisans, selected from the South Carolina State Art Collection. Artists included: Tarleton Blackwell, Beverly Buchanan, Richard Burnside, Sam Doyle, Connie Floyd, Joseph Gandy, MacArthur Goodwin, Jesse Guinyard, Terry Hunter, Larry Jordan, Larry Lebby, Leroy Marshall, Dan Robert Miller, Sheri Moore, Arthur Rose, Merton Simpson, Robert Spencer, Maxwell Taylor, Leo Twiggs, Winston Wingo, along with basket weavers and sweetgrass basket weavers Mary Jackson, Linda Blake, Marguerite Middleton and Elizabeth Kinlaw. [Traveled to: Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, Hilton Head, SC, March-November 11, 2008; The Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County, Camden, SC, February 12-28, 2009; Belton Center for the Arts, January 16-February 26, 2010; Dalton Gallery, Clinton Junior College, Rock Hill, SC, October 1-December 10, 2010; USC Beaufort Art Gallery, Beaufort, SC, January 15-February 25, 2011; Black Creek Art Center, Hartsville, SC, February 7-March 28, 2013; Jones-Carter Gallery, Lake City, SC, January 31-March 22, 2014; York W. Bailey Museum at Penn Center, St. Helena, August 1-29, 2014.]

COLUMBIA (SC). Columbia Museum of Art. Conflict and Transcendence. African-American Art in South Carolina. August 28-December 13, 1992. 40 pp. exhib. cat., illus. Texts by Theresa S. Singleton, Thomas L. Johnson and curator Frank Martin (Context & Culture: Art, Race and Interpretive Bias in Selected Works of Contemporary African American Art from South Carolina). Artists exhibited: Dave the Potter, Edwin Harleston, Elise F. Harleston, James V. Herring, William H. Johnson, Richard Samuel Roberts, Philip Simmons, Merton Simpson, Tarleton Blackwell, Beverly Buchanan, Sam Doyle, Joseph Gandy, MacArthur Goodwin, Jonathan Green, Jesse Guinyard, James Hampton, Harry Harrison, Larry Jordan, Dan Robert Miller, Otto Neals, Colin Quashie, Arthur Rose, Robert Spencer, Maxwell Taylor, Joann Thompson, Leo Twiggs, Edward Webster, Winston Wingo. Additional artists mentioned in text: Rich Williams, Aaron Douglas, Charles Spears, Jr., Elton Fax, Edward B. Webster, Adrian Piper. [Traveled to: Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC; Florence Museum of Art and Science, May 3-July 2, 1993; Winthrop College Gallery, Rock Hill, SC; I. P. Stanback Museum and Planetarium, South Carolina State College, Orangeburg; Sumter Gallery of Art, Winston-Salem State University, Winston-Salem, NC.] 4to (26 cm.), wraps. First ed.

COLUMBIA (SC). South Carolina State Museum. 100 Years/100 Artists: Views of the 20th Century in South Carolina Art. October 29, 1999-March 19, 2000. Group exhibition curated by six curators. Included: Tarleton Blackwell, Sam Doyle, Tom Feelings, Jonathan Green, James Hampton, Edwin A. Harleston, Mary Jackson (basketmaker), William H. Johnson, Larry Jordan, Larry Lebby, Colin Quashie, Richard Roberts, Arthur Rose, Philip Simmons, Merton D. Simpson, Robert Spencer, Leo Twiggs, Cecil J. Williams.

COLUMBIA (SC). South Carolina State Museum. Abstract Art in South Carolina, 1949-2012. February 24-August 26, 2012. Group exhibition. Included: Merton Simpson and Winston Wingo.

COOKS, BRIDGET R. Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011. 240 pp., color illus., notes, index. The narrative begins in 1927 with the Chicago "Negro in Art Week" exhibition, and in the 1930s with the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition of "William Edmondson" (1937) and "Contemporary Negro Art" (1939) at the Baltimore Museum of Art; the focus, however, is on exhibitions held from the 1960s to present with chapters on "Harlem on My Mind" (1969), "Two Centuries of Black American Art" (1976); "Black Male" (1994-95); and "The Quilts of Gee's Bend" (2202). Numerous artists, but most mentioned only in passing: Cedric Adams, Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, numerous Bendolphs (Annie, Jacob, Mary Ann, Mary Lee, Louisiana) and Loretta Bennett, Ed Bereal, Donald Bernard, Nayland Blake, Gloria Bohanon, Leslie Bolling, St. Clair Bourne, Cloyd Boykin, Kay Brown, Selma Burke, Bernie Casey, Roland Charles, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Claude Clark, Linda Day Clark, Robert Colescott, Dan Concholar, Emilio Cruz, Ernest Crichlow (footnote only), Alonzo Davis, Selma Day (footnote only), Roy DeCarava, Aaron Douglas, Emory Douglas, Robert M. Douglass, Jr., David Driskell, Robert S. Duncanson, William Edmondson, Elton Fax (footnote only), Cecil L. Fergerson, Roland Freeman, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Reginald Gammon (footnote only), K.D. Ganaway, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, William A. Harper, Palmer Hayden, Vertis C. Hayes, Barkley L. Hendricks, James V. Herring, Richard Hunt, Rudy Irwin, May Howard Jackson, Suzanne Jackson, Joshua Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Gwendolyn Knight, Wifredo Lam, Artis Lane, Jacob Lawrence, Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Samella Lewis, Alvin Loving (footnote only), William Majors (footnote only), Richard Mayhew, Reginald McGhee, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Richard Mayhew, Willie Middlebrook, Ron Moody, Lottie and Lucy Mooney, Flora Moore, Scipio Moorhead, Norma Morgan, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Sara Murrell (footnote only), Otto Neals (footnote only), Odili Donald Odita, Noni Olubisi, Ademola Olugebefola, John Outterbridge, Gordon Parks, six Pettways (Annie E., Arlonzia, Bertha, Clinton, Jr., Jesse T., Letisha), James Phillips, Howardena Pindell, Horace Pippin, Carl Pope, James A. Porter, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Noah Purifoy, Martin Puryear, Okoe Pyatt (footnote only), Robert Reid (footnote only), John Rhoden, John Riddle, Faith Ringgold (footnote only), Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders (footnote only), Augusta Savage, William E. Scott, Georgette Seabrook, James Sepyo (footnote only), Taiwo Shabazz (footnote only), Gary Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Merton Simpson (footnote only), Albert Alexander Smith, Arenzo Smith, Frank Stewart, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, Danny Tisdale, Melvin Van Peebles, James Vanderzee, Annie Walker, Kara Walker, Augustus Washington, Timothy Washington, Carrie Mae Weems, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Pat Ward Williams, William T. Williams, Deborah Willis, Fred Wilson, Ernest C. Withers, Beulah Ecton Woodard, Hale Woodruff, Lloyd Yearwood, Annie Mae and Nettie Pettway Young. 8vo (9 x 6 in.), wraps.

DOVER, CEDRIC. American Negro Art. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1960. 186 pp., over 300 illus., 8 color plates, bibliog. by Maureen Dover, index of artists and works, general index. Ground-breaking study, still extremely important for illustrations of work by artists not illustrated elsewhere, and many others mentioned as well. Includes (some with only brief mention): John Henry Adams, Jr., Alonzo Aden, William Artis, Henry Bannarn, Edward Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Robert Blackburn, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase, Irene Clark, Claude Clark, Eldzier Cortor, Charles C. Davis, Beauford Delaney, Richard Dempsey, Aaron Douglas, Robert Duncanson, Elton Fax, Meta Warrick Fuller, Rex Goreleigh, Eugene Grigsby, Jr., Phillip Hampton, Edwin A. Harleston, William M. Hayden, Vertis Hayes, G. W. Hobbs (now known to be white), Alvin Hollingsworth, Earl Hooks, Humbert Howard, Julien Hudson, Richard Hunt, May Howard Jackson, Wilmer Jennings, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, Sargent Johnson, Joshua Johnston, Lois Mailou Jones, Jack Jordan, Joseph Kersey, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Edward Loper, Scipio Moorhead, Archibald Motley, Haywood Oubré, Marion Perkins, Harper Phillips, Horace Pippin, James Porter, Patrick Reason, John Rhoden, John Robinson, Walter Sanford, Augusta Savage, Charles Sebree, Carroll Simms, Merton Simpson, William Simpson, Henry O. Tanner, Alma Thomas, Dox Thrash, Eugene Warburg, James Wells, Charles White, Walter Williams, Stan Williamson, Ed Wilson, Edwin E. Wilson, Ellis Wilson, John Wilson, Hale Woodruff. [Reviews: Margaret Burroughs, Freedomways 1 (Spring 1961):107-110; Romare Bearden, Leonardo [Oxford, England] 3 (Apr. 1970):241-243; Numa J. Roussève, Interracial Review [St. Louis, MO] 34 (May 1961):140-141.] 8vo (25 cm.), cloth, d.j. First ed.

FINE, ELSA HONIG. The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1973. x, 310 pp., 342 b&w illus., 38 color plates, bibliography and notes, index. Survey of work from the colonial period through the 1970s. Approx. 100 artists represented. An important reference work with many women artists included: Charles Alston, Benny Andrews, Malcolm Bailey, Edward Bannister, Amiri Baraka, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Henry Bibb, Betty Blayton, Grafton Tyler Brown, Kay Brown, Dana Chandler, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Emilio Cruz, Thomas Day, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, Robert M. Douglass, Jr., Robert S. Duncanson, Melvin Edwards, Frederick J. Eversley, Allan Freelon, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Reginald Gammon, Sam Gilliam, Henry Gudgell, David Hammons, Marvin Harden, William A. Harper, Palmer Hayden, Felrath Hines, Alvin C. Hollingsworth, Julien Hudson, Richard Hunt, Bill Hutson, Walter C. Jackson, Daniel Larue Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Marie Johnson, Milton Derr (as Milton Johnson), Joshua Johnston, Ben Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Cliff Joseph, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, James Lewis, Norman Lewis, Tom Lloyd, Al Loving, Richard Mayhew, Donald McIlvaine, Scipio Moorhead, Norma Morgan, Archibald Motley, George Neal, Joe Overstreet, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, Patrick Reason, Robert Reid, Gary Rickson, Faith Ringgold, Raymond Saunders, William E. Scott, Christopher Shelton, Thomas Sills, Merton Simpson, William H. Simpson, John H. Smith, Tony Smith, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, Bob Thompson, Lovett Thompson, Neptune Thurston, Ulysses Vidal, Bill Walker, Eugene Warburg, Charles White, William T. Williams, A. B. Wilson, Hale Woodruff. [Excellent quality reprint in sturdy cloth binding with all original color plates was issued by Hacker, NY, 1982.] Small, 4to, black cloth with silver lettering, d.j. First ed.

GREENVILLE (NC). Greenville County Museum of Art. South Carolina Icons. 2015. Three-person exhibition of work by David Drake (Dave the Potter), William H. Johnson and Merton Simpson.

GREENVILLE (SC). Greenville County Museum of Art. Contemporary Artists of South Carolina. South Carolina Tricentennial Commission, 1970. x, 234 pp. exhib. cat., color and b&w illus., biogs. of artists. Text by Jack A. Morris, Jr., with photographs by Robert Smeltzer. Group exhibition of forty artists. Included: Arthur Rose and Merton D. Simpson. Oblong 4to, wraps.

GRIGSBY, J. EUGENE. Art and Ethnics: Background for Teaching Youth in a Pluralistic Society. Dubuque (IA): Wm. C. Brown Company, 1977. 147 pp., illus. Includes: Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, William Artis, Malcolm Bailey, Mike Bannarn, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Bob Blackburn, Betty Blayton, Selma Burke, George Washington Carver, Elizabeth Catlett, Dana Chandler, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Dan R. Concholar, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Dale Brockman Davis, Beauford Delaney, James T. Diggs, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, Robert S. Duncanson, William M. Farrow, Perry Ferguson, Elton Fax, Doyle Foreman, Meta Vaux Fuller, Reginald Gammon, Sam Gilliam, Joseph W. Gilliard, Manuel Gomez, Rex Goreleigh, Ethel Guest, Edwin A Harleston, Palmer Hayden, Esther P. Hill, Felrath Hines, Alvin C. Hollingsworth, Richard, Hunt, Bob Jefferson, Joshua Johnson, Sargent Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Cliff Joseph, Edward Judie, Jacob Lawrence, Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Samella Lewis, Tom Lloyd, Hughie Lee-Smith, William Majors, Richard Mayhew, Earl B. Miller, E.J. Montgomery, Scipio Moorhead, Archibald J. Motley, Robert L. Neal, John Outterbridge, Joe Overstreet, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, Patrick Reason, Gary Rickson, Augusta Savage, Merton D. Simpson, Albert A. Smith, Vincent D. Smith, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, Neptune Thurston, Ruth Waddy, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, John Wilson, Hale Woodruff, Rip Woods, Hartwell Yeargans.

HARLEY, RALPH L., JR. Checklist of Afro-American Art and Artists. Kent State University Libraries, 1970. In: Serif 7 (December 1970):3-63. What could have been the solid foundation of future scholarship is unfortunately marred by errors of all kinds and the inclusion of numerous white artists. All Black artists are cross-referenced.

HILDEBRANDT, LORRAINE and RICHARD S. AIKEN, eds. A Bibliography of Afro-American Print and Non-Print Resources in Libraries of Pierce County, Washington. Tacoma Community College Library, 1969. Artists include: Charles Alston, William Artis, Henry Avery, Henry Bannarn, Edward Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Carter Bazile, Romare Bearden, Rigaud Bénoit, Charles Bible, John Biggers, Wilson Bigaud, Eloise Bishop, Robert Blackburn, Ramos Blanco (Uruguayan), James Bland, Leslie Bolling, Seymour Bottex, Elmer Brown, Fred Brown, Samuel Brown, Selma Burke, Calvin Burnett, E. Simms Campbell, William Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase, Ernest Crichlow, Claude Clark, William Arthur Cooper, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Crite, Harvey Cropper, Charles Dawson, Joseph Delaney, Richard Dempsey, Lillian A. Dorsey, Aaron Douglas, Glanton Dowdell, Robert S. Duncanson, William Edmondson, William Farrow, Elton Fax, Fred Flemister, Allan Freelon, Meta Fuller, Rex Goreleigh [as Gorleigh], Bernard Goss, Eugene Grigsby, John Hardrick, Edwin Harleston, William Harper, Isaac Hathaway, Palmer Hayden, William Hayden, Vertis Hayes, Geoffrey Holder, Al Hollingsworth, Humbert Howard, Richard Hunt, May Jackson, Daniel Larue Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent C. Johnson, William H. Johnson, Joshua Johnston, Henry B. Jones, Lois Jones, Ronald Joseph, Paul Keene, Joseph Kersey, Oliver LaGrone, Jacob Lawrence, Clarence Lawson, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Edward Loper, John C. Lutz, Geraldine McCullough, Charles McGee, Lloyd McNeil, William Majors, Sam Middleton, Ronald C. Moody, Scipio Moorhead, Norma Morgan, Archibald Motley, Robert L. Neal, Hayward L. Oubré, Joe Overstreet, Pastor Argudin y Pedroso [as Argudin (Pastor) Pedrosa], Marion Perkins, Harper Phillips, Delilah Pierce, Horace Pippin, Robert Pious, James Porter, Elizabeth Prophet, Florence Purviance, John Robinson, Leo Robinson, Augusta Savage, William Edouard Scott, Georgette Seabrooke, Charles Sebree, Merton Simpson, William H. Simpson, Albert Alexander Smith, Marvin Smith, Thelma Johnson Streat, Henry O. Tanner, Bob Thompson, Dox Thrash [as Thrasher], Laura Waring, James Washington, James Wells [see also Lesesne Wells], Charles White, Jack Whitten, Walter Williams, Ellis Wilson, John Wilson, Hale Woodruff.

HILTON HEAD (SC). Walter Greer Gallery, Arts Center of Coastal Carolina. The State Art Collection: Contemporary Conversations. October 2-November 12, 2010; January 10-February 16,February 16, 2011. Exhib. cat., illus. Group exhibition. Curated by Eleanor Heartney. 103 works selected from the larger collection are presented here in a two-part exhibition designed to suggest both the quality and diversity of the state’s cultural heritage. Included: Tarleton Blackwell, Beverly Buchanan, Richard Burnside, Sam Doyle, Jesse Guinyard, Jr., Terry K. Hunter, Mary Jackson (basketmaker), Larry Jordan, Dan Robert Miller, Arthur Rose, Merton Simpson, Maxwell Taylor, Leo Twiggs, Cecil Williams.

HOLMES, OAKLEY N., JR. Black artists in America. Part one [Film]. (1970), 1991. Artists in this segment include: Charles Alston, Sam Gilliam, Jr., Norman Lewis, Romare Bearden, Hughie Lee-Smith, Merton Simpson, Ernest Crichlow. Re-release on video (transfer from original 16mm. film.) VHS-NTSC: Sd., col. 20 min.

HUNTSVILLE (AL). Huntsville Museum of Art. Black Artists / South. April 1-July 29, 1979. 64 pp., illus., bibliog. Dedicated to Aaron Douglas. One of the most substantial exhibitions of Black artists of the '70s, curated by Ralph M. Hudson. 150 artists included: Charles H. Alston, Frederick C. Alston, Emma Amos, William Anderson, Benny Andrews, Emmanuel V. Asihene, William E. Artis, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Herman Beasley, John T. Biggers, Betty Blayton, Shirley Bolton, Arthur L. Britt, Sr., Wendell T. Brooks, Arthur Carraway, George Washington Carver, Yvonne Parks Catchings, Elizabeth Catlett, Don Cincone, Claude Clark, Claude Lockhart Clark, Benny Cole, Tarrence Corbin, G. C. Coxe, Ernest Crichlow, Ernest J. Davidson, Jr., Joseph Delaney, James Denmark, Murry N. Depillars, Hayward R. Dinsmore, Sr., Jeff R. Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, David Driskell, William Edmondson, Marion Epting, Burford E. Evans, Minnie Evans, Elton Fax, Sam Gilliam, J. Eugene Grigsby, Robert Hall, Phillip Hampton, Isaac Hathaway, Wilbur Haynie, Alfred Hinton, Fannie Holman, Earl J. Hooks, John W. Howard, Jean Paul Hubbard, Earnestine Huff, James Huff, Clementine Hunter, A.B. Jackson, Wilmer Jennings, Bill Johnson, Harvey L. Johnson, Joshua Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, William E. Johnston, James Edward Jones, Lawrence A. Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Ted Jones, Jack Jordan, James E. Kennedy, Virginia Jackson Kiah, Simmie L. Knox, Lawrence Compton Kolawole, Jean Lacy, Larry Francis Lebby, Hughie Lee-Smith, Samella Lewis, Henri Linton, Oscar Logan, Jesse Lott, Nina Lovelace, Edward McCluney, Jr., Phillip L. Mason, Steve Matthews, Grady Garfield Miles, Minnie Marianne Miles, Lev Mills, Clifford Mitchell, Corinne Mitchell, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Jimmie Mosely, Jr., Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Otto Neals, Trudell Mimms Obey, Hayward L. Oubré, John Outterbridge, Joe Overstreet, Roderick Owens, William Pajaud, Curtis Patterson, John Payne, Clifton Pearson, Marion Perkins, Harper Phillips, Robert Pious, Stephanie Pogue, P.H. Polk, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Roscoe C. Reddix, Robert Reid, Leon Renfro, John W. Rhoden, John T. Riddle, Jr., Gregory D. Ridley, Jr., Haywood Rivers, Arthur Rose, John T. Scott, Thomas Sills, Carroll H. Simms, Jewel Woodard Simon, Merton D. Simpson, Van E. Slater, Maurice Strider, Clarence Talley, James Tanner, Alma Thomas, Elaine F. Thomas, Bob Thompson, Mose Tolliver, Dox Thrash, Leo F. Twiggs, Harry Vital, Larry Walker, James W. Washington, Jr., James Watkins, Clifton G. Webb, James Lesesne Wells, Amos White, Charles White, Jessie Whitehead, Claudia Widdiss, Chester Williams, Walter J. Williams, William T. Williams, Ed Wilson, Ellis Wilson, Everett L. Winrow, Viola Wood, Hale Woodruff, Doris Woodson, Charles A. Young, Kenneth Young, Milton Young. 4to (29 cm.), felt-covered wraps. First ed.

ITHACA (NY). Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. Blackness in Color: Visual Expressions of the Black Arts Movement (1960 to present). August 26-October 22, 2000. Exhibition in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University. Artists included: Emma Amos, Nii Ahene ’La Mettle-Nunoo, Akili Ron Anderson, Ellsworth Ausby, Abdullah Aziz, Romare Bearden, G. Falcon Beazer, John Biggers, Camille Billops, Bob Blackburn, Carole Blank, Skunder Boghossian, Kay Brown, Vivian E. Browne. Viola Burley Leak, Carole M. Byard, Elizabeth Catlett, Dana Chandler, Eldzier Cortor, Adger Cowans, Renée Cox. Pat Davis, Murry DePillars, Jeff Donaldson, David Driskell, Melvin Edwards, Miriam B. Francis, Reginald Gammon, David Hammons, Michael Harris, Gaylord Hassan, Frieda High Wasikhongo Tesfagiorgis, Linda Hiwot, Robin Holder. Jamillah Jennings, Lois Mailou Jones, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Barbara J. Jones-Hogu, Charlotte Kâ (Richardson), Wifredo Lam, Carolyn Lawrence, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Al Loving, Valerie Maynard, Dindga McCannon, Geraldine McCullough, Muhammad Mufutau, Otto Neals, Malangatana Ngwenya, Ademola Olugebefola, Gordon Parks, James Phillips, Okoe Pyatt, Abdul Rahman, Faith Ringgold, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Betye Saar, Charles Searles, James Sepyo, Taiwo Shabazz, Lorna Simpson, Merton Simpson, Nelson Stevens, Leo Franklin Twiggs, Cheryl Warrick, Carrie Mae Weems, Charles White, Emmett Wigglesworth, Grace Williams, William T. Williams.

Ivoryton (CT). ART Gallery Magazine. The ART Gallery Magazine: Afro-American issue (Vol. 11, no. 7, April 1968). 1968. Special Afro-American issue. Approx. 100 pp., b&w and color illus. Includes: Alonzo J. Aden, Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Eric Anderson, Benny Andrews, William E. Artis, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Sheman Beck, Ed Bereal, John T. Biggers, Betty Blayton, Sylvester Britton, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, William S. Carter, Bernie Casey, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Edward Christmas, Claude Clark, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Emilio Cruz, Mary Reed Daniel, Charles C. Dawson, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Avel DeKnight, Richard Dempsey, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, David C. Driskell, Robert S. Duncanson, Eugene Eda, William Edmondson, Melvin Edwards, John Farrar, Frederick C. Flemister, Meta Warrick Fuller, Reginald Gammon, Sam Gilliam, Robert Glover, Russell T. Gordon, Bernard Goss, Phillip Hampton, Marvin Harden, Romaine Harris, Eugene Hawkins, Palmer Hayden, Wilbur Haynie, Reginald Helm, James Herring, Leon Hicks, Vivian Hieber (?), Felrath Hines, Alvin Hollingsworth, Humbert Howard, Richard Hunt, A.B. Jackson, Hiram E. Jackson, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Joshua Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Frederic Jones (presumably Frederick D. Jones, Jr.), Lois Mailou Jones, Robert Edmond Jones, Jack Jordan, Sr., Louis Joseph Jordan, Ronald Joseph (as Joseph Ronald), Paul Keene, Joseph Kersey, Herman King, Sidney Kumalo, Jacob Lawrence, Clarence Lawson, Clifford Lee, Hughie Lee-Smith, James Edward Lewis, Jr., Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Tom Lloyd, Alvin Loving, William Majors, Howard Mallory, Jr., David Mann, Richard Mayhew, Anna McCullough, Geraldine McCullough, Charles W. McGee, Lloyd McNeill, Jr., Earl Miller, Norma Morgan, Jimmie Mosely, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Texeira Nash, Frank W. Neal, George E. Neal, Hayward L. Oubre, Jr., James D. Parks, Marion Perkins, Robert S. Pious, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, Judson Powell, Ramon Price, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Noah Purifoy, Mavis Pusey, Robert D. Reid, John W. Rhoden, Haywood "Bill" Rivers, Henry C. Rollins, Mahler Ryder, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, Jewel Simon, Merton D. Simpson, Van Slater, Carroll Sockwell, John Stevens, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Ralph M. Tate, Lawrence Taylor, John Torres, Jr., Alfred J. Tyler, Ruth G. Waddy, William Walker, Eugene Warburg, Howard N. Watson, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Jack H. White, Jack Whitten, Garrett Whyte, Sam William, Douglas R. Williams, Jose Williams, Todd Williams, Walter H. Williams, Stan Williamson, Ed Wilson, Ellis Wilson, John W. Wilson, Roger Wilson, Hale A. Woodruff, James E. Woods, Roosevelt (Rip) Woods, Charles Yates, Hartwell Yeargans, et al. 8vo (24 cm.; 9 x 6 in.), wraps.

KATONAH (NY). Katonah Museum of Art. Jazz and Visual Improvisations. 2001. 40 pp. exhib. cat., 20 full-page color illus. Exhibition of 18 painters and sculptors, including: Terry Adkins, El Anatsui, Radcliffe Bailey, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Frank Bowling, Sam Gilliam, Norman Lewis, Ouattara, Larry Potter, Merton Simpson, Alma Thomas and Bob Thompson.

Lewis, Samella, ed. Black Art: an international quarterly Vol. 3, No. 2 (Winter 1979). 1979. 70 pp., b&w and color illus. includes: Africa in Antiquity: Nubian and Sudanese art (by M. J. Hewitt); Profile: Merton Simpson: artist; collector dealer (a profile by Alvin C. Hollingsworth); Profile: James E. Newton; Image/Symbol Control and the Black Arts; Book review: Art: African American; Egyptian & Nubian art at the New Orleans Museum of Art; Souleymane Keita: Senegalese Artist (by Faye Rice); Symbolic Design in Bayei Basketry (by Rhoda Levinsohn). Artwork by: Sudanese artists; Egyptian and Nubian art; contemporary work by Merton Simpson, James Newton, Noah Purifoy, Sargent Johnson, Floyd Coleman, Souleymane Keita. 4to, wraps.

LEWISBURG (PA). Center Gallery, Bucknell University. Since the Harlem Renaissance: 50 Years of Afro-American Art. April 13-June 6, 1984. 124 pp. exhib. cat., 96 illus. (19 in color), exhib. checklist of 133 works by 77 artists, bibliog. Text includes interviews with 12 of the artists: Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, David Driskell, Sam Gilliam, Lois Mailou Jones, James Little, Al Loving, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Frank E. Smith, Jack Whitten, William T. Williams. Intro. mentions the following artist interviews which were not used but which are on deposit with the Hatch-Billops Collection: Jeff Donaldson, Mel Edwards, Bill Hutson, Richard Mayhew, Joe Overstreet. Excellent survey with many dozens of additional artists mentioned in passing. [Traveled to: SUNY, Old Westbury, November 1-December 9; Munson-Williams- Proctor Institute, Utica , NY, January 11-March 3, 1985; University of Maryland, College Park, MD, March 27-May 3; Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, July 19-September 1, 1985; The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA, September 22-November 1, 1985.] 4to (31 cm.; 12 x 9 in.), wraps. First ed.

NASHVILLE (TN). Fisk University Art Gallery. Paintings by Merton Simpson, sculpture by Earl Hooks, photography by Bobby Sengstacke [Cover title 3 Afro-Americans]. April 20-May 15, 1969. Unpag. (16 pp.), b&w illus., photos of artists. Text by David C. Driskell. 8vo (25 cm.), stapled wraps. First ed. of 1000.

NEW YORK (NY). Anita Shapolsky Gallery and Wilmer Jennings Gallery. African American Abstract Masters. February 6-April 24, 2010. Exhib. cat., color illus. Curated by Mary Ann Rose. Artists included: Betty Blayton, Frank Bowling, Ed Clark, Herbert Gentry, Bill Hutson, Sam Middleton, Joe Overstreet, Thomas Sills, Merton Simpson, and Frank Wimberley. [Traveled to: Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation, Jim Thorpe, PA, August 28-October 17, 2010; Opalka Gallery, Sage College of Albany, Albany, NY, November 5-December 12, 2010.]

NEW YORK (NY). Christopher Street Gallery. The Spiral. May 15-June 5, 1964. 9 pp. exhib. cat., illus., photos, biogs. of participants. Preview date listed as May 14. Intro. by Romare Bearden. Included: Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Romare Bearden, Calvin Douglass, Perry Ferguson, Reginald Gammon, Felrath Hines, Alvin Hollingsworth, Norman Lewis, William Majors, Richard Mayhew, Earl Miller, Merton Simpson, Hale Woodruff, James Yeargans. [Not all participants were "members" of Spiral at the time of the exhibition.] On the dating of the first Spiral exhibition, see Courtney Martin, Spiral, Art Spaces Archives Project, fn.44 which summarizes the problem in detail [http://as-ap.org/martin/resources.cfm]. 8vo, wraps.

NEW YORK (NY). City College, CUNY. The Evolution of Afro-American Artists; 1800-1950. 1967. 70 pp., 47 full-page b&w illus., biogs. and checklist of works exhibited. Co-curated by Romare Bearden and Carroll Greene, Jr. Includes: 6 works of African heritage art and 54 artists: Joshua Johnson (as Johnston), Edward M. Bannister, Edmonia Lewis, Robert S. Duncanson, William Simpson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Meta Warrick Fuller, Aaron Douglas, Richmond Barthé, Palmer Hayden, Hale Woodruff, Archibald Motley, Augusta Savage, William E. Scott, Albert Smith, James A. Porter, Allan Rohan Crite, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, O. Richard Reid, Laura Waring, William E. Braxton, James L. Wells, Edwin A. Harleston, Lois Mailou Jones, Hughie Lee-Smith, Fred Flemister, John T. Biggers, Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Charles White, John Wilson, Elizabeth Catlett, William Artis, William Edmondson (as Edmonson), Horace Pippin, Earle Richardson (as Earl), Claude Clark, Ernest Crichlow, Ellis Wilson, Robert Blackburn, Robert S. Pious, Norman Lewis, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Selma Burke, Eldzier Cortor, Ronald Joseph, Humbert Howard, Heywood Rivers, Richard Mayhew, Merton D. Simpson, and John Farrar.

NEW YORK (NY). Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. On Paper: Abstraction in American Art. June 9-August 12, 1994. Group exhibition of watercolors, ink and pencil drawings, collages, gouaches. Salon-style exhibition of 68 artists. Four African American artists included: Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, and Merton Simpson.

NEW YORK (NY). Museum for African Art. Western Artists, African Art. February-August, 1994. 101 pp., 95 illus. (92 in color), bibliog., index. Texts by Jack D. Flam, Susan Vogel, and curator Daniel Shapiro. Exhibition of 29 artists (mostly white) working in painting, sculpture, multimedia and photography who have been influenced by African art. Includes 10 African American artists: Terry Adkins, Melvin Edwards, Ouattara, Howardena Pindell, Martin Puryear, Lorna Simpson, Merton Simpson; Renée Stout, Fred Wilson. [Review: Holland Cotter, "African Genesis: What Western Artists Like," NYT, May 27, 1994.] 4to (31 cm.), wraps. First ed.

NEW YORK (NY). Salmagundi Club. The First Annual Auction of Afro-American Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, and Prints. October 25, 1980. 114 pp., over 170 lots (including over 140 African American works of art by dozens of artists), b&w illus., brief commentary, exhibs., selected bibliog. for most artists. A significant and substantial early auction of African American work with African sculpture from Nigeria and fine antiquities from Egypt. 8vo, stapled wraps. First ed.

NEW YORK (NY). Studio Museum in Harlem. Spiral: Perspectives on an African-American Collective. July 14-October 23, 2011. Group exhibition. Curated by Lauren Haynes. The group included artists Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Romare Bearden, Calvin Douglass, Perry Ferguson, Reginald Gammon, Felrath Hines, Alvin Hollingsworth, Norman Lewis, Earl Miller, William Majors, Richard Mayhew, Merton D. Simpson, Hale Woodruff and James Yeargans. This exhibition brings together iconic figurative and abstract paintings by ten of the original fifteen members.

NEW YORK (NY). Studio Museum in Harlem. Tradition and Conflict: Images of a Turbulent Decade 1963-1973. 1985. 100 pp. exhib. cat., 69 b&w illus., checklist of 151 works, bibliog. Important exhibition curated by Mary Schmidt Campbell. Includes Benny Andrews' journal/chronology of black political art activism 1963-1973, the curator's chronologies of historical and art historical events. Included: Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Malcolm Bailey, Romare Bearden, Kay Brown, Vivian Browne, Arthur Carraway, Elizabeth Catlett, Dana Chandler, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Houston Conwill, Murry Depillars, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, Calvin Douglass, Melvin Edwards, Perry Ferguson, Reginald Gammon, Sam Gilliam, Linda Goode-Bryant, Emilio Cruz, David Hammons, Palmer Hayden, Richard Hunt, Wadsworth Jarrell, Sargent Johnson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Carolyn Lawrence, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, William Majors, Richard Mayhew, Valerie Maynard, Dindga McCannon, Earl B. Miller, Tyrone Mitchell, Joe Overstreet, James Phillips, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Piper, Willi Posey, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Merton Simpson, George H. Smith, Vincent D. Smith, Charles White, Jack Whitten, Hale Woodruff, Richard Yarde, James Yeargans, photographs by Robert A. Sengstacke. [Traveled to: Galleries of the Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA; The Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY; Museum of the Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston, MA; New York State Museum, Albany, NY; David and Alfred Smart Gallery, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AK; Tower Fine Arts Gallery, State University College, Brockport, NY.] 4to, wraps. First ed.

NEW YORK (NY). Wanamaker Building. First Exposition of Negro Progress. 1956. Several artists included in what was not primarily an art exhibition. Included: Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Beauford Delaney, Jacob Lawrence, Merton Simpson, Edward Webster, Walter H. Williams, Ellis Wilson, et al. [Mentioned in: Dore Ashton, "Negro Painters in Downtown Show," NYT, 1956.]

NEW YORK (NY). Wannemaker Building. Exposition of Negro Progress. March, 1956. Included art section. Review by A.D. in NYT, March 29, 1956 mentions the following artists: Beauford Delaney, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow. Jacob Lawrence, Merton Simpson, Edward Webster, Walter Williams, Ellis Wilson.

NEW YORK (NY). Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba House. Abstraction + Abstraction. February 21-April 24, 2010. Group exhibition. Included: Charles Alston, Robert Blackburn, Vivian E. Browne, Richard Dempsey, Sam Gilliam, Richard Hunt, Clifford Jackson, Harlan Jackson, Larry Compton Kolawole, Norman Lewis, Al Loving, William Majors, Earl B. Miller, Larry Potter, Haywood Bill Rivers, Thelma Johnson Streat, Alma Thomas, Mildred Thompson, Hale Woodruff, Betty Blayton, Frank Bowling, Ed Clark, Herbert Gentry, Bill Hutson, Sam Middleton, Joe Overstreet, Thomas Sills, Merton Simpson, and Frank Wimberley.

NEW YORK (NY). Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba House. Divine Influence: Past and Present. November 14-December 31, 2010. Group exhibition featuring abstract artists alongside works of African sculpture from the Merton Simpson collection. Included: Gregory Coates, Charlotte Kâ, Larry Compton Kolawole, Merton Simpson.

PATTON, SHARON F. African American Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 319 pp., illus. throughout in color and b&w, notes, list of illus., timeline, index. Excellent new survey covering approximately 108 artists from Scipio Moorhead to Dawoud Bey, including 22 women artists: Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Malcolm Bailey, James Presley Ball, Henry (Mike) Bannarn, Edward Bannister, Dutreuil Barjon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Peter Bentzon, Dawoud Bey, Bob Blackburn, Grafton Tyler Brown, Vivian E. Browne, Jacob (Jacoba) Bunel, Elizabeth Catlett, Dana Chandler, Ed Clark, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Houston Conwill, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Dave (the Potter), Thomas Day, Beauford Delaney, Jean-Louis Dolliole, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, Robert M. Douglass, Robert S. Duncanson, William Edmondson, Melvin Edwards, Minnie Evans. Frederick J. Eversley, John Frances, Meta Fuller, Reginald Gammon, Herbert Gentry, Sam Gilliam, Célestin Glapion, Thomas Goss, Jr., Henry Gudgell, David Hammons, James Hampton, Maren Hassinger, Palmer Hayden, Alvin C. Hollingsworth, Richard Hunt, Bill Hutson, Clifford L. Jackson, May Howard Jackson, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, Oliver Jackson, Wadsworth A. Jarrell, Daniel Larue Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Joshua Johnston, Ben Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Jules Lion, Tom Lloyd, Al Loving, Richard Mayhew, Sam Middleton, Scipio Moorhead, Keith Morrison, Archibald Motley, Ademola Olugebefola, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Piper, Rose Piper, Horace Pippin, Harriet Powers, Noah Purifoy, Martin Puryear, Patrick Reason, Faith Ringgold, Jean Rousseau, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Augusta Savage, Addison Scurlock, Lorna Simpson, Merton D. Simpson, Vincent D. Smith, Thelma Streat, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, Bob Thompson, Dox Thrash, James Vanderzee, Christian Walker, William W. Walker, Eugene Warburg, Charles White, Pat Ward Williams, Walter J. Williams, Hale Woodruff. 4to, cloth, d.j. First ed

PHILADELPHIA (PA). School District and Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center. Afro-American Artists, 1800-1969. December 5-29, 1969. 40 pp., list of over 100 artists. Important exhibition juried by Al Hollingsworth, Reginald Gammon and Louis Sloan. Intro. by curator Randall J. Craig mentions many artists not in the exhibition. Exhibition includes: Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Ralph Arnold, James Ayers, Frederick Bacon, Joseph C. Bailey, Janette Banks, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Harry W. Bayton, Romare Bearden, Betty Blayton, James Brantley, Arthur Britt, Charles E. Brown, Samuel J. Brown, Reginald Bryant, Barbara Bullock, Selma Burke, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, Frederick Campbell, Barbara Chase-Riboud, LeRoy Clarke, Louise Clement, Eldzier Cortor, R. J. Craig, Nicholas Davis, William Day, Avel DeKnight, J. Brooks Dendy, James Denmark, Reba Dickerson (a.k.a. Reba Dickerson-Hill), Thomas Dickerson Jr., Robert Duncanson, Walter Edmonds, Cliff Eubanks Jr., Charlotte White Franklin, Allan Freelon, Reginald Gammon, Charles W. Gavin, Ranson Z. Gaymon, Walter S. Gilliam, Marvin Hardin, Bernard Harmon, Palmer Hayden, Barkley Hendricks, Alvin Hollingsworth, Humbert Howard, Alfonzo Hudson, Leroy Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Joshua Johnson, Lois M. Jones, Cliff Joseph, Paul Keene, Columbus P. Knox, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, James Lewis, Norman Lewis, Tom Lloyd, Geraldine McCullough, Charles McGee, Thomas A. McKinney, Lloyd McNeill, Juanita Miller, Robert C. Moore, Jimmie Mosely, Horace Pippin, James Porter, Simon D. Prioleau, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Ed J. Purnell, Percy Ricks, Anita B. Riley, Faith Ringgold, Raymond Saunders, Charles Searles, Michael Shelton, Thomas Sills, John Simpson, Merton Simpson, Louis Sloan, Carl R. Smith, Dolphus Smith, Philippe Smith, Frank Stephens, Mary L. Stuckey, Eldridge Suggs III, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Mary Alice Taylor, Russ Thompson, Dox Thrash, Ellen Powell Tiberino, Lloyd Toone, John Wade, Cranston Oliver Walker, Laura Wheeler Waring, Howard Watson, John Brantley Wilder, Earl A. Wilkie, Ed Wilson, Hale Woodruff, Charles E. Yates, Hartwell Yeargans. 4to (26 cm.), wraps. First ed.

PLOSKI, HARRY A., ed. The Negro Almanac: A Reference Work on the Afro-American. New York: A Wiley-Interscience Publication, 1983. 1550 pp. Includes essay on The Black Artist. Gylbert Coker cited as art consultant. Many misspellings. Artists mentioned include: Scipio Moorhead, James Porter, Eugene Warburg, Robert Duncanson, William H. Simpson, Edward M. Bannister, Joshua Johnston, Robert Douglass, David Bowser, Edmonia Lewis, Henry O. Tanner, William Harper, Dorothy Fannin, Meta Fuller, Archibald Motley, Palmer Hayden. Malvin Gray Johnson, Laura Waring, William E. Scott, Hughie Lee-Smith, Zell Ingram, Charles Sallee, Elmer Brown, William E. Smith, George Hulsinger, James Herring, Aaron Douglas, Augusta Savage, Charles Alston, Hale Woodruff, Charles White, Richmond Barthé, Malvin Gray Johnson, Henry Bannarn, Florence Purviance, Dox Thrash, Robert Blackburn, James Denmark, Dindga McCannon, Frank Wimberly, Ann Tanksley, Don Robertson, Lloyd Toones, Lois Jones, Jo Butler, Robert Threadgill, Faith Ringgold, Romare Bearden, Ernest Crichlow, Norman Lewis, Jimmy Mosley, Samella Lewis, F. L. Spellmon, Phillip Hampton, Venola Seals Jennings, Juanita Moulon, Eugene Jesse Brown, Hayward Oubré, Ademola Olugebefola, Otto Neals, Kay Brown, Jean Taylor, Genesis II, David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, Randy Williams, Howardena Pindell, Edward Spriggs, Beauford Delaney, James Vanderzee, Melvin Edwards, Vincent Smith, Alonzo Davis, Dale Davis, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Gordon Parks, Rex Goreleigh, William McBride, Jr., Eldzier Cortor, James Gittens, Joan Maynard. Kynaston McShine, Coker, Cheryl McClenney, Faith Weaver, Randy Williams, Florence Hardney, Dolores Wright, Cathy Chance, Lowery Sims, Richard Hunt, Roland Ayers, Frank Bowling, Marvin Brown, Walter Cade, Catti, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Manuel Hughes, Barkley Hendricks, Juan Logan, Alvin Loving, Tom Lloyd, Lloyd McNeill, Algernon Miller, Norma Morgan, Mavis Pusey, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Thomas Sills, Thelma Johnson Streat, Alma Thomas, John Torres, Todd Williams, Mahler Ryder, Minnie Evans, Jacob Lawrence, Haywood Rivers, Edward Clark, Camille Billops, Joe Overstreet, Louise Parks, Herbert Gentry, William Edmondson, James Parks, Marion Perkins, Bernard Goss, Reginald Gammon, Emma Amos, Charles Alston, Richard Mayhew, Al Hollingsworth, Calvin Douglass, Merton Simpson, Earl Miller, Felrath Hines, Perry Ferguson, William Majors, James Yeargans. Ruth Waddy; Evangeline Montgomery, Jeff Donaldson, Wadsworth Jarrell, Gerald Williams, Carolyn Lawrence, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Frank Smith, Howard Mallory, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Nelson Stevens, Vivian Browne, Kay Brown, William Harper, Isaac Hathaway, Julien Hudson, May Howard Jackson, Edmonia Lewis, Patrick Reason, William Simpson, A. B. Wilson, William Braxton, Allan Crite, Alice Gafford, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, William Artis, John Biggers, William Carter, Joseph Delaney, Elton Fax, Frederick Flemister, Ronald Joseph, Horace Pippin, Charles Sebree, Bill Traylor, Ellis Wilson, John Wilson, Starmanda Bullock, Dana Chandler, Raven Chanticleer, Roy DeCarava, John Dowell, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, Daniel Johnson, Geraldine McCullough, Earl Miller, Clarence Morgan, Norma Morgan, Skunder Boghossian, Bob Thompson, Clifton Webb, Jack Whitten. 4to, cloth. 4th ed.

RIGGS, THOMAS, ed. St. James Guide to Black Artists. Detroit: St. James Press, 1997. xxiv, 625 pp., illus. A highly selective reference work listing only approximately 400 artists of African descent worldwide (including around 300 African American artists, approximately 20% women artists.) Illus. of work or photos of many artists, brief descriptive texts by well-known scholars, with selected list of exhibitions for each, plus many artists' statements. A noticeable absence of many artists under 45, most photographers, and many women artists. Far fewer artists listed here than in Igoe, Cederholm, or other sources. Stout 4to (29 cm.), laminated yellow papered boards. First ed.

ROBERTSON, JACK. Twentieth-Century Artists on Art. An Index to Artists' Writings, Statements, and Interviews. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1985. Useful reference work; includes numerous African American artists: Ron Adams, Charles Alston, Charlotte Amevor, Benny Andrews, Dorothy Atkins, Casper Banjo, Ellen Banks, Romare Bearden, Ed Bereal, Arthur Berry, John Biggers, Betty Blayton, Gloria Bohanon, Shirley Bolton, David Bradford, Arthur Britt, Frederick Brown, Kay Brown, Winifred Brown, Vivian Browne, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, Cecil Burton, Sheryle Butler, Carole Byard, Arthur Carraway, Bernie Casey, Yvonne Catchings, Mitchell Caton, Elizabeth Catlett, Dana Chandler, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Claude Clark Jr., Irene Clark, Donald Coles, Robert Colescott, Dan Concholar, Eldzier Cortor, Marva Cremer, Doris Crudup, Dewey Crumpler, Emilio Cruz, Samuel Curtis, William Curtis, Alonzo Davis, Bing Davis, Dale Davis, Roy DeCarava, Beauford Delaney, Brooks Dendy, Murry DePillars, Robert D'Hue, Kenneth Dickerson, Leo Dillon, Aaron Douglas, Emory Douglas, David Driskell, Eugenia Dunn, Annette Ensley, Eugene Eda, Melvin Edwards, Marion Epting, Minnie Evans, Frederick Eversley, Tom Feelings, Mikele Fletcher, Moses O. Fowowe, Miriam Francis, Ibibio Fundi, Alice Gafford, West Gale, Joseph Geran, Sam Gilliam, Robert Glover, Wilhelmina Godfrey, Rex Goreleigh, Robert H. Green, Donald O. Greene, Ron Griffin, Eugene Grigsby. Horathel Hall, Wes Hall, David Hammons, Philip Hampton, Marvin Harden, John T. Harris, William Harris, Kitty Hayden, Ben Hazard, Napoleon Jones-Henderson (as Henderson), William H. Henderson, Ernest Herbert, Leon Hicks, Candace Hill-Montgomery, Alfred Hinton, Al Hollingswoth, Earl Hooks, Raymond Howell, Margo Humphrey, Richard Hunt, Bill Hutson, Suzanne Jackson, Walter Jackson, Rosalind Jeffries, Marie Johnson, Ben Jones, Laura Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Jack Jordan, Cliff Joseph, Gwendolyn Knight, Larry Compton Kolawole, Raymond Lark, Jacob Lawrence, Flora Lewis, James E. Lewis, Norman Lewis, Samella Lewis, Tom Lloyd, Juan Logan, Willie Longshore, Ed Love, Al Loving, Philip Mason, Richard Mayhew, Valerie Maynard, Karl McIntosh, William McNeil, Yvonne Meo, Sam Middleton, Onnie Millar, Eva H. Miller, Sylvia Miller, Lev Mills, James Mitchell, Arthur Monroe, Evangeline Montgomery, Ron Moore, Norma Morgan, Jimmie Mosely, Otto Neals, Trudell Obey, Kermit Oliver, Haywood Oubré, John Outterbridge, Lorenzo Pace, William Pajaud, Denise Palm, James Parks, Angela Perkins, Howardena Pindell, Elliott Pinkney, Adrian Piper, Horace Pippin, Leslie Price, Noah Purifoy, Martin Puryear, Roscoe Reddix, Jerry Reed, Robert G. Reid, William Reid, John Rhoden, Gary Rickson, John Riddle, Faith Ringgold, Haywood Rivers, Lethia Robertson, Brenda Rogers, Charles D. Rogers, Bernard Rollins, Arthur Rose, John Russell, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Charles Shelton, Thomas Sills, Jewel Simon, Merton Simpson, Van Slater, Alfred James Smith, Arenzo Smith, Arthur Smith, Damballah Smith, George Smith, Howard Smith. Greg Sparks, Sharon Spencer, Nelson Stevens, James Tanner, Della Taylor, Rod Taylor, Evelyn Terry, Alma Thomas, James "Son Ford" Thomas, Bob Thompson. John Torres, Elaine Towns, Curtis Tucker, Yvonne Tucker, Charlene Tull, Leo Twiggs, Alfred Tyler, Anna Tyler, Bernard Upshur, Florestee Vance, Royce Vaughn, Ruth Waddy, Larry Walker, William Walker, Bobby Walls, Carole Ward, Pecolia Warner, Mary Washington, James Watkins, Roland Welton, Amos White, Charles White, Tim Whiten, Acquaetta Williams, Chester Williams, Daniel Williams, Laura Williams, William T. Williams, Luster Willis, Fred Wilson, John Wilson, Stanley Wilson, Bernard Wright, Richard Wyatt, Bernard Young, Charles Young, Milton Young. 4to, cloth.

RUTHERFORD (NJ). Fairleigh Dickinson University Art Gallery. ...Some Negro Artists. October 20-November 20, 1964. 14 pp. exhib. cat., 3 b&w illus. (Lawrence, Gilchrist, and Mancle), exhib. checklist, biogs. of artists, statements by artists. Included: Romare Bearden, Beauford Delaney, Lorenzo Gilchrist, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Richard Mayhew, Sam Middleton, Horace Pippin, Thomas Sills, Merton Simpson, Bob Thompson, James Washington, Charles White, Ellis Wilson. [Bob Thompson Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian; see full digital scan: http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/index.cfm/fuseaction/Items.ViewImageDetails/ItemID/7488] 8vo (22 x 16 cm.), tan stapled wraps. First ed.

SIEGEL, JEANNE. Why Spiral?. 1966. In: ARTnews 65.5 (September 1966):48-51, 67, 68, 12 illus. Timely interview with this historic New York group of artists; comments by artists, commentary by author. Includes: Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Romare Bearden, Calvin Douglass, Perry Ferguson, Reginald Gammon, Felrath Hines, Al Hollingsworth, Norman Lewis, William Majors, Earl Miller, Merton Simpson, Hale Woodruff, James Yeargans. 4to, wraps.

SPRADLING, MARY MACE. In Black and White: Afro-Americans in Print. Kalamazoo: Kalamazoo Public Library, 1980. 2 vols. 1089 pp. Includes: John H. Adams, Ron Adams, Alonzo Aden, Muhammad Ali, Baba Alabi Alinya, Charles Alston, Charlotte Amevor, Benny Andrews, Ralph Arnold, William Artis, Ellsworth Ausby, Jacqueline Ayer, Calvin Bailey, Jene Ballentine, Casper Banjo, Henry Bannarn, Edward Bannister, Dutreuil Barjon, Ernie Barnes, Carolyn Plaskett Barrow, Richmond Barthé, Beatrice Bassette, Ad Bates, Romare Bearden, Phoebe Beasley, Roberta Bell, Cleveland Bellow, Ed Bereal, Arthur Berry, DeVoice Berry, Cynthia Bethune, Charles Bible, John Biggers, Camille Billops, Bob Blackburn, Irving Blaney, Bessie Blount, Gloria Bohanon, Leslie Bolling, Shirley Bolton, Charles Bonner, Michael Borders, John Borican, Earl Bostic, Augustus Bowen, David Bowser, David Bradford, Edward Brandford, Brumsic Brandon, William Braxton, Arthur Britt Sr., Benjamin Britt, Sylvester Britton, Elmer Brown, Fred Brown, Kay Brown, Margery Brown, Richard L. Brown, Samuel Brown, Vivian E. Browne, Henry Brownlee, Linda Bryant, Starmanda Bullock, Juana Burke, Selma Burke, Eugene Burkes, Viola Burley, Calvin Burnett, John Burr, Margaret Burroughs, Nathaniel Bustion, Sheryle Butler, Elmer Simms Campbell, Thomas Cannon, Nick Canyon, Edward Carr, Art Carraway, Ted Carroll, Joseph S. Carter, William Carter, Catti, George Washington Carver, Yvonne Catchings, Elizabeth Catlett, Mitchell Caton, Dana Chandler, Kitty Chavis, George Clack, Claude Clark, Ed Clark, J. Henrik Clarke, Leroy Clarke, Ladybird Cleveland, Floyd Coleman, Donald Coles, Margaret Collins, Paul Collins, Sam Collins, Dan Concholar, Arthur Coppedge, Wallace X. Conway, Leonard Cooper, William A. Cooper, Art Coppedge, Eldzier Cortor, Samuel Countee, Harold Cousins, William Craft, Cleo Crawford, Marva Cremer, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Crite, Jerrolyn Crooks, Harvey Cropper, Doris Crudup, Robert Crump, Dewey Crumpler, Frank E. Cummings, William Curtis, Mary Reed Daniel, Alonzo Davis, Charles Davis, Willis "Bing" Davis, Dale Davis, Charles C. Dawson, Juette Day, Thomas Day, Roy DeCarava, Paul DeCroom, Avel DeKnight, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Richard Dempsey, Murry DePillars, Robert D'Hue, Kenneth Dickerson, Leo Dillon, Raymond Dobard, Vernon Dobard, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, Emory Douglas, Robert Douglass, Glanton Dowdell, David Driskell, Yolande Du Bois, Robert Duncanson, Eugenia Dunn, John Dunn, Adolphus Ealey, Eugene Eda, Melvin Edwards, Gaye Elliington, Annette Ensley, Marion Epting, Minnie Evans, Frederick Eversley, James Fairfax, Kenneth Falana, Allen Fannin, John Farrar, William Farrow, Elton Fax, Muriel Feelings, Tom Feelings, Frederick Flemister, Mikelle Fletcher, Curt Flood, Thomas Floyd, Doyle Foreman, Mozelle Forte (costume and fabric designer), Amos Fortune, Mrs. C.R. Foster, Inez Fourcard (as Fourchard), John Francis, Miriam Francis, Allan Freelon, Meta Warrick Fuller, Stephany Fuller, Gale Fulton-Ross, Ibibio Fundi, Alice Gafford, Otis Galbreath, West Gale, Reginald Gammon, Jim Gary, Herbert Gentry, Joseph Geran, Jimmy Gibbez, Sam Gilliam, Robert Glover, Manuel Gomez, Russell Gordon, Rex Goreleigh, Bernard Goss, Samuel Green, William Green, Donald Greene, Joseph Grey, Ron Griffin, Eugene Grigsby, Henry Gudgell, Charles Haines, Clifford Hall, Horathel Hall, Wesley Hall, David Hammons, James Hampton, Phillip Hampton, Lorraine Hansberry, Marvin Harden, Arthur Hardie, Inge Hardison, John Hardrick, Edwin Harleston, William A. Harper, Gilbert Harris, John Harris, Maren Hassinger, Isaac Hathaway, Frank Hayden, Kitty Hayden, Palmer Hayden, Vertis Hayes, Wilbur Haynie, Dion Henderson, Ernest Herbert, Leon Hicks, Hector Hill, Tony Hill, Geoffrey Holder, Al Hollingsworth, Varnette Honeywood, Earl Hooks, Humbert Howard, James Howard, Raymond Howell, Julien Hudson, Manuel Hughes, Margo Humphrey, Thomas Hunster, Richard Hunt, Clementine Hunter, Norman Hunter, Orville Hurt, Bill Hutson, Nell Ingram, Tanya Izanhour, Ambrose Jackson, Earl Jackson, May Jackson, Nigel Jackson, Suzanne Jackson, Walter Jackson, Louise Jefferson, Ted Joans, Daniel Johnson, Lester L. Johnson, Jr., Malvin Gray Johnson, Marie Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Joshua Johnston, Barbara Jones, Ben Jones, Calvin Jones, Frederick D. Jones Jr., James Arlington Jones, Lawrence Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Eddie Jack Jordan, Ronald Joseph, Lemuel Joyner, Paul Keene, Elyse J. Kennart, Joseph Kersey, Gwendolyn Knight, Lawrence Compton Kolawole, Oliver LaGrone, Artis Lane, Doyle Lane, Raymond Lark, Lewis H. Latimer, Jacob Lawrence, Clarence Lawson, Bertina Lee, Joanna Lee, Peter Lee, Hughie Lee-Smith, Leon Leonard, Curtis Lewis, Edmonia Lewis, James Edward Lewis, Norman Lewis, Samella Lewis, Charles Lilly, Henri Linton, Jules Lion, Romeyn Lippman, Tom Lloyd, Jon Lockard, Juan Logan, Willie Longshore, Ed Loper, Ed Love, Al Loving, Geraldine McCullough, Lawrence McGaugh, Charles McGee, Donald McIlvaine, James McMillan, William McNeil, Lloyd McNeill, David Mann, William Marshall, Helen Mason, Philip Mason, Winifred Mason, Calvin Massey, Lester (Nathan) Mathews, William Maxwell, Richard Mayhew, Valerie Maynard, Yvonne Meo, Sam Middleton, Onnie Millar, Aaron Miller, Eva Miller, Lev Mills, P'lla Mills, Evangeline J. Montgomery, Arthur Monroe, Frank Moore, Ron Moore, Scipio Moorhead, Norma Morgan, Ken Morris, Calvin Morrison, Jimmie Mosely, Leo Moss, Lottie Moss, Archibald Motley, Hugh Mulzac, Frank Neal, George Neal, Otto Neals, Shirley Nero, Effie Newsome, Nommo, George Norman, Georg Olden, Ademola Olugebefola, Conora O'Neal (fashion designer), Cora O'Neal, Lula O'Neal, Pearl O'Neal, Ron O'Neal, Hayward Oubré, John Outterbridge, Carl Owens, Lorenzo Pace, Alvin Paige, Robert Paige, William Pajaud, Denise Palm, Norman Parish, Jules Parker, James Parks, Edgar Patience, Angela Perkins, Marion Perkins, Michael Perry, Jacqueline Peters, Douglas Phillips, Harper Phillips, Delilah Pierce, Howardena Pindell, Horace Pippin, Julie Ponceau, James Porter, Leslie Price, Ramon Price, Nelson Primus, Nancy Prophet, Noah Purifoy, Teodoro Ramos Blanco y Penita, Otis Rathel, Patrick Reason, William Reid, John Rhoden, Barbara Chase-Riboud, William Richmond, Percy Ricks, Gary Rickson, John Riddle, Gregory Ridley, Faith Ringgold, Malkia Roberts, Brenda Rogers, Charles Rogers, George Rogers, Arthur Rose, Nancy Rowland, Winfred Russell, Mahler Ryder, Betye Saar, Charles Sallee, Marion Sampler, John Sanders, Walter Sanford, Raymond Saunders, Augusta Savage, William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, Thomas Sills, Carroll Simms, Jewel Simon, Walter Simon, Merton Simpson, William H. Simpson, Louis Slaughter, Gwen Small, Albert A. Smith, Alvin Smith, Hughie Lee-Smith, John Henry Smith, Jacob Lawrence, John Steptoe, Nelson Stevens, Edward Stidum, Elmer C. Stoner, Lou Stovall, Henry O. Tanner, Ralph Tate, Betty Blayton Taylor, Della Taylor, Bernita Temple, Herbert Temple, Alma Thomas, Elaine Thomas, Larry Thomas, Carolyn Thompson, Lovett Thompson, Mildred Thompson, Mozelle Thompson, Robert (Bob) Thompson, Dox Thrash, Neptune Thurston, John Torres, Nat Turner, Leo Twiggs, Bernard Upshur, Royce Vaughn, Ruth Waddy, Anthony Walker, Earl Walker, Larry Walker, William Walker, Daniel Warburg, Eugene Warburg, Carole Ward, Laura Waring, Mary P. Washington, James Watkins, Lawrence Watson, Edward Webster, Allen A. Weeks, Robert Weil, James Wells, Pheoris West, Sarah West, John Weston, Delores Wharton, Amos White, Charles White, Garrett Whyte, Alfredus Williams, Chester Williams, Douglas R. Williams, Laura Williams, Matthew Williams, Morris Williams, Peter Williams, Rosetta Williams (as Rosita), Walter Williams, William T. Williams, Ed Wilson, Ellis Wilson, Fred Wilson, John Wilson, Stanley Wilson, Vincent Wilson, Hale Woodruff, Bernard Wright, Charles Young, Kenneth Young, Milton Young. [Note the 3rd edition consists of two volumes published by Gale Research in 1980, with a third supplemental volume issued in 1985.] Large stout 4tos, red cloth. 3rd revised expanded edition.

ST LOUIS (MO). St. Louis Public Library. An index to Black American artists. St. Louis: St. Louis Public Library, 1972. 50 pp. Also includes art historians such as Henri Ghent. In this database, only artists are cross-referenced. 4to (28 cm.)

THOMISON, DENNIS. The Black Artist in America: An Index to Reproductions. Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1991. Includes: index to Black artists, bibliography (including doctoral dissertations and audiovisual materials.) Many of the dozens of spelling errors and incomplete names have been corrected in this entry and names of known white artists omitted from our entry, but errors may still exist in this entry, so beware: Jesse Aaron, Charles Abramson, Maria Adair, Lauren Adam, Ovid P. Adams, Ron Adams, Terry Adkins, (Jonathan) Ta Coumba T. Aiken, Jacques Akins, Lawrence E. Alexander, Tina Allen, Pauline Alley-Barnes, Charles Alston, Frank Alston, Charlotte Amevor, Emma Amos (Levine), Allie Anderson, Benny Andrews, Edmund Minor Archer, Pastor Argudin y Pedroso [as Y. Pedroso Argudin], Anna Arnold, Ralph Arnold, William Artis, Kwasi Seitu Asante [as Kwai Seitu Asantey], Steve Ashby, Rose Auld, Ellsworth Ausby, Henry Avery, Charles Axt, Roland Ayers, Annabelle Bacot, Calvin Bailey, Herman Kofi Bailey, Malcolm Bailey, Annabelle Baker, E. Loretta Ballard, Jene Ballentine, Casper Banjo, Bill Banks, Ellen Banks, John W. Banks, Henry Bannarn, Edward Bannister, Curtis R. Barnes, Ernie Barnes, James MacDonald Barnsley, Richmond Barthé, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Daniel Carter Beard, Romare Bearden, Phoebe Beasley, Falcon Beazer, Arthello Beck, Sherman Beck, Cleveland Bellow, Gwendolyn Bennett, Herbert Bennett, Ed Bereal, Arthur Berry, Devoice Berry, Ben Bey, John Biggers, Camille Billops, Willie Birch, Eloise Bishop, Robert Blackburn, Tarleton Blackwell, Lamont K. Bland, Betty Blayton, Gloria Bohanon, Hawkins Bolden, Leslie Bolling, Shirley Bolton, Higgins Bond, Erma Booker, Michael Borders, Ronald Boutte, Siras Bowens, Lynn Bowers, Frank Bowling, David Bustill Bowser, David Patterson Boyd, David Bradford, Harold Bradford, Peter Bradley, Fred Bragg, Winston Branch, Brumsic Brandon, James Brantley, William Braxton, Bruce Brice, Arthur Britt, James Britton, Sylvester Britton, Moe Brooker, Bernard Brooks, Mable Brooks, Oraston Brooks-el, David Scott Brown, Elmer Brown, Fred Brown, Frederick Brown, Grafton Brown, James Andrew Brown, Joshua Brown, Kay Brown, Marvin Brown, Richard Brown, Samuel Brown, Vivian Browne, Henry Brownlee, Beverly Buchanan, Selma Burke, Arlene Burke-Morgan, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, Cecil Burton, Charles Burwell, Nathaniel Bustion, David Butler, Carole Byard, Albert Byrd, Walter Cade, Joyce Cadoo, Bernard Cameron, Simms Campbell, Frederick Campbell, Thomas Cannon (as Canon), Nicholas Canyon, John Carlis, Arthur Carraway, Albert Carter, Allen Carter, George Carter, Grant Carter, Ivy Carter, Keithen Carter, Robert Carter, William Carter, Yvonne Carter, George Washington Carver, Bernard Casey, Yvonne Catchings, Elizabeth Catlett, Frances Catlett, Mitchell Caton, Catti, Charlotte Chambless, Dana Chandler, John Chandler, Robin Chandler, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Kitty Chavis, Edward Christmas, Petra Cintron, George Clack, Claude Clark Sr., Claude Lockhart Clark, Edward Clark, Irene Clark, LeRoy Clarke, Pauline Clay, Denise Cobb, Gylbert Coker, Marion Elizabeth Cole, Archie Coleman, Floyd Coleman, Donald Coles, Robert Colescott, Carolyn Collins, Paul Collins, Richard Collins, Samuel Collins, Don Concholar, Wallace Conway, Houston Conwill, William A. Cooper, Arthur Coppedge, Jean Cornwell, Eldzier Cortor, Samuel Countee, Harold Cousins, Cleo Crawford, Marva Cremer, Ernest Crichlow, Norma Criss, Allan Rohan Crite, Harvey Cropper, Geraldine Crossland, Rushie Croxton, Doris Crudup, Dewey Crumpler, Emilio Cruz, Charles Cullen (White artist), Vince Cullers, Michael Cummings, Urania Cummings, DeVon Cunningham, Samuel Curtis, William Curtis, Artis Dameron, Mary Reed Daniel, Aaron Darling, Alonzo Davis, Bing Davis, Charles Davis, Dale Davis, Rachel Davis, Theresa Davis, Ulysses Davis, Walter Lewis Davis, Charles C. Davis, William Dawson, Juette Day, Roy DeCarava, Avel DeKnight, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Nadine Delawrence, Louis Delsarte, Richard Dempsey, J. Brooks Dendy, III (as Brooks Dendy), James Denmark, Murry DePillars, Joseph DeVillis, Robert D'Hue, Kenneth Dickerson, Voris Dickerson, Charles Dickson, Frank Dillon, Leo Dillon, Robert Dilworth, James Donaldson, Jeff Donaldson, Lillian Dorsey, William Dorsey, Aaron Douglas, Emory Douglas, Calvin Douglass, Glanton Dowdell, John Dowell, Sam Doyle, David Driskell, Ulric S. Dunbar, Robert Duncanson, Eugenia Dunn, John Morris Dunn, Edward Dwight, Adolphus Ealey, Lawrence Edelin, William Edmondson, Anthony Edwards, Melvin Edwards, Eugene Eda [as Edy], John Elder, Maurice Ellison, Walter Ellison, Mae Engron, Annette Easley, Marion Epting, Melvyn Ettrick (as Melvin), Clifford Eubanks, Minnie Evans, Darrell Evers, Frederick Eversley, Cyril Fabio, James Fairfax, Kenneth Falana, Josephus Farmer, John Farrar, William Farrow, Malaika Favorite, Elton Fax, Tom Feelings, Claude Ferguson, Violet Fields, Lawrence Fisher, Thomas Flanagan, Walter Flax, Frederick Flemister, Mikelle Fletcher, Curt Flood, Batunde Folayemi, George Ford, Doyle Foreman, Leroy Foster, Walker Foster, John Francis, Richard Franklin, Ernest Frazier, Allan Freelon, Gloria Freeman, Pam Friday, John Fudge, Meta Fuller, Ibibio Fundi, Ramon Gabriel, Alice Gafford, West Gale, George Gamble, Reginald Gammon, Christine Gant, Jim Gary, Adolphus Garrett, Leroy Gaskin, Lamerol A. Gatewood, Herbert Gentry, Joseph Geran, Ezekiel Gibbs, William Giles, Sam Gilliam, Robert Glover, William Golding, Paul Goodnight, Erma Gordon, L. T. Gordon, Robert Gordon, Russell Gordon, Rex Goreleigh, Bernard Goss, Joe Grant, Oscar Graves, Todd Gray, Annabelle Green, James Green, Jonathan Green, Robert Green, Donald Greene, Michael Greene, Joseph Grey, Charles Ron Griffin, Eugene Grigsby, Raymond Grist, Michael Gude, Ethel Guest, John Hailstalk, Charles Haines, Horathel Hall, Karl Hall, Wesley Hall, Edward Hamilton, Eva Hamlin-Miller, David Hammons, James Hampton, Phillip Hampton, Marvin Harden, Inge Hardison, John Hardrick, Edwin Harleston, William Harper, Hugh Harrell, Oliver Harrington, Gilbert Harris, Hollon Harris, John Harris, Scotland J. B. Harris, Warren Harris, Bessie Harvey, Maren Hassinger, Cynthia Hawkins (as Thelma), William Hawkins, Frank Hayden, Kitty Hayden, Palmer Hayden, William Hayden, Vertis Hayes, Anthony Haynes, Wilbur Haynie, Benjamin Hazard, June Hector, Dion Henderson, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, William Henderson, Barkley Hendricks, Gregory A. Henry, Robert Henry, Ernest Herbert, James Herring, Mark Hewitt, Leon Hicks, Renalda Higgins, Hector Hill, Felrath Hines, Alfred Hinton, Tim Hinton, Adrienne Hoard, Irwin Hoffman, Raymond Holbert, Geoffrey Holder, Robin Holder, Lonnie Holley, Alvin Hollingsworth, Eddie Holmes, Varnette Honeywood, Earl J. Hooks, Ray Horner, Paul Houzell, Helena Howard, Humbert Howard, John Howard, Mildred Howard, Raymond Howell, William Howell, Calvin Hubbard, Henry Hudson, Julien Hudson, James Huff, Manuel Hughes, Margo Humphrey, Raymond Hunt, Richard Hunt, Clementine Hunter, Elliott Hunter, Arnold Hurley, Bill Hutson, Zell Ingram, Sue Irons, A. B. Jackson, Gerald Jackson, Harlan Jackson, Hiram Jackson, May Jackson, Oliver Jackson, Robert Jackson, Suzanne Jackson, Walter Jackson, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, Bob James, Wadsworth Jarrell, Jasmin Joseph [as Joseph Jasmin], Archie Jefferson, Rosalind Jeffries, Noah Jemison, Barbara Fudge Jenkins, Florian Jenkins, Chester Jennings, Venola Jennings, Wilmer Jennings, Georgia Jessup, Johana, Daniel Johnson, Edith Johnson, Harvey Johnson, Herbert Johnson, Jeanne Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Marie Johnson-Calloway, Milton Derr (as Milton Johnson), Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Joshua Johnston, Ben Jones, Calvin Jones, Dorcas Jones, Frank A. Jones, Frederick D. Jones, Jr. (as Frederic Jones), Henry B. Jones, Johnny Jones, Lawrence Arthur Jones, Leon Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Nathan Jones, Tonnie Jones, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Jack Jordan, Cliff Joseph, Ronald Joseph, Lemuel Joyner, Edward Judie, Michael Kabu, Arthur Kaufman, Charles Keck, Paul Keene, John Kendrick, Harriet Kennedy, Leon Kennedy, Joseph Kersey; Virginia Kiah, Henri King, James King, Gwendolyn Knight, Robert Knight, Lawrence Kolawole, Brenda Lacy, (Laura) Jean Lacy, Roy LaGrone, Artis Lane, Doyle Lane, Raymond Lark, Carolyn Lawrence, Jacob Lawrence, James Lawrence, Clarence Lawson, Louis LeBlanc, James Lee, Hughie Lee-Smith, Lizetta LeFalle-Collins, Leon Leonard, Bruce LeVert, Edmonia Lewis, Edwin E. Lewis, Flora Lewis, James E. Lewis, Norman Lewis, Roy Lewis, Samella Lewis, Elba Lightfoot, Charles Lilly [as Lily], Arturo Lindsay, Henry Linton, Jules Lion, James Little, Marcia Lloyd, Tom Lloyd, Jon Lockard, Donald Locke, Lionel Lofton, Juan Logan, Bert Long, Willie Longshore, Edward Loper, Francisco Lord, Jesse Lott, Edward Love, Nina Lovelace, Whitfield Lovell, Alvin Loving, Ramon Loy, William Luckett, John Lutz, Don McAllister, Theadius McCall, Dindga McCannon, Edward McCluney, Jesse McCowan, Sam McCrary, Geraldine McCullough, Lawrence McGaugh, Charles McGee, Donald McIlvaine, Karl McIntosh, Joseph Mack, Edward McKay, Thomas McKinney, Alexander McMath, Robert McMillon, William McNeil, Lloyd McNeill, Clarence Major, William Majors, David Mann, Ulysses Marshall, Phillip Lindsay Mason, Lester Mathews, Sharon Matthews, William (Bill) Maxwell, Gordon Mayes, Marietta Mayes, Richard Mayhew, Valerie Maynard, Victoria Meek, Leon Meeks, Yvonne Meo, Helga Meyer, Gaston Micheaux, Charles Mickens, Samuel Middleton, Onnie Millar, Aaron Miller, Algernon Miller, Don Miller, Earl Miller, Eva Hamlin Miller, Guy Miller, Julia Miller, Charles Milles, Armsted Mills, Edward Mills, Lev Mills, Priscilla Mills (P'lla), Carol Mitchell, Corinne Mitchell, Tyrone Mitchell, Arthur Monroe, Elizabeth Montgomery, Ronald Moody, Ted Moody, Frank Moore, Ron Moore, Sabra Moore, Theophilus Moore, William Moore, Leedell Moorehead, Scipio Moorhead, Clarence Morgan, Norma Morgan, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Patricia Morris, Keith Morrison, Lee Jack Morton, Jimmie Mosely, David Mosley, Lottie Moss, Archibald Motley, Hugh Mulzac, Betty Murchison, J. B. Murry, Teixera Nash, Inez Nathaniel, Frank Neal, George Neal, Jerome Neal, Robert Neal, Otto Neals, Robert Newsome, James Newton, Rochelle Nicholas, John Nichols, Isaac Nommo, Oliver Nowlin, Trudell Obey, Constance Okwumabua, Osira Olatunde, Kermit Oliver, Yaounde Olu, Ademola Olugebefola, Mary O'Neal, Haywood Oubré, Simon Outlaw, John Outterbridge, Joseph Overstreet, Carl Owens, Winnie Owens-Hart, Lorenzo Pace, William Pajaud, Denise Palm, James Pappas, Christopher Parks, James Parks, Louise Parks, Vera Parks, Oliver Parson, James Pate, Edgar Patience, John Payne, Leslie Payne, Sandra Peck, Alberto Pena, Angela Perkins, Marion Perkins, Michael Perry, Bertrand Phillips, Charles James Phillips, Harper Phillips, Ted Phillips, Delilah Pierce, Elijah Pierce, Harold Pierce, Anderson Pigatt, Stanley Pinckney, Howardena Pindell, Elliott Pinkney, Jerry Pinkney, Robert Pious, Adrian Piper, Horace Pippin, Betty Pitts, Stephanie Pogue, Naomi Polk, Charles Porter, James Porter, Georgette Powell, Judson Powell, Richard Powell, Daniel Pressley, Leslie Price, Ramon Price, Nelson Primus, Arnold Prince, E. (Evelyn?) Proctor, Nancy Prophet, Ronnie Prosser, William Pryor, Noah Purifoy, Florence Purviance, Martin Puryear, Mavis Pusey, Teodoro Ramos Blanco y Penita, Helen Ramsaran, Joseph Randolph; Thomas Range, Frank Rawlings, Jennifer Ray, Maxine Raysor, Patrick Reason, Roscoe Reddix, Junius Redwood, James Reed, Jerry Reed, Donald Reid, O. Richard Reid, Robert Reid, Leon Renfro, John Rhoden, Ben Richardson, Earle Richardson, Enid Richardson, Gary Rickson, John Riddle, Gregory Ridley, Faith Ringgold, Haywood Rivers, Arthur Roach, Malkia Roberts, Royal Robertson, Aminah Robinson, Charles Robinson, John N. Robinson, Peter L. Robinson, Brenda Rogers, Charles Rogers, Herbert Rogers, Juanita Rogers, Sultan Rogers, Bernard Rollins, Henry Rollins, Arthur Rose, Charles Ross, James Ross, Nellie Mae Rowe, Sandra Rowe, Nancy Rowland, Winfred Russsell, Mahler Ryder, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Charles Sallee, JoeSam., Marion Sampler, Bert Samples, Juan Sanchez, Eve Sandler, Walter Sanford, Floyd Sapp, Raymond Saunders, Augusta Savage, Ann Sawyer, Sydney Schenck, Vivian Schuyler Key, John Scott (Johnny) , John Tarrell Scott, Joyce Scott, William Scott, Charles Searles, Charles Sebree, Bernard Sepyo, Bennie Settles, Franklin Shands, Frank Sharpe, Christopher Shelton, Milton Sherrill, Thomas Sills, Gloria Simmons, Carroll Simms, Jewell Simon, Walter Simon, Coreen Simpson, Ken Simpson, Merton Simpson, William Simpson, Michael Singletary (as Singletry), Nathaniel Sirles, Margaret Slade (Kelley), Van Slater, Louis Sloan, Albert A. Smith, Alfred J. Smith, Alvin Smith, Arenzo Smith, Damballah Dolphus Smith, Floyd Smith, Frank Smith, George Smith, Howard Smith, John Henry Smith, Marvin Smith, Mary T. Smith, Sue Jane Smith, Vincent Smith, William Smith, Zenobia Smith, Rufus Snoddy, Sylvia Snowden, Carroll Sockwell, Ben Solowey, Edgar Sorrells, Georgia Speller, Henry Speller, Shirley Stark, David Stephens, Lewis Stephens, Walter Stephens, Erik Stephenson, Nelson Stevens, Mary Stewart, Renée Stout, Edith Strange, Thelma Streat, Richard Stroud, Dennis Stroy, Charles Suggs, Sharon Sulton, Johnnie Swearingen, Earle Sweeting, Roderick Sykes, Clarence Talley, Ann Tanksley, Henry O. Tanner, James Tanner, Ralph Tate, Carlton Taylor, Cecil Taylor, Janet Taylor Pickett, Lawrence Taylor, William (Bill) Taylor, Herbert Temple, Emerson Terry, Evelyn Terry, Freida Tesfagiorgis, Alma Thomas, Charles Thomas, James "Son Ford" Thomas, Larry Erskine Thomas, Matthew Thomas, Roy Thomas, William Thomas (a.k.a. Juba Solo), Conrad Thompson, Lovett Thompson, Mildred Thompson, Phyllis Thompson, Bob Thompson, Russ Thompson, Dox Thrash, Mose Tolliver, William Tolliver, Lloyd Toone, John Torres, Elaine Towns, Bill Traylor, Charles Tucker, Clive Tucker, Yvonne Edwards Tucker, Charlene Tull, Donald Turner, Leo Twiggs, Alfred Tyler, Anna Tyler, Barbara Tyson Mosley, Bernard Upshur, Jon Urquhart, Florestee Vance, Ernest Varner, Royce Vaughn, George Victory, Harry Vital, Ruth Waddy, Annie Walker, Charles Walker, Clinton Walker, Earl Walker, Lawrence Walker, Raymond Walker [a.k.a. Bo Walker], William Walker, Bobby Walls, Daniel Warburg, Eugene Warburg, Denise Ward-Brown, Evelyn Ware, Laura Waring, Masood Ali Warren, Horace Washington, James Washington, Mary Washington, Timothy Washington, Richard Waters, James Watkins, Curtis Watson, Howard Watson, Willard Watson, Richard Waytt, Claude Weaver, Stephanie Weaver, Clifton Webb, Derek Webster, Edward Webster, Albert Wells, James Wells, Roland Welton, Barbara Wesson, Pheoris West, Lamonte Westmoreland, Charles White, Cynthia White, Franklin White, George White, J. Philip White, Jack White (sculptor), Jack White (painter), John Whitmore, Jack Whitten, Garrett Whyte, Benjamin Wigfall, Bertie Wiggs, Deborah Wilkins, Timothy Wilkins, Billy Dee Williams, Chester Williams, Douglas Williams, Frank Williams, George Williams, Gerald Williams, Jerome Williams, Jose Williams, Laura Williams, Matthew Williams, Michael K. Williams, Pat Ward Williams, Randy Williams, Roy Lee Williams, Todd Williams, Walter Williams, William T. Williams, Yvonne Williams, Philemona Williamson, Stan Williamson, Luster Willis, A. B. Wilson, Edward Wilson, Ellis Wilson, Fred Wilson, George Wilson, Henry Wilson, John Wilson, Stanley C. Wilson, Linda Windle, Eugene Winslow, Vernon Winslow, Cedric Winters, Viola Wood, Hale Woodruff, Roosevelt Woods, Shirley Woodson, Beulah Woodard, Bernard Wright, Dmitri Wright, Estella Viola Wright, George Wright, Richard Wyatt, Frank Wyley, Richard Yarde, James Yeargans, Joseph Yoakum, Bernard Young, Charles Young, Clarence Young, Kenneth Young, Milton Young.

WASHINGTON (DC). Washington Project for the Arts. Art in Washington and Its Afro-American Presence 1940-1970. April 2-May 11, 1985. 110 pp. exhib. cat., 42 illus. and photos (incl. 11 color plates), bibliog., artists' biogs., checklist of 108 American works plus 44 comparative African and European works, bibliog. Text by Keith Morrison. Includes: Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor, Bernice Cross, Richard Dempsey, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, David C. Driskell, Robert Gates, Sam Gilliam, James Herring, Earl Hooks, Jasmin Joseph, Edward Jerimiah, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edward L. Loper, Norman Lewis, Ed Love, Lloyd McNeill, Keith Morrison, Delilah Pierce, Teodoro Ramos Blanco y Penita, Malkia Roberts, John Robinson, Raymond Saunders, Charles Sebree, Merton D. Simpson, Frank E. Smith, Carroll Sockwell, Nelson Stevens, Lou Stovall, white French artist Celene Tabary, Bill Taylor, Alma Thomas, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Gerald Williams, Ellis Wilson, Hale Woodruff, Kenneth Young, and others. 4to (28 cm.), wraps.

Merton Daniel Simpson (September 20, 1928 – March 9, 2013)[1] was an American abstract expressionist painter and African and tribal art collector and dealer. Contents  1 Early life 2 Education 3 Air Force 4 Simpson as artist and gallerist 5 The Spiral Group 6 Confrontation series 7 African and tribal art dealer 8 Personal life 9 Musician 10 The Merton Simpson Gallery 11 References Early life Merton Simpson was born in Charleston, South Carolina. Between the ages of six and 11 he spent much of his time in and out of hospitals receiving treatment for diphtheria and rheumatic fever. During this time he started to doodle and sketch to pass the time. His interest in art grew and he began drawing and sketching in earnest. At the age of 13 Simpson was discovered by local artist William Halsey who took Simpson under his wing. For the next four years, Halsey taught Simpson the basics of painting and introduced him to the concept of abstract art. Jean Robertson Fleming, another local artist, was also instrumental in discovering Simpson’s talent and helping him hone his skills. In the midst of a still segregated South, Simpson was not allowed to take art classes at the city run Gibbes Gallery where artist William Melton Halsey worked. Simpson frequently went in to privately work with his mentor Halsey. Simpson attended Burke High School in Charleston. After graduating in 1949 Halsey, his wife Corrie McCallum and former director of the Charleston Museum Laura Bragg sponsored Merton Simpson’s first solo art show. Two receptions for the art show were held; "one for whites and one for whites who didn't mind coming to a reception with blacks."[2] Education Simpson became the first African American to receive a prestigious five-year fellowship from the Charleston Scientific and Cultural Education fund and left South Carolina in 1949 for New York City after he finished high school. He attended New York University (NYU) for the first year and got accepted by Cooper Union. He took classes at NYU during the day and Cooper Union at night. Simpson also got a job at the frame shop of Herbert Benevy. Many well-known artists came to the frame shop and in time critiqued Simpson's work and developed a relationship with him. At NYU Simpson became acquainted with Hale Woodruff, William Baziotes and Robert Motherwell. The New York School was also having its impact during that time and Merton Simpson came in close contact with Franz Kline, Max Weber and Willem de Kooning at the frame shop. Out of all the colleges Simpson attended in New York, he credited the frame shop for giving him his real education.[3] Air Force Simpson enlisted in the Air Force in 1951 and went to Griffiss Air Force Base near Utica, New York for basic training. He did a portrait of base commander General Howell and assigned him to Special Service. Simpson also played in the Air Force Band, but was told that there was a greater need for artists. His title was official Air Force artist and he spent his time in service painting a number of military commanders including Chief of Staff General Nathan Farragut Twining and General Dwight D. Eisenhower who paid Simpson $100 for painting his portrait. When asked if he wanted to take a commission Simpson said that he wanted to go home to visit his ailing mother where he thought he would be of more use. His wish was granted. Some of his paintings are still on display in the Pentagon. Simpson as artist and gallerist After four years in the service, Simpson went back to NYU to resume his work. In 1951 his work appeared in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and in 1954 his work was displayed in the Younger American Painters exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum. As his reputation grew his artwork made exhibitions at a number of galleries in New York City and even Washington, DC. By 1955 Simpson had a one-person exhibition at the Bertha Schaeffer Gallery. As Simpson became more established in New York he also became interested in the School of Paris and established a residence in the capitol. The new environment had a clear and direct impact on his painting style which had been greatly shaped by the brush painters of the New York School. Simpson divided his time between Paris and New York where he set up his own gallery in the 1950s. The Merton D. Simpson Gallery of Modern and Tribal Arts is famous for its exceptional collection of Tribal arts, and for artworks by his contemporaries Romare Bearden, Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, Charles Alston, Hale Woodruff and John Biggers, among others. The Spiral Group Simpson was a member of the Spiral Group which was formed by fellow artists and colleagues Romare Bearden, Al Hollingsworth, and Hale Woodruff. The purpose of Spiral was to gather African-American artists to discuss political and social issues, the Civil Rights Movement. The group was formed in part as a response to A. Philip Randolph's call for a "new visual order" that would be created in part by artists' contribution to the Black Freedom struggle. Members of the group worked together in obtaining buses to travel to the March on Washington in 1963. The focus of the group shifted from a more explicitly political trend to one that was more aesthetic and artistic. Bearden introduced Spiral members to collage work and the black and white artwork the group created reflected the political turmoil of the time.[4]
Confrontation series The 1960s created yet another shift in Simpson's style. The social and political movements of the decade in general and the Harlem Riot of 1964 which Simpson witnessed firsthand had a particular impact on his painting. The artist responded by creating the so-called "Confrontation" series of painting series that featured schematized black and white faces inter-meshed in an intense encounter. The works were greatly inspired by Bearden's collage technique. African and tribal art dealer Simpson was drawn to African and tribal art after seeing some sculptures that Paul Robeson, Julius Carl Clark and Hale Woodruff had in their personal collections. Simpson purchased his first African carving in 1949. He learned much about African and tribal art by visiting the gallery of Julius Carlebach, a dealer in rare items. It was primarily Hale Woodruff's influence that drove Simpson's interest in African art. Simpson began collecting and dealing modern artists alongside the traditional indigenous works of art from Africa. His early art collection consisted of modern artists whose artwork was influenced by traditional African art such as Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Alberto Giacometti and Paul Klee. As his knowledge and experience in the field grew he eventually became known as one of the most prominent dealers of traditional African art in the world and the international art world at large.[5] Personal life Merton Simpson married Beatrice Houston, his childhood sweetheart from South Carolina in 1954. He opened his Madison Avenue art gallery to support his young family which also commemorates the birth of his first-born son, Merton Simpson Jr. The couple had another son named, Kenneth Simpson in 1959. Merton and Beatrice Simpson divorced in 2008. He is survived by his two sons, Merton Jr. and Kenneth Simpson. Musician Along with art, Simpson has always possessed a deep passion for music which has at times complemented his artwork. He learned to play the saxophone, tenor sax, clarinet and flute as a youth in Charleston. Simpson played with the famed Jenkins Orphanage Band. Later in life he played with various jazz groups, ensembles and musicians including George Coleman and Harold Mabern.[6] The Merton Simpson Gallery In 2000 the Merton Simpson Gallery moved to 38 West 28th Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. The gallery holds a large collection of African and tribal art, Modern art and Merton Simpson's works on paper and paintings.[7] Featured exhibitions on Merton D. Simpson's artwork: 1952 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1954 Guggenheim Museum, New York 1956 Museum of Art, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1960 Krasner Gallery, New York 1978 Edward Merrin Gallery, New York 1979 Huntsville Museum, Alabama 1982 Langston Society, New York 1983 Charleston County Library, South Carolina 1983 Allan Stone Gallery, New York 1984 Simon Center for the Arts, Charleston, South Carolina 1984 Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania 1990 Twinning Gallery, New York (solo) 1992 Noir d’Ivoire Gallery, Paris 1993 Tambaran Gallery, New York 1995 Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC 2009 Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York[8] 2009 Opalka Gallery, New York 2010 Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, SC – Confrontation Series 2010 Hampton III Gallery, Greenville, SC – Retrospective curated by Sandy Rupp 2010 Wilmer Jennings Gallery, New York – curated by Juliette Pelletier and Corinne Jennings 2010 Webb's, New Zealand 2011 Merton D. Simpson Gallery, New York – Encore Tribute and exhibition curated by Juliette Pelletier and Karen Tuominen 2011 Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York – acquisition included in BMA permanent collection 2011 Studio Museum of Harlem, New York – Spiral Group Merton D. Simpson, an artist who became a trailblazing collector and gallery owner specializing in African art, died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 84. Mr. Simpson had had several strokes and suffered from a number of prolonged illnesses, including diabetes and dementia, said his son Merton Jr. and Alaina Simone, director of the Merton D. Simpson Gallery, in confirming his death. Mr. Simpson’s work as a painter was largely in the Abstract Expressionist mode. It grew more political after he joined the Spiral group, a collective of black artists founded in 1963 by Romare Bearden, Hale Woodruff and others, who met to discuss the role of black artists in the art world and, given the growing civil rights movement, the larger world as well. Influenced by Bearden’s collages and the Spiral discussions, Mr. Simpson, after witnessing a standoff between Harlem residents and the police in 1964, produced a series he called “Confrontations,” abstract renderings of masklike faces, white and black, seemingly in hostile opposition. Photo Merton D. Simpson in 2002. Credit Bill Cunningham/The New York Times Mr. Simpson began collecting African and tribal art in the late 1940s. His interest grew through the next decade, spurred by the influence of African sculpture on the paintings of Picasso, Miró and others. “I was so taken with them, with the forms, you know,” he said in a 1968 oral history interview for the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art about the figures he had seen in the collections of Mr. Woodruff (who had been his teacher), Paul Robeson and others. “People talked about Picasso, Miró, and I used to say, ‘What about African sculpture?,’ which these people sort of got this idea from.” Continue reading the main story He began dealing in art in the early 1950s to support his painting and to help his family, at first working out of a studio apartment and later from a gallery in Manhattan. (The Merton D. Simpson Gallery is now at 38 West 28th Street.) Over decades of traveling in Africa and Europe, Mr. Simpson established a reputation for taste and expertise that many aficionados in the field consider unmatched. “Over the course of the ’60s and ’70s Simpson became the most important dealer in the U.S. in this field,” Heinrich C. Schweizer, head of the African and Oceanic art department at Sotheby’s auction house, said on Tuesday. “Worldwide, you could say he was one of the two or three leading dealers, and certainly a powerhouse in the U.S., and this was especially remarkable for an African-American, who began doing this in the time of segregation.” Merton Daniel Simpson was born in Charleston, S.C., on Sept. 20, 1928. His father, Marion, was a water-meter reader; his mother, Jennie, was a homemaker. As a young boy he had diphtheria and rheumatic fever, illnesses that kept him out of school until fifth grade. Photo A painting from Mr. Simpson's “Confrontations” series, begun in the mid-1960s. Credit Courtesy of Merton D. Simpson Gallery His youthful interests ran to both drawing and music; in high school he was a reed player, and he continued to play jazz saxophone as an adult, which he said influenced some of his later paintings, abstract works with looping lines, indefinite shapes and energetic brush strokes suggestive of the improvisatory nature of jazz.“Painting is like playing music,” he said. “You can hear a song, you can hear a melody, you don’t have to know the words, but you hear the music and get an impression of what’s going on.” He came to New York in 1948 and studied at Cooper Union and New York University, where he met Mr. Woodruff. In 1951 he entered the Air Force; he spent most of his time playing in the Air Force band and painting portraits of military officers, including Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. He also worked on paintings of his own. When he left the service he returned to Manhattan, where he supported himself working in a frame shop frequented by well-known artists like Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell, who would critique his paintings. Mr. Simpson’s marriage to Beatrice Houston ended in divorce. In addition to his son Merton Jr. he is survived by another son, Kenneth; a brother, Carl; a sister, Patsy Johnson; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. “He was a real pioneer, involved in African art at a high level at a time when there weren’t even many African-Americans who were collecting African art,” said Lowery Stokes Sims, curator of the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan, who worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from the ’70s to the ’90s. “When I worked at the Met I would go to the gallery and see some of the most incredible African art I’d ever seen in my life. It was really showstopping. And occasionally he’d show his own work,” she said. “For an African-American who came up in the art world in the 1970s, he was truly one of those unsung pioneers, crucial in establishing our place in the art world.” Spiral was a collective of African-American artists initially formed by Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Norman Lewis, and Hale Woodruff on July 5, 1963. It has since become the name of an exhibition, Spiral: Perspectives on an African-American Art Collective.[1] A few of the paintings on display at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama. Contents  1 History 2 Artists 3 Name 4 Exhibitions 5 References 6 External links 6.1 Reviews History Active from the summer of 1963 through 1965, the group of artists met weekly to discuss the role of African-American artists in politics and the civil rights movement, as well as in the larger art world,[1] and organized one group exhibition. The group was initiated after artists Romare Bearden and Hale Woodruff invited other artists to discussions in Bearden's loft. Initially the group was concerned with logistical issues, such as obtaining buses to travel to the March on Washington in the summer of 1963. Soon afterward, their efforts turned toward aesthetic concerns, including what author Ralph Ellison called a "new visual order."[2] The members of the group were at varying stages in their careers when they first started meeting. While they did agree that their place, as artists, in the civil rights movement was important, they had differing views on what that place would be. The artists in the group were moved to come together and discuss their own engagement in the struggle for civil rights, even though each found engagement in a different way. The collective allowed for a shared response to the courage that defined the struggle for civil rights.[3] In the years leading up to the formation of Spiral, most of the artists were doing figurative work. Several started to experiment with abstraction as they grew as artists and began working more closely together. Bearden expressed the want of collaborating on a collage. But because the group used different techniques and mediums in their works, they decided that there would be other ways to impact the movement.[1] Although the group was active for only a short time, Spiral proved to be important as an historical initiative, and was one of the first artist groups to call for the cultural community's involvement in social change.[1] The group's only exhibition was May 14 through June 5, 1965, titled First Group Showing: Works in Black and White. The exhibition was in part a response to the trend of major art institutions to overlook the work of African-American artists. Bearden had suggested the exhibition's black-and-white theme because it comprised both socio-political and formal concerns. The Spiral group was relatively ignored in much traditional art history since its demise.[4] But interest in the group was rekindled by a group exhibition of the collective in Birmingham and New York in 2010-2011, and the associated catalogs. The exhibition looks at the way the Spiral collective came into its own during a period of American history full of unrest, and the varied visual responses of African-American artists.[3] A few more of the works on display at the Birmingham Museum of Art. Artists Romare Bearden - collages, watercolors, oils, and prints Hale Woodruff - murals, paintings, prints Norman Lewis - painter Charles Alston - painter, sculptor, illustrator, and teacher Emma Amos - painter, mixed media Calvin Douglass - painter Perry Ferguson - painter Reginald Gammon - oil paints, watercolors, drawings, and prints Felrath Hines - abstract expressionism Alvin Hollingsworth - comics, paints William Majors - drawing, painting, paper collages, 3D canvases Richard Mayhew - painter Earl Miller - painting, pencil drawings Merton Simpson-abstract paintings James Yeargans - painter Name Woodruff suggested the name "spiral" in reference to the Archimedean spiral that "moves outward embracing all directions, yet continually upward".[1] The name also represented the diversity of styles and interests represented by the work of the members as they "sought to move toward common goals as individual artists and as African-American people".[1] Exhibitions Spiral: Perspectives on an African-American Art Collective was on view at the Birmingham Museum of Art from December 5, 2010 through April 17, 2011. It was organized by Emily G. Hanna and Amalia Amaki.[3] The exhibition was on view at the Studio Museum in Harlem, July 14 through October 23, 2011. Spiral: American Masters was on view at Evolve the Gallery (accompanied by a full catalog) from April 12 through May 24, 2014.[5] MS: I was born in Charleston in 1928. And I grew up mainly around musicians pretty much because since I was about eight or nine years old I've always been interested in music. I got involved quite a bit with the Jenkins Orphanage of Charleston. A lot of good musicians came out of that group. That's the old Diamond Jenkins home, people like Cat Anderson, Pinkett, Freddy Green Basie, these are all alumni of Jenkins. Like I said, it was a home for sort of delinquent boys but everybody wanted to go there just because it was such a good place to get involved with music. Charleston was at that time a kind of musical center for jazz. Very much in the sense that we think of a place like Kansas City with Basie and that kind of fellow. Along with the jazz thing and the music bit I got involved in painting; I was always sketching, doing cartoons, the Mickey Mouse and the Dick Tracy bit. Oh, one thing I should mention is that I spent most of my early childhood in a hospital. AM: Oh, yes? MS: I got diphtheria when there was no cure for it. AM: How old were you then? MS: I guess I was about six and from about six till about nine I guess I was in and out of hospitals. And right after that when I got rid of the diphtheria I got rheumatic fever which lasted for another couple of years. The finally I got cured completely. So from about, say, the first grade to the fifth grade I had no schooling. I started school actually in about the fifth grade. Of course I was tutored all along by my sisters and brothers. I have three older brothers and four sisters. So I came from a large family and was always surrounded by enough people to give me some comfort when I was in this hospitalized period. Then I guess after that it was just a question of back and forth between painting and the jazz kind of thing. I was always sort of torn between the two. Finally when I was about fourteen I decided that I just wanted to be a painter; and the jazz thing took sort of a back seat but only in the sense that painting was much more important at the time for me. AM: Well, the matter of music is far easier to guess how you came to be interested in it because you were surrounded by it. But to become interested in art in Charleston I would imagine would be due to a slightly different series of influences. MS: Yes. Yes. AM: Were you saying that when you were hospitalized you began to look at pictures? MS: Yes. I got involved with sketching and doodling from the funny papers and such. And this led to a much more serious interest in art and I started copying things from magazines and art journals. I did a series of things by people like Reynolds -- or academic religious pictures by artists such as --well, not Michelangelo, but people in that school, lesser-known people because I would get hold of books borrowed from the Charleston library and they never had really the top things but always sort of second-grade people. But they were helpful enough in that they were a stepping stone in my getting interested in painting other things. AM: What about the Sunday School cards that came along with the comics on Sunday? And these were brightly colored? MS: Right. This was the part of the thing I did also, you know, sort of took liberties with them and blew them up, tried to abstract things from them -- flirting with abstractions. Of course, the person who helped me most in Charleston as far as art is concerned was William Halsey. At that time he was the man who headed the art gallery there. He was also a very fine painter, aside from being a decent human being. He sort of took me under his wing, so to speak, and taught me a bit about drawing, constructing a picture, mixing paints, and the general sort of things needed to be an artist. This went on for I think about four or five years. I'd go to his into a few shows, local shows, shows in Atlanta and places like that. He was very encouraging. AM: How old were you at that time? MS: Oh, I was about thirteen years old then. AM: From about thirteen to about eighteen? MS: Yes. I finally left Charleston and came here in 1948. But all during the time I was in Charleston I was pretty much working with him and in the Gibbes Gallery. I worked in the gallery for a while. AM: What was the nature of the Gibbes Gallery? MS: Well, it was like a city-run gallery; actually more a museum that a gallery. Had local shows. And had a pretty good permanent collection. And had art classes. Of course at that time Negroes weren't all owed to go to classes there. But I went mainly because I was working at the gallery and I guess I was the one they took in to say that "we have one in" something of that kind. I guess it was just a question of circumstances. Of course with Bill Halsey, as I said, he was always a very open-minded person and I was in and out of his home as much as I was in my own home at the time. [Machine turned off.] MS: Charleston again. AM: You were talking about the gallery. MS: Yes. The Gibbes Gallery because that was the only gallery in Charleston of any consequence with the exception of Kura Kuhar, a French woman who had a bookshop and gave part of the space to some local painters. AM: A French woman, you say? MS: Yes. She was an old friend in Charleston and pretty much an artistic live wire. Oh, one I should also mention in Charleston who was very helpful -- Jean Fleming. She was a portraitist. I got to know her through Edward Johnson who was a frame maker in Charleston then. I worked for him for a short time, and he showed one of my little portraits to Mrs. Fleming. She got interested and actually did a portrait of me as a demonstration of technique. And from that one sitting I got quite a bit from her. She was one of these people who could do magic and was very good at imparting techniques. She didn't say much but what she would demonstrate by just a stroke of the brush she would do in such a way that you would be able to sort of imitate, emulate what you might do. AM: Well, after you were involved in the comic strip type thing and the religious thing what were your interests? What did your paintings look like as you remember them? MS: Oh, they were quite bold actually. Sort of bright, flat colors kind of thing, heavy black outlines, very much in the direction of stained glass windows. I've still got some of those early things. Bill Halsey just showed one to someone who came here from the North Carolina Museum last week -- they're in the process now of setting up a book on Negro painters in which I'm being included. He just asked me yesterday if I'd be willing to do a show there. I said, "Certainly." Because he was sort of intrigued with this "Confrontation" idea that I'm involved in now. In fact he's coming in today again to take some more pictures. He spent a day with me the day before yesterday and part of yesterday shooting and taking notes. Also doing the tape bit. He's just a young man. He's running the North Carolina Museum now, but he's so enthusiastic about what's happening to Negroes in the arts that I would think he'd be almost better placed in Harlem in a way for his own good. But at least he's getting things done. He's getting involved with Negro colleges and trying to push them into showing and doing things and not being timid or afraid to approach the big museum in town, because you can understand very well that there's been such a ban on -- or sort of a working group against -- Negroes painting in the South that I can understand the reluctance now of some painters to try to show even. But the city of Charleston has learned a lot since I lived there. I was home just about three months ago when my mother passed and there were such fantastic changes it's not the same city. There has always been a large element of decent people in Charleston but things to me so much better how in many areas, not just in physical areas. In the Police Department we have captains, detectives, lieutenants, and this kind of thing. It's the kind of thing you expect to find in a place like New York, not in Charleston. But it's there and it's honest. You find it here and it's a little bit hypocritical. I've always maintained that when the so-called education bit does really develop it's in a place like Charleston where it will be much more real, before it happens up North. Because, as you know, there is no haven as such in this country for Negroes. I don't think there ever will be. I don't want to get off on this sort of tangent. AM: Well, what is interesting is the fact that you left Charleston a long time ago but you really didn't sever you relationships. MS: No, no. I don't think I could ever really. AM: A lot of times in the case of a number of people, a number of Negroes who have come North from the South their interests in the North are quite different from what their interests were in the South. MS: Yes. AM: When they've gone to school and they've studied certain things, and found so many opportunities, as it were, in the North they tend to minimize what they actually did when they were in the South, the actual beginnings. You seem to have maintained connections. Have those connections always been there? MS: Yes. Oh, yes. I think it's only natural to do this. Especially in my case. If you've got friends, roots, connections I think you want to develop them. You know, like I said, Bill Halsey is still in Charleston. Blewer is still there, many of my teachers are still there who were very helpful in the sort of rough days when I was sick. You know, it's just hard to forget. It's like the family, you know. We've been a closely knit one ever since I can remember. AM: What was junior high school and high school like? MS: Well, I don't remember junior high school but I can remember a lot about high school. As I said, even in junior high school I had the medical problem. But high school was fine. I was in the school band and did a lot of painting. AM: What was your instrument? MS: Saxophone; tenor sax, clarinet, flute. AM: A reed man. MS: Yes, pretty much. In fact I'm going to have a chance to play at this benefit tomorrow night. We're doing this Biafra bit. Roland Harman, Danny Moore, Davis on bass. They're a pretty good group of guys. AM: Tomorrow? MS: Yes. I wish you could make that. AM: So in high school you were in the band? MS: Oh, yes. AM: And were you in the orchestra? MS: Yes. Yes. In fact we had a band that played concerts against the Citizens Band in Charleston and we won, you know. AM: What years were these, roughly? MS: Oh, well, I came out of high school in 1948, so figure back five years. AM: By that time there was another quite famous South Carolina musician who was pretty popular at that time, Dizzy Gillespie. MS: Oh, yes, yes. AM: There was, I suppose, a certain amount of identification with him? MS: Yes. Kansas City too. AM: Right. And insofar as your school activities were concerned there was some, let's say, official interest in you art on the part of your teachers? MS: Oh, yes. Certainly. AM: Doing posters? MS: The whole works, yes. You know there was always some little article in the paper about a prize in Atlanta, a little prize in a North Carolina show or something, as far as Philadelphia. In fact it got so that in the Atlanta show I won the prize for three years so automatically they finally decided it wasn't the place to show because, you know, painters were beginning to say it's an all-Negro show, we don't want to start showing in an all-Negro show. So I stopped doing that. Now we're getting back to that. We still have all-Negro shows. I don't know. AM: How did you feel at that time about your identity as a painter? In other words, what did you identify with? MS: Well, at the time, you know, I didn't think at all great. I just painted and wanted to show the pictures. I didn't think a thing about doing it with one group or another, you know. I just didn't give it any thought. Of course now I have sort of qualms about all-Negro shows, depending on the reason for the show. If it relates in the sense of what we were trying to do in the Spiral group -- for instance, were trying to find whether we had something in common as Negro painters -- then I think this can be a valid thing. But if you're painting in a particular direction, say, you're painting -- I don't quite know how to put this -- for instance, if you're, say, a man working from Ghana and you're doing a show on Ghanian art or something, that I think is all right. But just to have an all-Negro show today I think is not the thing to do. Not that I see any reason against it politically; it's just that I think you're sort of putting your self in too much of a niche. You know, if you're going to paint, paint and show, but don't worry about fitting into any one group, or any particular groups as such. Paint them and show them. AM: In other words, if there was an exhibition and they were saying American Painters Under 40, there would be no particular reason for dividing Negroes, Jews, Puerto Ricans and what not? MS: No. I think it would be silly. AM: Anglo-Saxons, Protestants, Catholics and whatnot. It would be ridiculous. MS: Exactly. AM: Because you wouldn't be showing American painting or painting by Americans under 40 -- they would be included in the various groups, a spectrum. MS: Exactly. That's what I'm trying to say. AM: Meanwhile when you were in Charleston and in highschool or during that period in your life what about your brothers and sisters? What were they doing? And what was your relationship to them> MS: Well, like I said we were a sort of closely knit family. Two of my sisters are now teaching school. Let's say six of us went to college. Six of us are married now: two are not married. My oldest brother is at the Post Office in Charleston. As I said, two of my sisters are teaching school. AM: In South Carolina? MS: Yes. Two of the girls are just housewives. Another brother is in the taxi dispatching business. The fourth brother is in the furniture business jobbing again. My father is retired now. He was with the City Water Board, meter inspection in Charleston and I believe was the first Negro to have this job. My mother was just a housewife aside from being an extremely fine mother. AM: What colleges did you attend? MS: Well, I went to Cooper and N.Y.U. A funny thing happened: I came up to take the test for Cooper and excelled in the art part but sort of flunked everything in the special math test they had. So I took another test that same week for NYU and got it with a partial scholarship thing. And I went to NYU. But the next year I took the Cooper test, passed it with flying colors and went to Cooper at night and NYU during the day, just before going into the service. I came back out. Went back to NYU and got my paper so to speak. By the way, during the NYU days was when I met Woodruff. He was one of my teachers there. AM: Hale Woodruff? MS: Yes. I got a lot from him. He's an excellent teacher aside from being a good painter. I believe he's retired now. The NYU days were real good days. That's the time I became involved with Baziotes, met Motherwell, it was the active period of the New York School expressionistic days. NYU was the heart of it, that whole area. AM: What years would this cover? MS: Oh, 1949 to 1951 actually. I went into the service in 1951. AM: What branch of the service? MS: Air Force. AM: You were in the Air Force?! MS: Yes. Yes. That was an interesting experience, by the way. The first thing I did when I went through my sort of basic training up at -- what's the base upstate near Syracuse? I can't think of the name now. But I did a portrait of my Base Commander at the time who was General Howell, I think. And he saw the portrait and liked it and assigned me to Special Service. Well, actually I wanted to go into the band but they said they needed a painter on the base and they give me the band as sort of sideline thing. I was assigned as official Air Force artist. That was my job. That was it. I did a portrait of General Twining who was at that time the Chief of Staff. When he saw the painting he suggested that I do one of Eisenhower what at that time was General Eisenhower. He arranged a sitting with him out at Scottsdale. So I went to Scottsdale to do the General to find that he was in Colorado. So I got a plane and went to Colorado Springs and had a session with him and did some sketches. From the sketches I did a portrait which finally ended up with him. He gave me a hundred bucks, which was a lot for a GI. I got a nice letter from him a week later when he got the portrait. About a year after doing that it was Colonel Hoey who I believe was at Scottsdale and he got me to do another portrait, this time of General Howell for the Scottsdale Museum or something. They have a special Air Force museum. I did this. After I painted this portrait they asked me whether I wanted to take a commission or continue sort of working this way. I said what I'd like to do is go home because my mother was not well and I could do much more for her being out than in. So a few weeks later, I was being processed and got out. And that's how I got out of the Air Force. So I sort of painted my way out I guess more or less. AM: How long a period was that? How long were you in the Air Force? MS: Well, I was supposed to be in for four years because when I went in I took the officers training bit and passed it actually for the Army. But after passing it for Army the Air Force refused to release me for the simple reason that I was doing these portraits. I wasn't doing anything for the country as such except painting these portraits. So they refused to give me a release for the Army. When this happened I refused on the other hand to go ahead and go through the Air Force Candidate School because you had to sign up for an extra hitch if you did that. And I didn't want this, you know. What I wanted to do was to get out. I didn't like the service even though I didn't do anything but paint and play jazz. But the idea, just the regimentation was just too much; even without having it thinking of it was just too much. Because as I said, I had it much easier than most guys who were in the service. Even guys that should have had it, at least guys who were in the service. Even guys that should have had it, at least guys that followed me, I saw PhDs sort of doing menial labor. The service is a funny thing, you know. If you're lucky you get into lucky things. If you're not, you've had it, in other words. Of course I don't know what it's like now. But at that time that was the case. I was just lucky enough to always get the easy assignments. I was lucky enough to get into the band, I was lucky enough to get this portrait assignment, the Air Force Artist sort of thing, with three stripes and the chance to take a commission if I wanted it. This was a period of two-and-a-half years. I got a year off because of my mother's condition, keeping in touch with the reserves, which I was allowed to do in Charleston, sort of work, and then went back in for six months, completed the first part of my hitch, and got a discharge without any reserve attached to it, which there should have been. But during that time when I was doing portraits in the Army I did a lot of my regular work. I think my best paintings to date were things I did in the Army. The painting that Sweeney bought from me was one that I did when I was on the base, a large abstraction. This is the thing that's reproduced in the American Painters catalogue in 1954. But all in all it was a pretty good experience in the service. Not in a military sense but in the sense I guess working with people and what happens not because one deserves it but because of circumstances. I would like to have gone to Europe, though, because I had a chance to go but couldn't because of the portraits and the general who wants my so-called talent around. We played at parties for them, too -- there was a jazz combo on the base and we played for all the officers' parties and that kind of thing. But it was a worthwhile experience. AM: Yes. When you look back the different things come together. MS: Yes, sure. AM: Now this was right after NYU? MS: Yes. AM: Or did it interrupt NYU? MS: Well, it interrupted and then I went back to NYU. AM: And you were involved with painters who were very much in the public consciousness at the time. MS: Yes. It's so funny, they were all sort of interested in techniques. I remember even Sam Adler who was working in encaustics, they'd all come around me -- I was a student at the time -- they'd come around for me to show them how to do things with wax. Well, I got these wax things by working in the frame shop. I worked in the frame shop for a long time even when I was going to school; I was going to school at night and in the daytime I worked four hours in the frame shop. AM: Where was that? MS: Beverly's Frame Shop in New York. AM: Where is that located? MS: It was at Second Avenue at 52nd Street at the time. Now I believe it's up in the Seventies. But this place was like a college. Everybody came in for frames, people from Hans Hofmann on down to Max Weber, or on up, either way you want to say it. Oh, Maurice Sterne used to come in and he used to see my little wax things. It was so funny, I'd be working on a gold leaf frame and he'd do a painting at the same time. In fact the painting that the Guggenheim took is a gold leaf painting. In fact he painted while we worked. If you could see that painting some time. It has a sort of fresco-like quality with a golden sense like a rubbed golden wall or something. It had even some magical textures. I remember one day in school at Cooper Union I had this painting up in class and all the kids sort of were intrigued with the medium. And old Schutz, a teacher of mine at the time, who was German and taught at Cooper, was very good. He said to the class, "The hell with the technique, what about the aesthetics?" They were all getting so involved in what I did in the technique because they would copy the technique but not make the picture like I did or that Schutz claimed that I did in the class. One thing about the teachers at Cooper, they were all extremely encouraging. And I think this was good. They did it just enough to make you work. They didn't overdo it, though. But it was effective, especially in my case. I learned quite a bit. AM: Then I suppose one of the next periods as we might call it so far as my conception goes, would be involved in your actually getting to Europe? MS: Yes. AM: How long did it take you to get to Europe after your NYU period? NYU and Cooper Union. MS: My first trip to Europe I believe was in 1959. I went actually not to paint as such but to see sort of African sculpture museums. While working in the Frame Shop I got involved with the collecting of African sculpture. Actually my collecting of it started I believe at NYU. I had seen pieces of Julius Carl Clark. And I saw one or two pieces that Woodruff had in his apartment. And I had seen a few pieces that Robeson had at the time; he had a few dogas that were exhibited in a few shows around town. I was so taken with them, with the forms, you know -- people talked about Picasso, Miro, and I used to say, "What about African sculpture," which these people sort of got this idea from. But they would never say sculpture, they would always say the Picasso, the Miro, the this, and the that, without getting to the source of this whole bit. But like I said, the first trip to Europe was in 1959 and then probably the next one was in 1963, and then 1965 probably, and since then just about every year. But now it's to the point where I spend at least eight months of the year in Europe and four months here; it's a sort of ratio of seven-five; eight-four. And I guess the reason I spend more time in Europe is just that I'm more comfortable there. This is not strictly a racial kind of country although this is certainly a part of it. You know, I'm free to paint and I spend more time on it. I have as much time to paint here as I do there. It's just that I'm more at ease in Europe and I feel more like working there than I do here. And since I want to paint I might as well spend as much time as I can there, and that's why I do it. Pretty soon I think it will be even more time there, ten months there and two months here. I never intend to give up my citizenship because I'm still an American and I think I always will be. I have no interest in denying that. AM: Well, your interest in African sculpture came to be quite an important thing. MS: Oh, yes. Well, I'll tell you a little bit about that. Actually I collected seriously for about seven years before going into the business end of it. And the business part came up when I had to help my mother and my father, help by sending a couple of kids, brothers and two sisters through college. I also found that by setting myself up in this business I could give myself more time for painting as opposed to working, say, eight hours a day in the frame shop, or teaching. You know I like teaching if I can teach kids. But I wouldn't teach, say, beyond twelve, it sort of stops there for me. I like teaching from, say, about four years to twelve. Beyond that it's too much work. I find kids in the age range of four to twelve fascinating; they teach you, more than you attempt to teach them. That's why I enjoy doing that. I did that in Charleston for a couple of years. And a year here at the Center. But like I said, the business then came up because of economics pretty much. I wanted to help the family, take care of my two boys, and give myself more time to work. When I'm in town I'm here in the gallery, oh, Saturdays mainly. But the other times I work on my painting. I don't have to be here as such. It's set up now so that I can stay away for six or eight months every year and not worry about coming back because I have someone very competent running the place for me. I come back when I'm anxious to see how things are. I'm free for painting now and it's almost an ideal setup for me. AM: What connection do you see or have you been able to discover between the new politically inspired interests in things African and the interest in African art which painters which you have known have, and which you yourself as a painter have? MS: Well, with this new thing, this new interest or awareness of Africa, African art my question is this: how sincere is the whole thing. How much of it is real? how much of it is just plain old chauvinistic tendencies? how much of it is just so much rubbish, so to speak? I have no doubt that there is a large element amongst black people who are seriously interested in Africa, African art and African culture as such, but so much of it to me is just hopping on the band wagon, sort of becoming part of the thing, it's the thing to do, to think black, to be black, and sort of be a brother, so to speak. A large part of this is mal-placed and mal-guided sort of political frustrations. Another part of it I guess is just that people are sort of wandering or swimming around not knowing what to hold on to and this seems to be the thing that's most available or most feasible at the moment. So they latch on to this and sort of use it. I mean they talk about a Rap Brown or a Stokey Carmichael. I frankly feel that these people in their shouting have a certain amount of sincerity. I mean I think it's a case of sort of asking for the hundred dollar bill to get fifty. And when they say "Kill whitey" I don't think they mean it literally. I think they mean kill the thing that's bad in whitey and sort of cultivate the thing that's good in him. I think they're trying to say help mankind. I've always had a belief in these people and I think even in their sort of wrongdoing, because in any kind of expression or expressions of this type there's bound to be some of it that's wrong or crude or unfair, I believe that there's a balance. I think there's a reason for the Stokey's and the Rap's. And I think that without them this country would be lost. Once again I've gone off on a tangent. AM: Yes. Well, those are political implications which are of course of fundamental importance. What is your reaction to, let's say, the quality of the aesthetic response that's involved in this? As you said, a certain amount of it is band wagon hopping. That's in a political sense. Too, it also may be in an aesthetic sense. MS: Yes. Sure. AM: What do you see there, and have you had time to think about it at all in terms of younger painters? MS: Well, for example, a few years ago I had a couple of kids working in my studio, one named Maurice Phillips and the other one being Gerard Anderson. By the way, that's a painting there by Maurice. Not one of his better things, but he's certainly been influenced in a real way by African sculpture, African painting and African masks. This is a young man that is close to being a genius. He can dance. He can pick up a guitar and play it. If he picks up a saxophone he plays it. He's one of these multi-talented people. But there are so many others -- I don't know -- I wouldn't call them optimistic but I think they get involved because they think it's the thing to do. I believe in time that something real will come from this whole movement, or series of movements. As far as the blacks or whites races really appreciating African sculpture for what it is I think we've all got a long way to go. Because, as we know, there are few Negroes who buy African art for very obvious reasons. The sculpture now of any consequence is a little bit on the expensive side. You can buy a decent piece for a few hundred dollars. But that's more the exception. You can buy a real piece for instance for twenty dollars, a gold weight, or a small miniature mask sometimes. But to really get involved in the sculpture, to collect it, is a thing that's beyond most Negroes. But even those that can afford it don't buy, and when they do buy they buy the wrong kinds of things, with the exception of someone like Ralph Ellison who has a pretty good collection. And Robeson I know still has his collection of dakotas. I don't know of any Negroes who collect as such. And Morgan has some things in Chicago. AM: What do you see as basic aesthetic prerequisites for the study, an actual practical involvement with African art as such? MS: Well, I don't think you need to have any pre-training. I mean you would sort of approach it the same way you would approach any work of art. I mean in contemporary things, for instance, oh, Duncan Williams, for example, most of them don't know that much about what they're looking at, they know whether they like a thing, whether they're responsive to it or not. I think you can do this same thing with African sculpture. I don't think you necessarily have to be a student of African art to really appreciate it. Most of these things, no matter how important or unimportant they are, are basically well-constructed things, well-realized, beautifully balanced, and in a number of cases really masterpieces. I mean it would be this in any culture not just an African sort of context. AM: Is it true that the average person, not only in our time but for a long time, has a more or less conventional conception of what art is and tends to think about it in terms of representation, in terms of images? That many people who've come to develop and interest in art, in African art, have had a sort of revolution of taste? I'm talking about other painters who have become interested in abstraction and what not: a person might look at a mask and see certain things in it, but isn't there a problem that the average person has to realize that it is art? In other words, isn't there a certain degree of sophistication in taste necessary especially for a conventional person? MS: Yes. AM: To see whether it's art? MS: Yes. I know there is a tendency to sort of associate the african mask with the jungle or the Tarzan movie or voodoo ceremonies and sort of overlook the artistic involvement. But I think this is changing with museum exhibitions and the amount of books being written on African art, the amount of television being given over to it now. It's getting to be the thing again. I get any number of calls now from television people, from schools, this group, that group, women's clubs, wanting lectures on African art. It's rather tricky I know. Especially for Negroes to sort of -- I don't think this is as much for African Negroes because I know most Africans, with the exception of the few that are involved in the dealing end, don't really like the mask. I mean someone as famous or as well-versed in art as Ben Wundel, he thinks of these things as sort of black magic still. And this I found incredible, you know. AM: Well, this is what I was getting at when I was talking about prerequisites. One prerequisite which it seems to me anyway that seems to be missing in some of the current black experience pronouncements is an interest in art, the prerequisite is an interest in art and that is in an abstract or in a critical sense which implies museums and things like that. To me, at any rate, it's perfectly natural that many Africans would not regard what we call African art as art. MS: Yes. AM: It is not involved, it is ritual. It is connected with ritual. MS: Yes. Sure. AM: It seems to me also that many Negroes, U.S. Negroes are not interested; come to African sculpture or to these objects from Africa with no critical context or no aesthetic context. If they try to make what unfortunately is a racial identification with them they end up with ritual. The prerequisite I was thinking of was, as a painter what is your reaction to the absence of that type of preparation for dealing with it as a piece of art? MS: Yes, I see what you're saying. AM: It's fairly easy for a person who's been through school to look on your wall and look at those two masks; with the aid of either Picasso or Paul Klee he can make a frame. But a person who has not been involved with certain classic problems of Klee or Braque or Picasso or what not, there's got to be come other prerequisites to fulfill. MS: Yes. It's a problem of context with a certain amount of artists. Yes. AM: I was just suggesting that perhaps you might have been aware of some things like that being operative, or in the absence of that type of involvement, operative in the development of Negro interest in art. MS: Well, it's beginning to take shape but it's more the exception now than anything else and I think it will be a while yet but it's work that has to be done. That's why I've been hounding Harlem to try to get some sort of Harlem museum set up, a place for seminars, a place for showing masks, for having lectures and for getting kids really sort of involved in it and then later bringing it up to the adults because I think it's much more important to have the kids do it first and then start it with the adults. I think a lot can be done with it in the sense of racial pride and the feeling that you do come from some place and you do have a heritage etc., and its not just sort of a happening more or less which is dropped there in front of people. AM: Did you find that your interest in African sculpture was stimulated more in Europe or in the northern part of the United States or in the South? MS: Oh, it would be very difficult for me to say just where the greatest amount of my inter-relation or sort of involvements came from. But I would say that the most sincere collectors I've run across have been in Europe. They really work at it and they really love the objects, I mean they're what one might call dedicated collectors. In the States I find that you have certainly a group of people who do it with sincerity and because they love the objects. But most of the people here who collect and buy do it because it's the thing to do, it's fashionable, it's a good moneymaking thing now. If you buy a good piece today a couple of years later the chances are it's doubled up, you know, in a way it's almost sort of speculation, more like the stock market. And aside from being a conversational piece again, as I say, it's a way for increasing the dollar. I mean we're all sort of worried now about the dollar losing its value, and a piece sitting there is much more constant, and art in general is much more constant when it is art. That's part of its popularity I guess, when you think about it. AM: You do on balance express some concern about the actual quality of the interest of many people who are associated with the black movement, the movement having to do with black identity which as we said is largely politically inspired. MS: Yes. AM: You have some misgivings about the quality of that interest. On the other hand you do know quite a number of Negro painters of your age and so forth, friends of yours, in fact you're a friend of most of the painters. MS: Yes. AM: What about their interest in art, in African art, and how has it influenced their work as you have observed it? MS: Well, the best example of this I think is our friend Romare Bearden who's been very successful lately with his collage series. He uses very much the African motifs and quite successfully. Romy has been around a hell of a long time and he's been a beautiful painter for a long time. But apparently he finds something quite special with this African collage kind of treatment. He uses his childhood experiences plus his brilliant artistic ability with this means of working on the African theme, sort of type African, as one might put it, and he's come up with one hell of a good expression that's quite beautiful and quite valid. Some people might seem to think that its too clever, too tricky. I know for a fact that it's just the opposite. Romy is equipped to do this kind of thing. He does it with such command and so swiftly, you might say, that it's almost like magic. And I think that you just couldn't do this unless you were a Romy Bearden or someone of that calibre. I know he's helped me so much with these collages. I mean I see these things and I think my new paintings have sort of grown because of what he's done with the collage. I think if I hadn't seen them I wouldn't be doing as well as I am now with my Confrontation things. I feel very strongly about them, you know. Most people that I've shown them to, people whom I respect, Sweeney and the North Carolina Museum Director I spoke about -- Stanley Marcuson -- think that they're much the best things that I've done. And I certainly think this is true. And again I say thanks to Romy Bearden. AM: Romy has been working for many, many years with the Dutch masters and with a number of other elements from the great tradition of painting. MS: Sure. AM: And this is one of the things which was to be part of -- a young man in Harlem can't come right out from just looking at a magazine ad or from commercial art and latch on to African sculpture and expect to have the same type of aesthetic dimension as Bearden, because he's got Peter de Hooch operating there, Vermeer, and a number of people operating to solve problems which canvases pose. MS: Yes. Oh, yes. If there's such a thing as a contemporary master Romy certainly is. I mean people talk about painting and they talk about de Kooning and Kline and that. When I talk about painting I talk about Romare Bearden, de Kooning and that. This is my sequence and I think justifiable so. AM: What about the influence of African art, or the use of it on some of the other Negro painters? MS: Well, I see a little of it coming through in the work even of Norman. AM: Norman Lewis? MS: Yes. Norman is another one who has tremendous talent. He's a real poet. He's just a beautiful painter. Hollingsworth, yes; I always get his name confused with someone else. I think of the cartoonist and I have a tendency to sort of overlap the two. He does sort of totem figures; I mean he did some a year or so ago that were very much influenced by African things and were quite good. I don't know what he's doing now because I haven't seen him lately. But I certainly wish he would have kept on it that direction and really developed what he started. But I don't know too many painters Negro or white who have been too much influenced by the African, except in the sese that the sculpture influenced people like Picasso and the whole Cubist movement. In that sense I mean most of the things that they were working on got something from the kind of structure that sort of goes into good African sculpture. Like Sweeney said to me once that underlying construction even when a piece is first sweet and then the sweetness is on top, but an African piece will never be just sweet. This is one of the things he pointed out to me. And I'm inclined to agree with him. AM: That's true. This is a very important aspect of such a discussion that the influence of African art on contemporary art is unmistakable. MS: Certainly. AM: Whether you talk about de Kooning or anybody else. At the same time when an American Negro painter comes to it one is looking, let's say, for anything special that he might work and this is the sort of thing. I have a feeling that some painters actually have been influenced by Orozco, Siqueiros and Diego Rivera under the mistaken conception that these lines represented by them are African. Do you see what I mean? MS: Yes. AM: They're really involved with foreign workers and peasants, they're not as involved with the aesthetic problems which African art is involved with because this is abstract art in the richest sense of the word: whereas they're involved in many instances with representational art in the most proletarian sense of representing peasants and workers. Not that the Mexicans are wholly concerned with that but there are people who have been influenced by them, have come through the Depression, the Federal Projects, the execution of murals and things like that. MS: Sure. AM: So this is what I wondered if you have discerned in some of the other black painters any special accents. For example, in Romy Bearden we find an American accent which has an African base, has a Dutch base. All painting that we know has been influenced by the Dutch, by the Italians. MS: Sure. By the French. AM: And the French and also the African. So now when it comes out man is who he is where he is. Romy is an American Negro painter so his paintings have an American Negro accent and they have a small discernible African influence. What have you found in the other painters? MS: I'm trying to think. Well, in a way, in Jake, for instance you certainly get this sort of a feeling -- AM: You mean Jacob Lawrence? MS: Yes. He gives a feeling that African art is a simplification of this sort of aspect. I can't think of any others that really strike me as having a real tie in with the art as such. I remember younger people's work. I can't think of their names now, that sort of use African motifs. But I don't know how deep this is because I haven't seen enough of it. AM: But that which you have seen, what is your feeling about it among the younger people who are consciously and deliberately -- ? MS: Well, I see that they're searching. I don't know how successful they've been in developing it but I certainly think it's been sort of pointing them in a good direction, you know. Now that's coming out of that we'll have to see at a later date. There is one man -- of course he's definitely an African sculptor from Ethopia, who worked here last year, I mean the year before last. he worked in Paris before that. He's now back home. He's very much sort of African fantasy; that's what he's painting, you know. But then he's Ethiopian, he's an African and he has much more reason for that working out of a cult tradition in a way. But he's infused with that kind of, oh, almost what you might call a cave-like treatment of sort of flat figures, stylized animals running, this, that and the other; but very beautifully done. He sort of ties them into a sort of contemporary statement. AM: What were your involvements with galleries and so forth in getting started in New York? Now by the time you came to New York you had actually decided that painting was for you? MS: Yes. When I first came here actually I had one painting with the Saidenberg Gallery. They showed it for a while. I wasn't very interested in showing because I wasn't working as well as I thought I would have liked at the time. But she liked the painting. And she had a chance to sell it. I didn't let her sell it; I said I wanted to keep the picture and I think this sort of upset her a bit so our relationship didn't last too long. After Saidenberg I went to Bertha Schaeffer. I stayed with her for about a year-and-a-half. I had a successful show there. Later I left and went to Jacques Seligmann. After Seligmann I went to John Heller. After Heller I went to Krasner. And after Krasner I decided against galleries for a while because I didn't like what was happening. If you were the top painter then you were pushed. If you weren't then you were sort of slighted. This I don't think had anything to do with being black or white; it was just a question of the economics of the galleries. Now of course I've been working quite a bit. I will have a show in Paris probably in March. I just had one at Chatham College which went quite well. AM: Where was that? MS: Chatham College. That's in Pittsburgh. And I will do this North Carolina thing next year, which should be a good show. They're doing good catalogue on it. We may do it in connection with an African thing they're trying to set up, too, sort or contemporary African sculpture with the old sculpture showing the sort of bastardization, or whatever you want to call it, whatever has happened since the missionary came to Africa. But my thing is whether you show or not I think the important thing is work and I think what is more important than having shows is having your contemporaries see your things. I think this sort of feedback, sort of exchange of ideas -- I think painters are better prepared to tell you whether you're moving in the right direction or not. And I think if you can have this type of contact whether you're exhibiting or not then I think you've a live Painter and you shouldn't worry about having the big exhibitions, this, that, and the other. Because if you're really good in time people will see it and you will get your due, you know. That's what I keep trying to tell painters who come by complaining they don't have a gallery and "nobody takes my work", this, that, and the other. I say, "Don't worry about that. You paint, if they're good you'll sell them and don't worry about getting into a gallery, especially a big gallery. And if it's not a decent gallery it's not worthwhile anyway. So it's better to just show in a group show, if you want to, go into competition -- because I did this for many years -- and don't let a few rejection slips stop you. The more rejections the harder you work. I look at it this way, if they reject my paintings they're the losers. If I leave a canvas it means I'm pleased with it and I think if I'm pleased with it the best judge to decide whether my paintings are right for me. It has to be that first before it can be right for anyone else. AM: Well, when they stimulate other painters that's one of the highest rewards. MS: Yes. That's one thing, if you can get this kind of response then I think half your in this regard I'm luckier than a lot of other painters. I really don't depend on my paintings for a living. Last year I made $30,000 out of my paintings. And I'm sort of pleased with that. AM: Oh, yes! MS: And that's without a gallery. Of course if I had a gallery a third of that would have gone to the gallery. And like I said, the galleries don't sell the works you sell the works. I maintain this with few exceptions. That's how it was when -25- MS: I was with Bertha. She wanted 40% commission and I was doing most of the selling. I had a show. Thirteen paintings were sold and I sold ten. . . And to get 40% on top of that when I was framing my pictures, too! It was just too much. Of course we were friends and we still are friends and we still are friends. Like I said, for a painter the important thing is to make good pictures and having you contemporaries see them. Beyond that if you're good it will happen; if not, then you do something else. That's the answer I think. AM: Have you felt a cross-feeling of mutual back and forth influence in your interest in painting and you interest in music? MS: Well, I really don't separate the two as such. I think one helps the other. I haven't done any writing really but now I want to sort of try some things in relationship with what I'm painting now. I have some ideas that I'd like to do with a friend of mine in Paris who's from Ceylon, Stuart do Silva, an excellent pianist who dabbles in painting a little. I've got some ideas I want to sort of do, like I said, not to try to write a painting, or paint a piece of music but to show the relationship between the two things in my sort of psyche, you know. And I think by next year I'll have something to show, maybe do a small thing at the gallery here with a jazz quartet so something doing a number and show a couple of paintings that sort of relate to it, and just see what happens. AM: The idea of being a jazz musician certainly involves what is called and what I refer to as improvisation; you know, stylization and improvisation are basically the same, improvising and stylizing at the same time. MS: Yes. AM: When you take your clarinet or your saxophone and you noodle around with the horns and so forth there is a great similarity -- . MS: To executing a passage on canvas. AM: Well, with your sensibility being -- you're engaged, as it were, in both. It's possible that you don't even think about it, its so much the same thing. MS: No, I don't. But I've noticed some people responding to it certainly in that way. Especially the last canvas that just completed last night. While I was in the process of working it a man said it resembled certain passages he had heard somebody play. AM: That would suggest that there is perhaps an indigenous American basis for an identification with some of the things that have happened in African sculpture or with African art -- which should not be overlooked by people who are very much concerned with establishing identity with Africa because surely what a jazz musician does to a conventional melody is not, let's say, European. MS: No. AM: The same thing is true of what an African sculptor, or carver did to a human torso or what he did to cylinders and things like that. Well, some Europeans like to think of it as almost pure aesthetics. MS: Yes. AM: The same thing for American Negro music. The solutions have to do with the freest type of aesthetics. MS: Yes. Someone like Arnold Coleman you might say. AM: But I mean even in the traditional and conventional thing, when you think of Kansas City style. MS: Oh, yes, sure. Even in Kansas City style there's certainly tremendous attraction going on, you know. Counterpoint, play horn against horn, different tonalities. Even Old Satch, you don't know what he picks up, abstracts a tune much as he does, and keeping it as simple and as right and as easily digestible as a glass of water might be. When genius is there, its there. AM: That's true. What are you thinking about or how do you formulate your direction or your interest as of now insofar as painting it self is concerned? MS: Well, like I say I'm deeply involved now in this business of sort of black-white confrontation, I the problem of the two American most contrasting segments, I mean the black-white bit, fighting each other, almost sort of killing each other off; not yet, but certainly coming to this. And in trying to paint this kind of thing I begin to see that there's a sickness on both sides. We argue the point that the reason for the sickness on the Negro side is because of the amount of maltreatment they've had from the whites. But I still don't certainly think it justifies our being any worse than they were. I mean because a man been a dog to you don't turn around and become a dog to him if you can help it, you know, and I think unless this is the case and unless this man is willing to be helped I think this American democracy, or so-called democracy, is in for a sort of slow death. Not that it is dead yet but it's certainly coming to that. I think something has to happen. I think things are happening. And I think it's certainly going to come from the young. I don't think just the black young but certainly from the young people of this country. And it's happening all over the world the youth movement changing things and unless this really cultivates or develops itself into a real force then we're in for trouble. That's putting it mildly. AM: So how do you see, or what do you see the role of the painter as being in a situation, a cultural situation like this where the cultural via the political -- aesthetic aspect of culture which is a broad operational tactic -- within the cultural thing, perhaps just as important as the political thing, is the artistic tactic. That is, it could be a role for a certain type of politician, a role for a certain type of scientist or technician. There's a role for the painter. And it's not to get bills passed or build hospitals or roads or another type thing. What do you visualize your paintings as being able to do? MS: Well, I would think really there's a hell of a lot a painting can do. But I do see in the things that I'm painting now and enjoy working with I think it's just to point up how ugly this whole business is this sort of fighting each other and killing off each other. And I've had comments from a number of people, mainly younger people; they think that I see these people killing each other, two, I see two angry faces, but in the picture I see a kind of love thing coming through. Now frankly I tell you these people are seeing more in these pieces that I'm seeing, because I see only the killing side of it. But if by painting these pictures people begin to see this, and it is there somewhere (which I don't see frankly at this point) maybe this in its own time, killing will sort of point out to a few people, wherever people can see them, that a painter in any literal sense can do anything that's going to change things except be honest with himself, paint pictures, and show them. I think this is the case with me. If it is that, if it is happening it's almost without my being aware of it; it's almost a happy accident. Because I'm painting what I think I see: ugly people fighting ugly people. I see wrongness on either side. I just think it's an ugly thing. I want to paint it as that. And I think if people can see it, and frown upon it enough, it might make them think, "Am I really part of this? Then I should want to do something about it." But I think it's almost a process of sort of osmosis. If it is happening I don't know how much of this can be done with paint. But there are these things in my system, these canvases and I'm going to paint it. And when a guy says, "How much longer do you think you can go on painting these heads, these ugly pictures?" I said, "I can go on painting them as long as I feel there's a need for it and I think the need is going to be here for a while and that's it." The moment I stop feeling they're valid them I'll stop painting them. I mean I'm not concerned with painting a style one particular theme. If it's no longer valid as a painting subject thing for me then I'll stop it. That's one of the reasons I think I left Bertha Schaefer because I was selling one type of painting and went into something else and she didn't like that, so we parted ways. AM: Well, tell me this -- we'll go back and come up to this. What are some of the things, some of the involvements that you have had over the years as a painter? In other words, some of the stages or phases that you've moved through let's say, from the time that you could honestly or with some confidence regard yourself as a painter among painters? At first what were you doing? MS: Well, I was doing sort of the Charleston type architectural things but very sort of structural, a cross between someone like Feininger and Ryder. Because I've always loved the sort of luminosity and textures of Ryder. But I like the kind of very rigid structure of Feininger. For a long time I was doing a kind of Feininger thing in front of simple structures and then I went into a kind of Ryder landscape, seascape thing. And then once I had a painting in a show up at the Harlem Cultural Club and I got the first prize. But then one of the jury said, "It's a fine painting but it's just too much like Ryder." But this picture was painted before I ever saw Ryder. It was a strange thing. I never knew who Ryder was. But after that time I met Anita Pollitzer whose aunt was actually someone who took care of Ryder and gave him money in the last stages of his life. Then Anita bought the first painting I sold in New York. I remember once she came to Charleston and this same bookshop I told you about, Kurie Kuhar early in this discussion, Kurie Kuhar. She came to see Bill Halsey's paintings. And Kuhar had a few of my things on the floor. It was curious that Anita sort of burst into the gallery and said "These paintings are delightful. This man doesn't belong to Charleston. He belongs to the world." And of course Kuhar thought she was talking about Bill. Actually she was talking about my canvases on the floor. It was awfully flattering to hear this, because this woman was an art critic and she was associated with Stieglitz. In fact she was the person who introduced Georgia O'Keeffe to Alfred Stieglitz. And she got Georgia to be interested in my work finally. They wanted me to get a fellowship one time. And I submitted and I didn't get it. And I found out later I didn't get it because at the time I didn't need it financially, because then I was working at the Frame Shop and I had a pretty good salary. I didn't realize that this was a factor. Apparently because painters who were in the Stieglitz Gallery was doing framing for I ran the frame shop, so they realized that I was financially equipped take care of the necessaries of living. But I don't think it was justified. I think we need some special grant. But I've had a lot of fellowships and this kind of thing. I got one I think from the Charleston Cultural Fund. I was the first Negro to have gotten that. They gave me a stipend once and they gave it another time. Like I tried once for the Joe and Emily Lowe thing. I submitted my paintings and they weren't shown to the jury. At that time John E. Marshall was head of Art News and was one of the judges. He came by the next week and he said, "Mert, why didn't you send these paintings up? You certainly would have got first prize. There was not one decent painting in the show." I said, "Look, these are the two paintings I sent. He said, "Well, Mert, we didn't see them." I've had this sort of thing happen three times so I think I'm not one for prizes. But I have won prizes in Atlanta. I won one at the Delgado Museum and things like that. But these fellowship things -- I tried three times and each time sort of three bricks so I just decided they're not the thing for me. AM: And so in that period we were talking about what your painting was like when you first started out and moved through -- . MS: Oh, yes. I went from the Ryderesque kind of thing into a much bolder kind of landscape expression, oh, much like -- it's sort of hard to describe what it would be like -- but it was again flat, maybe a little bit like the best Tamayo kind of thing; but again more rigid, but with a palette certainly like he uses, a very warm palette, pastelly, but beautifully done. I've always been a good colorist. What Buckner said when he wrote a poem for me once that I was able to do magic with color, that was the sort of expression that's usual in school when they take about the school work. And then after the sort of Tamayo-related things went into a complete abstract expressionist stated thing but very textures. And that went on for a few years. And out of that I went again into stylized figures, not realistic but certainly bordering on a kind of, oh, a cross between Modigliani and, oh, maybe someone like Adler because certainly the textures and the kind of palette of Adler was a little bit in the style of Modigliani; nothing like it of course but it's the nearest thing I can think of to give an example. And then into beautifully poetic landscape kind of expression for about five years. Then into the Spiral thing in which I got involved with black and white pictures starting with the Harlem riots which seemed to have motivated it. I did a few figures and just heads and now quite stylized heads. And that's what I'm doing now. AM: Well, it's only in this particular period that you're in a sense speaking of socio-political content and interest in painting. MS: Yes. AM: What sort of content did you refer to before? MS: Oh, purely an aesthetic one -- making a good picture. That's all I was concerned about. And even now this is my primary concern, Number One. Of course it's already limited by the kind of subject matter. I'm sort of giving my self intentionally this black-white two heads confrontation, for emphasis reasons I think. But within that I allow my self certainly a lot of liberties that one needs to make a good picture. And that's still my prime interest -- to paint a picture. And I think I sort of stress painting because I think an awful lot of people are painting today. And I don't mean necessarily painting with a brush. I mean painting for values, constructive things, development things. Because I don't know any better paintings than bringing in again my favorite painter Romare Bearden. I don't know any better painting than his collages because he has the color, he has the texture, he has everything that one would want on a canvas. AM: Well, while you were talking, two things came to mind, especially as to content, an aspect in which I want to get your reaction. I'd say that at one time in Italy just about every painter was doing at least a dozen Crucifixions. MS: Yes. AM: I remember the paintings. I don't know whether I really believed in that or not. But I do know that certain subject matter became, you know, that they were using them for the rich he could paint. He was painting them on crucifixes, or the Madonna and Child. MS: Yes. AM: I wonder what you think about the fact that painters now, let's say, black painters talking about revolution and all this sort of thing, would it be well if they would remember, you know, that what they believe and so forth may o may not have anything to do with the quality of the painting; that the painting of a Civil Rights march or painting a confrontation with the police or come up against the Black Hand, is not really the primary thing that's going to come through? MS: To me there's absolutely no relationship at all. That's the thing that's very tricky about trying to paint in the way that I'm doing, it's so easy to sort o mislead yourself, you know, I mean without sort of getting into illustration. One has to be careful, as I said before not to be too literal; not trying to do the cop hitting the man on the head. But the first thing I did was just that, a cop hitting a man. After I did it I got afraid of it, i felt it was too much of an illustration. But after looking at it for about a year I found this was half the painting. I could look at this sort of media all along but I got so worried about what you just said about being literal and I had done this cop hitting the man. There was another thing I realize it now that it was, but when I did it I wasn't too sure. I said, what about it? Wondered if -- this is my first reaction whether I'm trying to run and put down this thing that happened? I'll tell you how the thing happened. The first Harlem riot was in 196? what -- 1965? 1966? AM: 1964. MS: 1964. I had just gotten back from a trip to Europe. I had forgot the keys of my gallery in my case in Europe. So I took my horn and my two bags and went to Small Paradise. Eric Dixon at the time was playing there and I was going to have him keep my bags for me and I'd sleep with him that night and come back for them in the morning. I got to Small's and unloaded the saxophone case and here comes a cop and "what have you got in the bags" kind of thing. I was trying to tell him -- I showed him my ticket and my passport -- that I had just got in from Europe and I didn't know what was going on. And I couldn't talk to the guy, you know. So after spending the night at Small's and coming home to paint this cop hitting a guy. And for a long time I wasn't sure whether this was just a kind of superficial reaction that I was trying to paint or whether it was something real. And it was. I just looked at this canvas again last night -- I never even finished it because I distrusted it. But now I know that it was the thing that gave birth to this other group of paintings. AM: The second thing that nurtured to get any response, well, first I mentioned subject matter in certain Italian paintings. Another thing that came to mind as you were talking of course would have to be Goya. Now I can remember pictures of violence, pictures of war and what not. I can also remember even better pictures of naked women. MS: Yes. Lush ones. AM: One clothed and one naked and had he never painted pictures of violence and injustice and so forth, depicted the goodness just as much as this other. MS: Yes, sure. AM: Now in fact there's a question as to whether, let's say, one of those scenes of execution was as good a painting as any number of other paintings. MS: Yes. AM: How does that fit in with one's involvement with the subject matter? Obviously activists are concerned with their feeling as the thing develops things which are useful to them as propaganda and politically. And that's as legitimate as it can be so far as their objectives are concerned. And generally we have nothing against their objectives. But if they're going to destroy painters in the process of getting a bill passed I think I'd try to help them get the bill passed without destroying the painting. It's not necessary. We're trying to fit that in with the problem posed by Goya. We know that these guys will select The Disasters of War, the picture that Goya did. And Victoria____ let some of them and overlooked The Naked Maja. [Lee--is this Cinqo de Maio?] What were supposed to do? Do you follow me? MS: Yes. Sure. AM: This is perhaps something else which a painter struggles with when he finds himself involved with subject matter -- -. MS: Yes. In that sort of a predicament. AM: -- or what otherwise he would regard as his models. Do you see? MS: Yes. AM: In other words, in painting does it make any difference to a painter really whether he's painting a saint or a whore? MS: I don't think it does, really. AM: Well, that brings up a certain intellectual embarrassment about whether you're painting justice or injustice. MS: Yes, yes. I don't think it does. Because you can take a loaf of bread and paint it and make it look happy or sad as you can paint a person I think, if you're able to do this kind of thing with your sort of soul more or less, your painting soul. In fact I've seen a sort of happy pair of shoes. I've seen sad pairs of shoes. I've seen Van Gogh paint where they looked sad. I've seen him paint where they looked happy, healthy, alive, bright. And I think this has to do with the amount of conviction and he equipment that the painter has within his particular equipment bag one might say. I don't think subject matter per se is the important thing. AM: One come to it perhaps because he is a human being an lives truly. MS: That's true. And naturally he is guided by certain things, you know, which sort of suggest one type of painting as opposed to another thing suggesting something else. AM: Do you have any problem that sometimes literate people -- the idea of escape or you get escape and involvement, you get a sort of thing going to have people talk, mostly cocktail lounge talk? MS: Sure. Sure. Yes. AM: But sometimes during wartime a painter can see flowers a little more sharply. This is as much a response to war as painting bombs falling on innocent people. MS: Yes. Sure. Certainly. AM: I think these are just touching on a few things that many young painters in their haste overlook. MS: Are overlooking, yes. Well, the world is moving so fast. That's why people want to do things fast. They want to do the trick things. The critic automatic show, do this, do something that you can do sort of on an assembly line. It all has to do with what someone said the other day -- what was it called? -- sickness, but the man said no, not sickness as much as white folks' sickness. I forget who said this. But it was a white fellow who said it. And I thought it was an interesting thing to have him say. And he meant that. And I'm inclined to agree with him. There's very much wrong with this country and since they are the controlling factors or elements in this country and there the big one. The fact that we may be sick, too, doesn't sort of change anything. Because if the disease is there it's spreading and anybody that's in the way is going to catch part of it. AM: That's right. Well, here's a question: Why does one paint? Why should one paint? Why have you spent so much of your time painting, being involved in painting? MS: Well, I think the simplest answer and most direct one I can give is that if I didn't paint I don't think I could really make it as a person. Painting to me is as important as my eating habits. I mean I do eat a lot, and I've got to paint a certain amount, I think I paint a lot, not as much as I should I guess, but I paint as much as my inner self will permit at the time. But like I say, it's been sort of my saving grace. People speak of having a balance. It's been the thing that's kept me away from psychiatry, one might say, and also going on a couch of some kind. AM: But isn't there also another reason that when you go and you look at paintings you want to do a painting? MS: Oh! Like I said, it's like when I go to a jazz concert and I hear the saxophones I come back and i want to play. It's the same thing with painting. I think good paintings always move me to paint more. That's why I think it's so important keeping in touch with painters. Every time I make a trip to Romy's studio for instance, I come back and I'm just sort of bursting with ambition. A lot of people go there and come away sort of discouraged. They say "he's painting this" then I should stop. But I take just the other side. AM: Well, that sort of fits in with what Andre' Malraux talks about -- is talking about when he talks about artists' dialogue in effect -- . MS: Yes. Sure. AM: I think that this sort of gets to a basic consideration that all artists have and that a person outside the field of art doesn't know, that is, a politician for one doesn't know what bothers the artist, what artists are doing. What a musician is doing. I mean a guy does not pick up his horn and blow about injustice. He picks up his horn and responds to Charlie Parker, Arnie Coleman, Lester Young and those people and through that idiom, medium, or whatever you want to call it, he will then get some emotion and emotion might have some connection with this, but basically that is stimulated by the music. MS: That's right. AM: No matter how much a young painter who's really a painter is stimulated by, let's say, the Civil Rights movement a certain amount of abstract expressionism will be somewhere in the sketch. MS: That's right. To be sure. AM: Or a certain amount of Pop and Op. That might be a bigger pitfall, but is likely to reflect art first. MS: Yes. In fact that's his business. First of all he's an artist and then that other thing is what comes next. [Machine turned off.] AM: You have pointed out that you have made a number of trips to Paris and now you're very much involved with spending quite a bit of your time there. MS: Yes. Paris and London, of course. AM: And Europe. MS: Yes. AM: But your base in Europe is Paris. MS: In Paris, yes. AM: Now what is Paris like? What is life in Paris like when you're there? MS: Paris to me is the city as you might say. Aside from its beauty, fine restaurants, lovely people, just good feeling of being there, I mean I can be happy in Paris just sitting in a restaurant reading the paper, I can be as happy there as I can be, say, in a jam session in Harlem. And, by the way, we have great jam sessions in Paris. We -36- MS: have a little room, we have Segall, we have Buttercups at Sadie's place. To me it's just sort of a dream city. AM: You participate in the jam sessions as a musician? MS: Oh, yes! Oh, sure!. For instance, whenever The Duke comes over, or Basie comes over, people like Cat Anderson and Buster Cooper and myself will go off to somewhere where we can play. I remember the last time The Duke came to Paris last year, Paul Gonzalez, Don Byas, Percy Poindexter came in and they played. And in the last number I took Paul's horn and played a couple of choruses of "Body and Soul." He same up to me and said, "Man, you're the first cat that ever took my horn and made it sound better than I did." Again this was an exaggeration. But what he meant was the tone of his horn. Paul is a fantastic saxophonist but he doesn't have much volume; he has to play with a mike. But he's a hell of a musician. Any musician will tell you this; he is the tenor man. But to catch him in a hall without a mike he's hard to hear because with his fantastic tone he does it in such a way that if he's not amplified you just don't get it, you know, unless the place is sort o acoustically equipped. This was the nicest thing anyone could have said to me because this guy I just admire no end. And if there's anything I would ever do other than painting it would be to go on the road with a band for a year. Just be a sideman, you know: to hell with the soloist; I mean that would come; but just sitting in with a group of guys playing arrangements. I would love doing that. AM: So then you've been involved with music through the years? MS: Oh, yes. AM: And very close to the musicians. MS: Yes. In fact one of my poker-playing partners in town her, Denny Moore, is a very fine trumpet player. He's playing with me tomorrow night. You know we have what we call not poker games but poker marathons. We start on Wednesday night and we end up Thursday evening; just playing hard poker. It's more fun than anything else. We enjoy it. Of course we play seriously. But it's more fun, actually than the game part, we really enjoy doing it. It's a kind of a challenge. AM: So in Paris you find yourself just as active, if not more active, as a musician than you do in New York? MS: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. As a matter of fact I think I get a chance to do more playing because there's always something going on. Eventually what I'd like to do in Paris is sort of get some sort of club with a friend of mine, Johnny Romero. Johnny Romero in a Puerto Rican Negro who's been in Paris, oh, for I guess the last fifteen-odd years. He has a very fine club called the New Artists right behind a drug store in Saint Germaine. And this is a place where poets and painters and artistically-oriented people meet and just shoot the breeze in bull sessions. I mean, this is where Jimmy Baldwin for instance comes. Or you'd find someone like Peter Delaney occasionally. Or the newest jet set would be there. Johnny is sort of a playboy typed. He writes poetry and paints a bit. And he's always showing me a canvas or something that he's just done. He'll say, "Come, Mert, come and see Simone's work." Simone means his wife who is a very fine painter. Actually Johnny wants me to come by to see his things but he sort of does it under the guise of seeing his wife's things: who is really the pro; but Johnny would rather like to be that, too. He is a guy who has much talent but spends most of his time on his club. And he does that quite well. Fine little place, a nice atmosphere, very easygoing, with drinks and records. I mean there's no live music. But it's quite a nice place and I spend quite a lot of time there just sitting, reflecting, making notes and sketches. AM: What is your business involvement? How much time does that take and how -- ? MS: Well, my business involvement -- in Paris I can do all the business I need do in eight hours. And that's a good thing about it. Because I have one or two collectors with whom I work. I have pieces sent to them; they see it; they arrange a check, and that's it. Bam! I buy there. I will make a dinner appointment which starts at about, say, seven in the evening, and have drinks, we'll have dinner, we'll go back to the house till the time that's done. So my days are completely free, you know. I can paint, if I want to, say, fifty hours a week easily, having all the time in the world to do the other things I want to do, the jazz bit, doing the Flea Market, going to museums, the theater, the works. Because any business activity I handle it's merely at dinner or after dinner. With the exception maybe of seeing one or two Africans who've come in with shipment. And that's an early morning thing. They'll call you at seven, and you then meet at eight, and by nine-thirty or ten your finished. Because I don't go through the usual ritual. They'll give you a price of $8,000 for a piece for which they want $4,000. So when they give me eight I automatically offer four, and that's it. I don't go through the haggling that most people enjoy going through. This is what I can pay and if they want it they take it. And they know me so they know how to handle me. And I know how to handle them. So we get along. There's no sort of wasting of time. Because I told them i just don't like the game and they're used to doing it and it's a part of their habits. But I don't enjoy it and they know it. And they know that I will pay and so I get a chance to see pieces. It's the same thing here now. There are loads of Africans coming from Paris to sell in New York. So what they'll do now if they've got a great piece, since they know that I will pay as much as the next man, they'll say bam, that's for Mert and they'll put it aside for me. And that's it. Getting back to Paris, I think it's a city for a painter. Especially if you're sort of a romantic. And I'm really one of the romanticists of the old school you might say. I still like sentimental things. I still do enjoy the sweet landscape, or enjoy just sitting down listening to a bit of schmaltz at times. I like to dream, you know. Paris is a city for dreamers I guess. So that's why I enjoy it. AM: It's also a city of great cuisine. MS: Ah!! AM: How has your interest in food been modified by your becoming a par-time Parisian? MS: Well, I think you can sort of judge that by my waistline that I'm forever fighting. Oh, I think the best food I've had has certainly been in Paris. One thing I'd like to mention though is that the best ribs I've had in Paris have been at a little place called Shaheen's. This is New Orleans? the ex-footballer who's now living in Paris. He's now a French citizen. He's become quite a celebrity over there. He's mad a number of movies, he's a friend of all the stars. He's quite a host. He has this place in the Pigalle area called Shaheens. It's really quite a place. It's the kind of place you'd expect to find in Chicago or in Harlem, for instance, a bit like Wells sort of thing. But really down to earth. Whenever the Duke would come to town or Basie again you'd find Johnny Hodges, Harry Cummings sitting there. And you'd see Johnny ordering his double pork chop and chicken dish, you know, kind of thing; and not one dish, he'd order two. That kind of thing. It's just divine. AM: That of course is American, and out of the American South. MS: Yes, sure. That's just what I was going to say. But like I say, good French food there's nothing like it. I've gotten in a bit of a rut with restaurants. I've got four that I frequent. One is call Weiden which is right off Saint Germain. And I've got La Palette again which is off the Pigalle. And there's one restaurant on Rue de Buci called The Petit Zinc which is just fantastic. I've got my favorite little table when I go and no matter what time of day it is whether it's seven in the evening or two in the morning you can always go there and get just fine cuisine. It's just a delight to sit around and have good wine and good food. It just sort of makes the day seem a little bit easier. But I guess it's a combination of things that make Paris what it is for me, you know. It's a combination of the good wine, the good people, the beautiful buildings, lovely little streets, watching the kids or the street artists doing a mural on the sidewalk and the cops not chasing them, and seeing the guide doing a jam session on the corner and not being bothered. It's a kind of paradise in a way. I'm not saying that Paris is all perfect because there are things there that are not quite what they should be. But it's certainly a place where one can sort of get along and manage without, you might say, driving themselves off the equal sort of limb, so to speak. AM: So what do you do about the tremendous appetite and food and so forth that you've developed in Paris when you get back to New York? MS: Well, I can cook, you know. And aside from cooking there are a few good restaurants here that I frequent. One being a little steak casino right down on University Place. i love this place. It's a little bit too bright, too large for my taste but the food is very good, the service is good. There are several other places in the Village that I've gone to, I can't think of the names now. One place that I like is Grandado's at the -- . AM: Spanish Village. MS: Yes. It's not as good as it used to be but it's still palatable. I go there. Of course I love good Chinese food and, you know, we can find that in New York. And Paris is full of great Chinese restaurants. AM: Oh, yes! I remember -- . MS: Really great ones. And Japanese also. AM: I recall eating Chinese and Italian food in Paris. MS: Yes. It's marvelous food. Of course in London I got in the habit of eating Russian food. I found Chaluba. And then a place for vodka. Two tremendous Russian restaurants. And then there's one very good Indican restaurant, the Tondui in Chelsea, which is just marvelous. I think it's probably the best Indian restaurant in the world. You can go there and eat for hours just one dish after the other. It's all delectable. AM: What about the food from Charleston? What did the Paris cuisine do to that? MS: Well, you know good home cooking is still good home cooking. And my mother, one of the great cooks, bless her soul. I never at out much in Charleston. But there are several good restaurants there, one being the Brooks Brothers Restaurant. But, aside from my mother's cooking I don't know too much about Charleston cooking except for the Brooks Brothers. I didn't go for restaurants. But one cuisine doesn't mitigate against another. There's sort of room for all kinds. I have a democratic stomach. It takes all good things. AM: Some people, for example, used to go to Haynes. MS: Yes. AM: And you don't realize how great Southern cooking is until you've enter it elsewhere and then they begin to realize. MS: Oh, yes. And you talk about chittlin's. Oh, the French just love it. I mean this is the thing. This is really the dish over there. If you're not there early to put in your order you just don't get any. That and the catfish stew he does is fabulous. AM: Seriously now, about contemporary painting in general. What is happening in art in America specifically, and also in Europe? What role does the American painter play to day? How do you relate yourself to the general trends that one reads about in the critical journals on painting? What do you think about what is going on? MS: Well, the American scene today for me as far as painting is concerned is one that I'm not really in sympathy with. I don't like the kind of -- I don't know quite how to say this -- it's almost kind of too mechanical, too artificial, sort of a lack of warmth of expression. It's really what might call more sort of a crafts output than a painters, with few exceptions. I mean in the Pop, Op, that whole group. With the exception o someone like Rauschenberg and one or two others I don't think you have anybody of any consequence for me. I mean I've yet to get on to the light painting kind of thing. This is all beautifully done, it's all intelligent, it has to do with electronics and all this kind of thing, physics, even science. But it's not the painting thing somehow. It's up to date, it's modern, and anything else you want to say. It's avant garde, the other word you might use. But for me it's not the painter's bag. I think the thing can be good if you judge it by a different criterion, but if you're going to call it painting, for me it's missing the boat. With few exceptions I just don't think we have any American painters around today, excluding the young people that are coming up. But I mean for the boys in the big station I think maybe you've go a handful of guys that you can count, and the rest are just sort of missing the boat. You've got this group that one top guy paints a certain way, does a certain trick thing. Then they sort of get on the band wagon. This is all right, it will seem all right for a few years maybe because the Establishment sort of sets a standard whether it this, that, or the other. And they make the prizes. They make the creative market kind of. But you see these things come in and in two years they're gone; in a year they're gone. But the guys that are painting the solid pictures, I think that will be the test. The same thing is happening in Paris. I mean Paris is sort of copying what is happening here. They did the Op bit, they did the Pop bit they're doing the light things. But one season they're in and the next season they're out. Of course you've got the solid guys around in Paris, too, the old standbys who paint the pictures. These are the guys that are going to last. And this is the thing. And like I said, I'll keep on in my slow way painting the pictures, I don't care how old-fashioned they might seem. The say abstract expressionism is dead. So what? If I happen to paint a good picture and I'm using that style, I think that's valid. And my idea is to do this canvas, do it well, make i something that you believe in, and when this is done then you've done you job. You can even use a Dada approach if you want if it's done properly. But I think if you're going to start to take a wreck, wrecked automobile fender or this kind of thing and use it as an end in itself for art I just think you're barking up the wrong tree. I mean again with a few exceptions, someone like Armani does this kind of thing. He does it but he never stops there. He'll take the thing and he'll do something with it that'll bring it into another kind of bracket. But this guy, you know, he's one of those sort of freaks that comes along and you take maybe rubbish and do something with it that makes it valid. But, like I said, this is the exception to the rule. I just don't think we've got a dozen exceptions, you know. But we need time. And I think in another 8 or 10 years we'll have again a group of really exciting painters, and it will come out of the younger guys that are working today. I mean younger in the sense of reputation, not necessarily young kinds. Because there are guys doing serious things but they're doing it in a slow way and people don't hear about them because they don't have the audience. Like people ask me why don't I show. I don't show because I haven't found a gallery yet that I want to show with that will hang my work. And I don't believe in showing my own things other than for show. I've put one or two up just to let people see them, let them know I am working. A painter came in here the other day, he was surprised to see that I was still working because someone had told him I had gone into business and stopped. . . Well, what I did, I stopped showing but i didn't stop painting. In the last year-and-a-half I've done forty paintings. Of the forty I've sold twenty-two. And I've got eleven new painting in Paris and I've got six here. So I mean I'm painting as much as ever; I just don't show. But I do paint. I won't ever stop until I'm gone and then on the other side that'll take care of itself. Well, I don't know, getting back now to what's going on in the contemporary scene I just hope to see something sort of solidified with this crazy black-white problem that we have. Because no matter what you do if people can't live with each other then there is no point in anything. It will just be a slow but sure sort of castration of each other. That's the only way of saying it. And I think the real hope here is the black man. I think it will come from him along with the youth of the other areas. [END OF INTERVIEW] Painter Merton Daniel Simpson was born on September 20, 1928 in Charleston, South Carolina to Jenny and Marion Simpson. He began drawing after being hospitalized at childhood with diphtheria. William Halsey, an artist who gave private instruction to the young artist, soon recognized Simpson’s talents. During his formative years, Simpson worked at the Gibbes Museum there he was the only African American in the still segregated institution. Moving to New York in 1942, Simpson began his studies at Cooper Union Art School and also at New York University where he studied with professor Hale Woodruff. In 1951, he joined the U.S. Air Force, where he was the official U.S. Air Force artist and painted portraits of officers including one of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1952, his painting, "Nocturnal City" was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Concluding his military service in 1954, Simpson returned to New York to continue painting and was included in two museum exhibitions, Young American Painters at the Guggenheim Museum in 1954 and Eight New York Painters at the University of Michigan in 1956. In 1954, Simpson opened a gallery on Madison Avenue, which featured African and Modern art. During the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, Simpson joined the Spiral Group, an organization of African American artists that included Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, and Charles Alston. For Simpson, this sense of social consciousness led to his "Confrontation" series, a group of mostly black and white canvases, which expressed the anger, and frustration of the times. Traveling extensively to West Africa in the 1970s, Simpson built a collection of African art and is known as one the preeminent dealers of African art. In the 1980s, he created two series of work, "Universal Orchestrations" and "Contemporary Melodies" both showed his great love for jazz music. By the 1990s, Simpson began using fragments from West African hunting cloth, which were used to wrap tribal objects during shipments from Africa. His work gained a sculptural quality reflective of tribal art. In 1995, the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston presented a retrospective exhibition and published a catalogue entitled, "Merton D. Simpson, The Journey of an Artist." The Studio Museum in Harlem honored Simpson in 2002 for his work as an artist and humanitarian. Merton Daniel Simpson resides in New York City. Merton Daniel Simpson was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on November 29, 2005. Merton Simpson passed away on March 9, 2013. Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut with She's Gotta Have It (1986), and has since directed such films as Do the Right Thing (1989), Malcolm X (1992), The Original Kings of Comedy (2000), 25th Hour (2002), Inside Man (2006), Chi-Raq (2015), and BlacKkKlansman (2018). Lee has also acted in ten of his own films. Lee's films have examined race relations, colorism in the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. He has won numerous accolades for his work, including two Academy Award nominations, a Student Academy Award, and an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, two Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, an honorary BAFTA Award, an Honorary César, the 2013 Gish Prize, and a Grand Prix award.[1][2] Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 Professor 2.2 Film 2.3 Commercials 3 Artistry 4 Personal life 5 Controversial remarks 6 Filmography 7 Awards, honors and nominations 8 References 9 External links Early life Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Jacqueline Carroll (née Shelton), a teacher of arts and black literature, and William James Edward Lee III, a jazz musician and composer.[3][4] Lee has three younger siblings, Joie, David, and Cinqué, who all worked in many different positions in Lee's films. Director Malcolm D. Lee is his cousin. When he was a child, the family moved to Brooklyn, New York. His mother nicknamed him "Spike" during his childhood. He attended John Dewey High School in Brooklyn's Gravesend neighborhood. Lee enrolled in Morehouse College, a historically black college, where he made his first student film, Last Hustle in Brooklyn. He took film courses at Clark Atlanta University and graduated with a B.A. in mass communication from Morehouse. He did graduate work at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in film & television.[5] Career Professor In 1991, Lee taught a course at Harvard about filmmaking and in 1993 he began to teach at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the Graduate Film Program. It was there that he received his Master of Fine Arts and was appointed Artistic Director in 2002.[6] Film Main article: Spike Lee filmography Lee in 2007 Lee with his Peabody Award, 2011 Lee and his cast promoting BlacKkKlansman at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival Lee's independent film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, was the first student film to be showcased in Lincoln Center's New Directors/New Films Festival. In 1985, Lee began work on his first feature film, She's Gotta Have It. With a budget of $175,000, he shot the film in two weeks. When the film was released in 1986, it grossed over $7,000,000 at the U.S. box office.[7] Lee's 1989 film Do the Right Thing was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1989. Many people, including Hollywood's Kim Basinger, believed that Do the Right Thing also deserved a Best Picture nomination. Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture that year. Lee said in an April 7, 2006 interview with New York magazine that the other film's success, which he thought was based on safe stereotypes, hurt him more than if his film had not been nominated for an award.[8] After the 1990 release of Mo' Better Blues, Lee was accused of antisemitism by the Anti-Defamation League and several film critics. They criticized the characters of the club owners Josh and Moe Flatbush, described as "Shylocks". Lee denied the charge, explaining that he wrote those characters in order to depict how black artists struggled against exploitation. Lee said that Lew Wasserman, Sidney Sheinberg or Tom Pollock, the Jewish heads of MCA and Universal Studios, were unlikely to allow antisemitic content in a film they produced. He said he could not make an antisemitic film because Jews run Hollywood, and "that's a fact".[9] His 1997 documentary 4 Little Girls, about the children killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. On May 2, 2007, the 50th San Francisco International Film Festival honored Spike Lee with the San Francisco Film Society's Directing Award. In 2008, he received the Wexner Prize.[10] In 2013, he won The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, one of the richest prizes in the American arts worth $300,000.[11] In 2015, Lee received an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his contributions to film.[12] Lee directed, wrote, and produced the MyCareer story mode in the video game NBA 2K16.[13] Lee's film BlacKkKlansman, a drama thriller set in the 1970s, won the Grand Prix at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, and opened the following August.[14] Commercials In mid-1990, Levi's began producing a series of TV commercials directed by Lee for their 501 button fly jeans.[15] Marketing executives from Nike[16] offered Lee a job directing commercials for the company. They wanted to pair Lee's character, the Michael Jordan–loving Mars Blackmon, and Jordan in a marketing campaign for the Air Jordan line. Later, Lee was called on to comment on the controversy surrounding the inner-city rash of violence involving youths trying to steal Air Jordans from other kids.[17] He said that, rather than blaming manufacturers of apparel that gained popularity, "deal with the conditions that make a kid put so much importance on a pair of sneakers, a jacket and gold". Through the marketing wing of 40 Acres and a Mule, Lee has directed commercials for Converse,[18] Jaguar,[19] Taco Bell,[20] and Ben & Jerry's.[21] Artistry Lee's films have examined race relations, colorism in the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues.[citation needed] His films are also noted for their unique stylistic elements, including the use of dolly shots to portray the characters "floating" through their surroundings, which has been used numerous times across Lee's filmography.[citation needed] Lee's films are typically referred to as "Spike Lee Joints" and the closing credits always end with the phrases "By Any Means Necessary", "Ya Dig", and "Sho Nuff".[22] However, his 2013 film, Oldboy, used the traditional "A Spike Lee Film" credit after producers heavily re-edited it.[23] Personal life Lee met his wife, attorney Tonya Lewis, in 1992 and they were married a year later in New York.[24] They have one daughter, Satchel, born in 1994, and a son, Jackson, born in 1997.[25][26] Spike Lee is a fan of the American baseball team the New York Yankees, basketball team the New York Knicks, and the English football team Arsenal.[27] One of the documentaries in ESPN's 30 for 30 series, Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks, focuses partly on Lee's interaction with Miller at Knicks games in Madison Square Garden. In June 2003, Lee sought an injunction against Spike TV to prevent them from using his nickname.[28] Lee claimed that because of his fame, viewers would think he was associated with the new channel.[29][30] When asked by the BBC if he believed in God, Lee said: "Yes. I have faith that there is a higher being. All this cannot be an accident."[31] While Lee continues to maintain an office in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, he and his wife live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.[32] Controversial remarks In May 1999, the New York Post reported that Lee made an inflammatory comment about Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association, while speaking to reporters at the Cannes Film Festival. Lee was quoted as saying the National Rifle Association should be disbanded and, of Heston, someone should "Shoot him with a .44 Bull Dog."[33][34] Lee said he intended it as a joke. He was responding to coverage about whether Hollywood was responsible for school shootings. "The problem is guns," he said.[35] Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey condemned Lee as having "nothing to offer the debate on school violence except more violence and more hate."[35] Lee in September 2011 In October 2005, Lee responded to a CNN anchor's question as to whether the government intentionally ignored the plight of black Americans during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina catastrophe by saying, "It's not too far-fetched. I don't put anything past the United States government. I don't find it too far-fetched that they tried to displace all the black people out of New Orleans."[36] In later comments, Lee cited the government's past including the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.[37][38] Lee speaking at a rally in support of the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders in Washington Square Park, April 2016 At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Lee, who was then making Miracle at St. Anna, about an all-black U.S. division fighting in Italy during World War II, criticized director Clint Eastwood for not depicting black Marines in his own World War II film, Flags of Our Fathers. Citing historical accuracy, Eastwood responded that his film was specifically about the Marines who raised the flag on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima, pointing out that while black Marines did fight at Iwo Jima, the U.S. military was racially segregated during World War II, and none of the men who raised the flag were black. He angrily said that Lee should "shut his face". Lee responded that Eastwood was acting like an "angry old man", and argued that despite making two Iwo Jima films back to back, Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers, "there was not one black soldier in both of those films".[39][40][41] He added that he and Eastwood were "not on a plantation."[42] Lee later claimed that the event was exaggerated by the media and that he and Eastwood had reconciled through mutual friend Steven Spielberg, culminating in his sending Eastwood a print of Miracle at St. Anna.[43] In March 2012, after the shooting of Trayvon Martin, Spike Lee was one of many people who used Twitter to circulate a message which claimed to give the home address of the shooter George Zimmerman. The address turned out to be incorrect, causing the real occupants, Elaine and David McClain, to leave home and stay at a hotel due to numerous death threats.[44] Lee issued an apology and reached an agreement with the McClains which reportedly included "compensation", with their attorney stating "The McClains’ claim is fully resolved".[45][46] Nevertheless, in November 2013, the McClains filed a negligence lawsuit which accused Lee of "encouraging a dangerous mob mentality among his Twitter followers, as well as the public-at-large".[44][47] The lawsuit, which a court filing reportedly valued at $1.2 million, alleged that the couple suffered "injuries and damages" that continued after the initial settlement up through Zimmerman's trial in 2013.[44] A Seminole County judge dismissed the McClains' suit, agreeing with Lee that the issue had already been settled previously.[48] Filmography Further information: Spike Lee filmography She's Gotta Have It (1986) School Daze (1988) Do the Right Thing (1989) Mo' Better Blues (1990) Jungle Fever (1991) Malcolm X (1992) Crooklyn (1994) Clockers (1995) Girl 6 (1996) Get on the Bus (1996) 4 Little Girls (1997) He Got Game (1998) Summer of Sam (1999) The Original Kings of Comedy (2000) Bamboozled (2000) Jim Brown: All-American (2002) 25th Hour (2002) She Hate Me (2004) Sucker Free City (2004) Inside Man (2006) When the Levees Broke (2006) Miracle at St. Anna (2008) If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise (2010) Red Hook Summer (2012) Oldboy (2013) Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014) Chi-Raq (2015) Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall (2016) She's Gotta Have It (2017–present) BlacKkKlansman (2018) African-American topics African America History (timeline)[show] Culture[show] Religion[show] Political movements[show] Civic / economic groups[show] Sports[show] Ethnic subdivisions[show] Languages[show] Diaspora[show] Lists[show] Category: African-American society AmericaAfrica.svg African American portal vte African-American art is a broad term describing the visual arts of the American black community (African Americans). Influenced by various cultural traditions, including those of Africa, Europe and the Americas, traditional African-American art forms include the range of plastic arts, from basket weaving, pottery, and quilting to woodcarving and painting. Contents 1 History 1.1 Pre-colonial, Antebellum and Civil War eras 1.2 Post-Civil War 1.3 The Harlem Renaissance to contemporary art 1.3.1 Mid-20th century 2 See also 3 References 4 Sources 5 External links History Pre-colonial, Antebellum and Civil War eras This is the carved powder horn by carver John Bush from around 1754. Harriet Powers, Bible quilt, Mixed Media. 1898. Prior to the 20th century, African-American art existed during the French and Indian War. John Bush was a powder horn carver and soldier with the Massachusetts militia fighting with the British. His work has toured throughout Canada and the US.[1][2] His powder horn of 1756 has been part of a travelling exhibition throughout Canada and US.[3][4] Art continued in subsequent slave communities, through the end of the 20th century, African-American art has made a vital contribution to the art of the United States.[5] During the period between the 17th century and the early 19th century art took the form of small drums, quilts, wrought-iron figures and ceramic vessels in the southern United States; these artifacts have similarities with comparable crafts in West and Central Africa. In contrast, black artisans like the New England–based engraver Scipio Moorhead and the Baltimore portrait painter Joshua Johnson created art that was conceived in a western European fashion for their local markets.[6] Many of Africa’s most skilled artisans were enslaved in the Americas, while others learned their trades or crafts as apprentices to African or white skilled workers. It was often the practice for slave owners to hire out skilled artisans. With the consent of their masters, some slave artisans also were able to keep a small percentage of the wages earned in their free time and thereby save enough money to purchase their, and their families', freedom.[7] G. W. Hobbs, 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 tutorship 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,.[8][9] Like 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.[10] At one time scholars believed slaves sometimes utilized quilt blocks to alert other slaves about escape plans during the time of the Underground Railroad,[11] but most historians do not agree. Quilting remains alive as form of artistic expression in the African-American community. Post-Civil War After the Civil War, it became increasingly acceptable for African American-created works to be exhibited in museums, and artists increasingly produced works for this purpose. 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 of this time. Others include Grafton Tyler Brown, Nelson A. Primus and Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller. 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 could express much more freedom in experimentation and education concerning techniques outside traditional western art. Freedom of expression was much more prevalent in Paris as well as Munich and Rome to a lesser extent. The Harlem Renaissance to contemporary art Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City by Henry Ossawa Tanner is in the collection of the White House, and hangs in the Green Room. Acquired during the Clinton administration with funds from the White House Acquisition Trust, it is the first artwork in the White House by an African American. The Harlem Renaissance was one of the most notable movements in African-American art. Certain freedoms and ideas that were already widespread in many parts of the world at the time had begun to spread into the artistic communities United States during the 1920s. During this period notable artists 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. The establishment of the Harmon Foundation by art patron William E. Harmon in 1922 sponsored many artists through its Harmon Award and annual exhibitions. As it did with many such endeavors, the 1929 Great Depression largely ended funding for the arts for a time. While the Harmon Foundation still existed in this period, its financial support toward artists ended. The Harmon Foundation, however, continued supporting artists until 1967 by mounting exhibitions and offering funding for developing artists such as Jacob Lawrence.[12] Midnight Golfer by Eugene J. Martin, mixed media collage on rag paper. Kara Walker, Cut, Cut paper and adhesive on wall, Brent Sikkema NYC. The US Treasury Department's Public Works of Art Project ineffectively attempted to provide support for artists in 1933. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA provided for all American artists and proved especially helpful to African-American artists. Artists and writers both gained work that helped them survive the Depression. Among them were Jacob Lawrence and Richard Wright. Politics, human and social conditions all became the subjects of accepted art forms. 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. By 1939, the costly WPA and its projects all were terminated. 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. Mid-20th century 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,[13] so they sold their art directly to the public rather than through galleries and art agents. Rediscovered in the mid-1990s, today they are recognized as an important part of American folk history.[14][15] The current market price for an original Highwaymen painting can easily bring in thousands of dollars. In 2004 the original group of 26 Highwaymen were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.[16] Currently 8 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. Jerry Harris, Dogon mother and child, constructed and carved wood with found objects, laminated clay (Bondo), and wooden dowels. 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,[17] Bill Hutson, Clifford Jackson,[18] Sam Middleton,[19] Larry Potter, Haywood Bill Rivers, Merton Simpson, and Walter Williams.[20][21] Some African-American artists did make it into important New York galleries by the 1950s and 1960s: Horace Pippin, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, William T. Williams, Norman Lewis, Thomas Sills,[22] and Sam Gilliam were among the few who had successfully been received in a gallery setting. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s led artists to capture and express the times and changes. 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.[23] By the 1980s and 1990s, hip-hop graffiti became 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. 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 Art collection, the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Mott-Warsh collection. 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".[24] 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.[25] 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 C. 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. Artists Scipio Moorhead, Portrait of poet Phillis Wheatley, 1773, in the frontispiece to her book Poems on Various Subjects Edward Mitchell Bannister, Driving Home the Cows 1881 Harriet Powers, Bible quilt, mixed media, 1886 Henry Ossawa Tanner, Gateway, Tangier, 1912, oil on canvas, 18 7/16" × 15 5/16", St. Louis Art Museum Charles Alston, Again The Springboard Of Civilization, 1943 (WWII African American soldier) Larry D. Alexander,Greenville Courthouse, 1998 A–B Terry Adkins (1953–2014), artist[1] Mequitta Ahuja (born 1976), painter, installation artist Larry D. Alexander (born 1953), painter Laylah Ali (born 1968), painter Jules T. Allen (born 1947), photographer Tina Allen (1949–2008), sculptor Charles Alston (1907–1977), painter[2][1] Amalia Amaki (born 1959), artist Emma Amos (born 1938), painter[2] Benny Andrews (1930–2006), painter[2][1] Edgar Arceneaux (born 1972), drawing artist Radcliffe Bailey (born 1968) collage, sculpture[3][4] Kyle Baker (born 1965), cartoonist Matt Baker (1921–1959), comic book artist James Presley Ball (1825–1904), photographer Alvin Baltrop (1948-2004), photographer Henry Bannarn (1910–1965), painter[1] Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828–1901), painter[2][1] Ernie Barnes (1938–2009), neo-Mannerist artist[2] Richmond Barthé (1901–1989), sculptor[2][1] Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988), painter[2] C. M. Battey (1873–1927), photographer Romare Bearden (1911–1988), painter[2][1] Arthello Beck (1941–2004), painter Arthur P. Bedou (1882–1966), photographer Darrin Bell (born 1975), cartoonist Mary A. Bell (1873–1941) Dawoud Bey (born 1953), photographer[2] John T. Biggers (1924–2001), muralist[2][1] Sanford Biggers (born 1970), interdisciplinary Gene Bilbrew (1923–1974), cartoonist and fetish artist McArthur Binion (born 1946), painter Robert Blackburn (1920–2003), printmaker[2][1] Thomas Blackshear Betty Blayton (born 1937), painter, printmaker[1] Chakaia Booker (born 1953), sculptor[2] Edythe Boone (born 1938), muralist Charles Boyce (born 1949), cartoonist Tina Williams Brewer, fiber artist[5] Michael Bramwell (born 1953), conceptual artist Mark Bradford (born 1961) Elenora "Rukiya" Brown, doll creator Frank J. Brown (born 1956), sculptor Frederick J. Brown (1945–2012), painter[2] Larry Poncho Brown Manuelita Brown, sculptor Robert Brown (c. 1936–2007), cartoonist Beverly Buchanan (born 1940), painter, sculptor[1] Selma Burke (1900–1995), sculptor[1] Calvin Burnett (1921–2007), book illustrator[1] Pauline Powell Burns (1872–1912), painter John Bush (? - 1754), powder horn carver Robert Butler (1943–2014), painter C–D Frank Calloway (born 1915) E. Simms Campbell (1906–1971), cartoonist[1] Fred Carter (born 1938), cartoonist Bernie Casey (born 1939), painter[1] Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012), sculptor and printmaker[2][1] Nick Cave (born 1959), performance artist Michael Ray Charles (born 1967), painter[2] Barbara Chase-Riboud (born 1936), sculptor[1] Jamour Chames (born 1989), painter Don Hogan Charles (1938–2017), photographer Claude Clark (1915–2001), painter and printmaker[2] Edward Clark (born 1926), painter Sonya Clark (born 1967), textile and multimedia artist Willie Cole (born 1955), painter[2] Robert Colescott (1925–2009), painter[2] Kennard Copeland (born 1966), ceramic sculptures [2] Eldzier Cortor (1916–2015), artist and printmaker[1] Ernest Crichlow (1914–2005), social realist artist[1] Allan Crite (1910–2007), painter[2] [1] Emilio Cruz (1938–2004), painter[2] Frank E. Cummings III (born 1938), woodworker Michael Cummings (born 1945), textile artist Ulysses Davis (1913–1990), sculptor[2] Bing Davis (born 1937), potter and graphic artist[1] Roy DeCarava (1919–2009), photographer[2] Beauford Delaney (1901–1979), painter[6] Joseph Delaney (1904–1991)[2] Louis Delsarte (born 1944), artist[1] J Rodney Dennis[7][8] painter Joseph Clinton Devillis (1878-1912), painter Thornton Dial (1928–2016)[2] Terry Dixon (born 1969), painter and multimedia artist Jeff Donaldson (born 1932), painter and critic Aaron Douglas (1899–1979), painter[2][1] Emory Douglas (born 1943), Black Panther artist John E. Dowell Jr. (born 1941), printmaker, etcher, lithographer, and painter David C. Driskell (born 1931), artist and scholar Robert Scott Duncanson (1821–1872), Hudson River School[2][1] E–H William Edmondson (1874–1951), folk art sculptor[2][1] Mel Edwards (born 1937), sculptor[2][1] Walter Ellison (1899–1977), painter[2] Minnie Evans (1892–1987), folk artist[2] [1] Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877–1968), artist[2][1] Ellen Gallagher (born 1965)[2] Theaster Gates (born 1973), sculptor, ceramicist, and performance artist [ Reginald K (Kevin) Gee (born 1964), painter Herbert Gentry (1919–2003), painter Wilda Gerideau-Squires (born 1946), photographer Robert A. Gilbert (c. 1870-1942), nature photographer[9] Leah Gilliam (born 1967), media artist and filmmaker Sam Gilliam (born 1933), painter[2] [1] Russell T. Gordon (born 1936), printmaker[2] Billy Graham (1935–1999), comic book artist Lonnie Graham, photographer and installation artist Deborah Grant (born 1968), painter Todd Gray (born 1954), photographer, installation and performance artist Leamon Green (born 1959) Renee Green (born 1959), installation artist[2] Mario Gully, comic book artist Tyree Guyton (born 1955)[2] Ed Hamilton (born 1947), sculptor Patrick Earl Hammie (born 1981), painter David Hammons (born 1943), artist[2] Trenton Doyle Hancock (born 1974)[2] Edwin Harleston (1882–1931), painter Elise Forrest Harleston (1891–1970), photographer Kira Lynn Harris (born 1963), multidisciplinary[10] John Wesley Hardrick (1891–1948), painter[2] [1] Jerry Harris (born 1945), sculptor Lawrence Harris, painter Marren Hassenger (born 1947), sculptor, installation, performance[11] Palmer Hayden (1893–1973), painter[2][1] Barkley Hendricks (1945–2017), painter George Herriman (1880–1944), cartoonist[2] Alvin Hollingsworth (1928–2000), illustrator, painter William Howard (active 19th century), American woodworker and craftsman Bryce Hudson (born 1979), painter, sculptor[2] Julien Hudson (1811–1844), painter, sculptor[2] David Huffman (born 1963), painter[12] Richard Hunt (born 1935), sculptor[2][1] Clementine Hunter (1886/7–1988), folk artist[2][1] J–O Steffani Jemison (born 1981), performance artist, video artist Wadsworth Jarrell (born 1929), painter, sculptor Annette P. Jimerson (born 1966), painter Joshua Johnson (c.1763–c.1824), portrait painter and folk artist[2][1] Malvin Gray Johnson (1896–1934), painter[1] Rashid Johnson (born 1977), conceptual artist Sargent Johnson (1888–1967), sculptor[2] [1] William H. Johnson (1902–1970)[2][1] Calvin B. Jones (1934–2010), painter, muralist Jennie C. Jones (born 1968), multidisciplinary Lois Mailou Jones (1905–1998), painter[2][1] Titus Kaphar (born 1976), painter[13] Gwendolyn Knight (1914–2005), artist[1] Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), painter[2][1] Deana Lawson (born 1979), photographer[14] Hughie Lee-Smith (1915–1999), artist[2][1] Edmonia Lewis (c. 1843–1879), artist[2][1] Norman Lewis (1909–1979), painter[2][1] Glenn Ligon (born 1960), painter[2] Llanakila, artist, painter, digital illustrator, and digital artist Edward L. Loper, Sr. (1916–2011), painter Whitfield Lovell (born 1960), artist Alvin D. Loving (1935-2005) artist Gwendolyn Ann Magee (1943–2011), artist, quilter[15] Clarence Major (born 1936), painter Kerry James Marshall (born 1955), painter[2] Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005), painter Richard Mayhew (born 1934), Afro-Native American, landscape painter[16] Valerie Maynard (born 1937), sculptor, printmaker, painter Ealy Mays (born 1959), painter Howard McCalebb (born 1947), artist Corky McCoy, illustrator Charles McGee, (born 1924) painter Charles McGill (born 1964), artist, educator Julie Mehretu (born 1970), painter, printmaker Nicole Miller (born 1982), video artist Dean Mitchell (born 1957), painter Scipio Moorhead (active 1770s), painter[1] Archibald Motley (1891–1981), painter[2][1] Gus Nall (1919-1995), painter Harold Newton (1934–1994), artist Lorraine O'Grady (born 1934), conceptual artist Turtel Onli (born 1952), cartoonist Jackie Ormes (1911–1985), cartoonist John Outterbridge (born 1933), assemblage artist[2][1] Joe Overstreet (born 1933), artist[1] P–S Gordon Parks (1912–2006), photographer, director[2][1] Cecelia Pedescleaux (born 1945), quilter Delilah Pierce (1904–1992), artist Earle M. Pilgrim (1923–1976), artist Howardena Pindell (born 1943), painter[2] Jerry Pinkney (born 1939), illustrator[2] Adrian Piper (born 1948), conceptual artist[2] Rose Piper (1917–2005), painter and textile designer[17] Horace Pippin (1888–1946), painter[2][1] Rae Pleasant (born 1985), illustrator[18][19] P. H. Polk (1898–1984), photographer Carl Robert Pope (born 1961), photographer[2] William Pope.L (born 1955) conceptual artist Harriet Powers (1837–1910), folk artist[2] Martin Puryear (born 1941), sculptor[2][1] Patrick H. Reason (1816–1898) Earle Wilton Richardson (1912–1935), artist[1] Faith Ringgold (born 1930), painter[2][1] Haywood Rivers (1922–2001), painter Arthur Rose Sr. (1921–1995), multidisciplinary Bayeté Ross Smith (born 1976), photographer Alison Saar (born 1956), artist[2][1] Betye Saar (born 1926), artist[2][1] Charles Sallee (1923–2006), painter[2][20] Reginald Sanders (1921–2001), visual artist Raymond Saunders, painter[1] Augusta Savage (1892–1962), sculptor[2][1] John T. Scott (1940–2007), artist Joyce J. Scott (born 1948), sculptor[2] Lorenzo Scott (born 1934), painter William Edouard Scott (1884–1964), painter[2][1] Charles Sebree (1914–1985), painter[2][1] Ed Sherman (born 1945), photographer Thomas Sills (1914–2000), painter Gary Simmons (born 1964), artist Lorna Simpson (born 1960), artist[2] Merton Simpson (1928–2013), painter William Simpson (1818–1872), portrait painter[1] Cauleen Smith (born 1967), filmmaker Leslie Smith III (born 1985), painter Vincent D. Smith (1929–2003), painter and printmaker[21][22] Gilda Snowden (1954–2014)[2] Mitchell Squire (born 1958), American installation artist, sculptor and performance artist Raymond Steth (1916–1997)[2] Renee Stout (born 1958), artist[2] Martine Syms (born 1988), artist T–Z Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937), artist[2][1] Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (1915–2010)[2][1] Alma Thomas (1891–1978), painter[2] [1] Hank Willis Thomas (born 1976), photographer Mickalene Thomas (born 1971), painter and installation artist Bob Thompson (1937–1966), painter[2][1] Mildred Thompson (1935–2003), abstract painter, printmaker and sculptor Dox Thrash (1892–1962), printmaker, sculptor[2] [1] Bill Traylor (1856–1949)[2][1] Henry Taylor (born 1958) painter Morrie Turner (1923–2014), cartoonist James Van Der Zee (1886–1983), photographer[2] [1] Kara Walker (born 1969), artist[2] [1] William Walker (1927–2011), Chicago muralist Laura Wheeler Waring (1887–1948), painter[2][1] E. M. Washington (born 1962), printmaker and counterfeiter James W. Washington, Jr. (1908–2000), painter and sculptor[1] Carrie Mae Weems (born 1953), photographer[2] Pheoris West Charles Wilbert White (1918–1979), muralist[2][1] Jack Whitten (1939-2018), painter Kehinde Wiley (born 1977), painter Gerald Williams (artist) (Born 1941) painter William T. Williams (born 1942), painter[1] Deborah Willis (born 1948), photographer Ellis Wilson (1899–1977), painter[2][1] Fred Wilson (born 1954), conceptual artist John Woodrow Wilson (1922–2015), sculptor[2][1] Beulah Woodard (1895–1955), sculptor Hale Woodruff (1900–1980), painter[2][1] Richard Wyatt, Jr., (born 1955), painter, muralist Richard Yarde (1939–2011), watercolorist Joseph Yoakum (1890–1972), self-taught landscape artist Purvis Young (1943–2010), artist Artist groups The Highwaymen AfriCOBRA Where We At National Conference of Artists Spiral (arts alliance) African-American topics African America History (timeline)[show] Culture[show] Religion[show] Political movements[show] Civic / economic groups[show] Sports[show] Ethnic subdivisions[show] Languages[show] Diaspora[show] Lists[show] Category: African-American society AmericaAfrica.svg African American portal vte This article needs additional citations for verification. 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(June 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The Black Arts Movement, Black Aesthetics Movement or BAM is the artistic outgrowth of the Black Power movement that was prominent in the 1960s and early 1970s.[1][2][3] Time magazine describes the Black Arts Movement as the "single most controversial movement in the history of African-American literature – possibly in American literature as a whole."[4] The Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BARTS), founded in Harlem in 1965 by LeRoi Jones (later known as Amiri Baraka) is a key institution of the Black Arts Movement.[5] Contents 1 Overview 1.1 Influence 2 History 2.1 Authors 2.2 Locations 3 The Black Aesthetic 4 Major works 4.1 Black Art 4.2 "The Revolutionary Theatre" 5 Effects on society 6 Associated writers and thinkers 7 Related exhibitions and conferences 8 See also 9 References 10 External links Overview The movement has been seen as one of the most important times in African-American literature. It inspired black people to establish their own publishing houses, magazines, journals and art institutions. It led to the creation of African-American Studies programs within universities.[6] The movement was triggered by the assassination of Malcolm X.[7] Among the well-known writers who were involved with the movement are Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou, Hoyt W. Fuller, and Rosa Guy.[8][9] Although not strictly part of the Movement, other notable African-American writers such as novelists Toni Morrison and Ishmael Reed share some of its artistic and thematic concerns. Although Reed is neither a movement apologist nor advocate, he said: I think what Black Arts did was inspire a whole lot of Black people to write. Moreover, there would be no multiculturalism movement without Black Arts. Latinos, Asian Americans, and others all say they began writing as a result of the example of the 1960s. Blacks gave the example that you don't have to assimilate. You could do your own thing, get into your own background, your own history, your own tradition and your own culture. I think the challenge is for cultural sovereignty and Black Arts struck a blow for that.[10] BAM influenced the world of literature with the portrayal of different ethnic voices. Before the movement, the literary canon lacked diversity, and the ability to express ideas from the point of view of racial and ethnic minorities, which was not valued by the mainstream at the time. Influence Theatre groups, poetry performances, music and dance were centered on this movement, and therefore African Americans gained social and historical recognition in the area of literature and arts. Due to the agency and credibility given, African Americans were also able to educate others through different types of expressions and media outlets about cultural differences. The most common form of teaching was through poetry reading. African-American performances were used for their own political advertisement, organization, and community issues. The Black Arts Movement was spread by the use of newspaper advertisements.[11] The first major arts movement publication was in 1964. "No one was more competent in [the] combination of the experimental and the vernacular than Amiri Baraka, whose volume Black Magic Poetry 1961–1967 (1969) is one of the finest products of the African-American creative energies of the 1960s."[4] History The beginnings of the Black Arts Movement may be traced to 1965, when Amiri Baraka, at that time still known as Leroi Jones, moved uptown to establish the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BARTS) following the assassination of Malcolm X.[4] Rooted in the Nation of Islam, the Black Power Movement and the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts Movement grew out of a changing political and cultural climate in which Black artists attempted to create politically engaged work that explored the African American cultural and historical experience.[4] Black artists and intellectuals such as Baraka made it their project to reject older political, cultural, and artistic traditions.[12] Although the success of sit-ins and public demonstrations of the Black student movement in the 1960s may have "inspired black intellectuals, artists, and political activists to form politicized cultural groups,"[12] many Black Arts activists rejected the non-militant integrational ideologies of the Civil Rights Movement and instead favored those of the Black Liberation Struggle, which emphasized "self-determination through self-reliance and Black control of significant businesses, organization, agencies, and institutions."[13] According to the Academy of American Poets, "African American artists within the movement sought to create politically engaged work that explored the African American cultural and historical experience." The importance that the movement placed on Black autonomy is apparent through the creation of institutions such as the Black Arts Repertoire Theatre School (BARTS), created in the spring of 1964 by Baraka and other Black artists. The opening of BARTS in New York City often overshadow the growth of other radical Black Arts groups and institutions all over the United States. In fact, transgressional and international networks, those of various Left and nationalist (and Left nationalist) groups and their supports, existed far before the movement gained popularity.[12] Although the creation of BARTS did indeed catalyze the spread of other Black Arts institutions and the Black Arts movement across the nation, it was not solely responsible for the growth of the movement. Although the Black Arts Movement was a time filled with black success and artistic progress, the movement also faced social and racial ridicule. The leaders and artists involved called for Black Art to define itself and speak for itself from the security of its own institutions. For many of the contemporaries the idea that somehow black people could express themselves through institutions of their own creation and with ideas whose validity was confirmed by their own interests and measures was absurd.[14] While it is easy to assume that the movement began solely in the Northeast, it actually started out as "separate and distinct local initiatives across a wide geographic area," eventually coming together to form the broader national movement.[12] New York City is often referred to as the "birthplace" of the Black Arts Movement, because it was home to many revolutionary Black artists and activists. However, the geographical diversity of the movement opposes the misconception that New York (and Harlem, especially) was the primary site of the movement.[12] In its beginning states, the movement came together largely through printed media. Journals such as Liberator, The Crusader, and Freedomways created "a national community in which ideology and aesthetics were debated and a wide range of approaches to African-American artistic style and subject displayed."[12] These publications tied communities outside of large Black Arts centers to the movement and gave the general black public access to these sometimes exclusive circles. As a literary movement, Black Arts had its roots in groups such as the Umbra Workshop. Umbra (1962) was a collective of young Black writers based in Manhattan's Lower East Side; major members were writers Steve Cannon,[15] Tom Dent, Al Haynes, David Henderson, Calvin C. Hernton, Joe Johnson, Norman Pritchard, Lennox Raphael, Ishmael Reed, Lorenzo Thomas, James Thompson, Askia M. Touré (Roland Snellings; also a visual artist), Brenda Walcott, and musician-writer Archie Shepp. Touré, a major shaper of "cultural nationalism," directly influenced Jones. Along with Umbra writer Charles Patterson and Charles's brother, William Patterson, Touré joined Jones, Steve Young, and others at BARTS. Umbra, which produced Umbra Magazine, was the first post-civil rights Black literary group to make an impact as radical in the sense of establishing their own voice distinct from, and sometimes at odds with, the prevailing white literary establishment. The attempt to merge a black-oriented activist thrust with a primarily artistic orientation produced a classic split in Umbra between those who wanted to be activists and those who thought of themselves as primarily writers, though to some extent all members shared both views. Black writers have always had to face the issue of whether their work was primarily political or aesthetic. Moreover, Umbra itself had evolved out of similar circumstances: in 1960 a Black nationalist literary organization, On Guard for Freedom, had been founded on the Lower East Side by Calvin Hicks. Its members included Nannie and Walter Bowe, Harold Cruse (who was then working on The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 1967), Tom Dent, Rosa Guy, Joe Johnson, LeRoi Jones, and Sarah E. Wright, among others. On Guard was active in a famous protest at the United Nations of the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs Cuban invasion and was active in support of the Congolese liberation leader Patrice Lumumba. From On Guard, Dent, Johnson, and Walcott along with Hernton, Henderson, and Touré established Umbra. Authors Another formation of black writers at that time was the Harlem Writers Guild, led by John O. Killens, which included Maya Angelou, Jean Carey Bond, Rosa Guy, and Sarah Wright among others. But the Harlem Writers Guild focused on prose, primarily fiction, which did not have the mass appeal of poetry performed in the dynamic vernacular of the time. Poems could be built around anthems, chants, and political slogans, and thereby used in organizing work, which was not generally the case with novels and short stories. Moreover, the poets could and did publish themselves, whereas greater resources were needed to publish fiction. That Umbra was primarily poetry- and performance-oriented established a significant and classic characteristic of the movement's aesthetics. When Umbra split up, some members, led by Askia Touré and Al Haynes, moved to Harlem in late 1964 and formed the nationalist-oriented Uptown Writers Movement, which included poets Yusef Rahman, Keorapetse "Willie" Kgositsile from South Africa, and Larry Neal. Accompanied by young "New Music" musicians, they performed poetry all over Harlem. Members of this group joined LeRoi Jones in founding BARTS. Jones's move to Harlem was short-lived. In December 1965 he returned to his home, Newark (N.J.), and left BARTS in serious disarray. BARTS failed but the Black Arts center concept was irrepressible, mainly because the Black Arts movement was so closely aligned with the then-burgeoning Black Power movement. The mid-to-late 1960s was a period of intense revolutionary ferment. Beginning in 1964, rebellions in Harlem and Rochester, New York, initiated four years of long hot summers. Watts, Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, and many other cities went up in flames, culminating in nationwide explosions of resentment and anger following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s April 1968 assassination. Nathan Hare, author of The Black Anglo-Saxons (1965), was the founder of 1960s Black Studies. Expelled from Howard University, Hare moved to San Francisco State University, where the battle to establish a Black Studies department was waged during a five-month strike during the 1968–69 school year. As with the establishment of Black Arts, which included a range of forces, there was broad activity in the Bay Area around Black Studies, including efforts led by poet and professor Sarah Webster Fabio at Merrit College. The initial thrust of Black Arts ideological development came from the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), a national organization with a strong presence in New York City. Both Touré and Neal were members of RAM. After RAM, the major ideological force shaping the Black Arts movement was the US (as opposed to "them") organization led by Maulana Karenga. Also ideologically important was Elijah Muhammad's Chicago-based Nation of Islam. These three formations provided both style and conceptual direction for Black Arts artists, including those who were not members of these or any other political organization. Although the Black Arts Movement is often considered a New York-based movement, two of its three major forces were located outside New York City. Locations As the movement matured, the two major locations of Black Arts' ideological leadership, particularly for literary work, were California's Bay Area because of the Journal of Black Poetry and The Black Scholar, and the Chicago–Detroit axis because of Negro Digest/Black World and Third World Press in Chicago, and Broadside Press and Naomi Long Madgett's Lotus Press in Detroit. The only major Black Arts literary publications to come out of New York were the short-lived (six issues between 1969 and 1972) Black Theatre magazine, published by the New Lafayette Theatre, and Black Dialogue, which had actually started in San Francisco (1964–68) and relocated to New York (1969–72). Although the journals and writing of the movement greatly characterized its success, the movement placed a great deal of importance on collective oral and performance art. Public collective performances drew a lot of attention to the movement, and it was often easier to get an immediate response from a collective poetry reading, short play, or street performance than it was from individual performances.[12] The people involved in the Black Arts Movement used the arts as a way to liberate themselves. The movement served as a catalyst for many different ideas and cultures to come alive. This was a chance for African Americans to express themselves in a way that most would not have expected. In 1967 LeRoi Jones visited Karenga in Los Angeles and became an advocate of Karenga's philosophy of Kawaida. Kawaida, which produced the "Nguzo Saba" (seven principles), Kwanzaa, and an emphasis on African names, was a multifaceted, categorized activist philosophy. Jones also met Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver and worked with a number of the founding members of the Black Panthers. Additionally, Askia Touré was a visiting professor at San Francisco State and was to become a leading (and long-lasting) poet as well as, arguably, the most influential poet-professor in the Black Arts movement. Playwright Ed Bullins and poet Marvin X had established Black Arts West, and Dingane Joe Goncalves had founded the Journal of Black Poetry (1966). This grouping of Ed Bullins, Dingane Joe Goncalves, LeRoi Jones, Sonia Sanchez, Askia M. Touré, and Marvin X became a major nucleus of Black Arts leadership.[16] As the movement grew, ideological conflicts arose and eventually became too great for the movement to continue to exist as a large, coherent collective. The Black Aesthetic Many discussions of the Black Arts movement posit it as the "aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept."[17] The Black Aesthetic refers to ideologies and perspectives of art that center on Black culture and life. This Black Aesthetic encouraged the idea of Black separatism, and in trying to facilitate this, hoped to further strengthen black ideals, solidarity, and creativity.[18] In his well-known essay on the Black Arts Movement, Larry Neal attests: "When we speak of a 'Black aesthetic' several things are meant. First, we assume that there is already in existence the basis for such an aesthetic. Essentially, it consists of an African-American cultural tradition. But this aesthetic is finally, by implication, broader than that tradition. It encompasses most of the usable elements of the Third World culture. The motive behind the Black aesthetic is the destruction of the white thing, the destruction of white ideas, and white ways of looking at the world."[17] Major works Black Art Amiri Baraka's poem "Black Art" serves as one of his most controversial, yet poetically profound supplements to the Black Arts Movement. In this piece, Baraka merges politics with art, criticizing poems that are not useful to or adequately representative of the Black struggle. First published in 1966, a period particularly known for the Civil Rights Movement, the political aspect of this piece underscores the need for a concrete and artistic approach to the realistic nature involving racism and injustice. Serving as the recognized artistic component to and having roots in the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts Movement aims to grant a political voice to black artists (including poets, dramatists, writers, musicians, etc.). Playing a vital role in this movement, Baraka calls out what he considers to be unproductive and assimilatory actions shown by political leaders during the Civil Rights Movement. He describes prominent Black leaders as being "on the steps of the white house...kneeling between the sheriff's thighs negotiating coolly for his people."[19] Baraka also presents issues of euro-centric mentality, by referring to Elizabeth Taylor as a prototypical model in a society that influences perceptions of beauty, emphasizing its influence on individuals of white and black ancestry.[19] Baraka aims his message toward the Black community, with the purpose of coalescing African Americans into a unified movement, devoid of white influences. "Black Art" serves as a medium for expression meant to strengthen that solidarity and creativity, in terms of the Black Aesthetic. Baraka believes poems should "shoot…come at you, love what you are" and not succumb to mainstream desires.[19] He ties this approach into the emergence of hip-hop, which he paints as a movement that presents "live words…and live flesh and coursing blood."[19] Baraka's cathartic structure and aggressive tone are comparable to the beginnings of hip-hop music, which created controversy in the realm of mainstream acceptance, because of its "authentic, un-distilled, unmediated forms of contemporary black urban music."[20] Baraka believes that integration inherently takes away from the legitimacy of having a Black identity and Aesthetic in an anti-Black world. Through pure and unapologetic blackness, and with the absence of white influences, Baraka believes a black world can be achieved. Though hip-hop has been serving as a recognized salient musical form of the Black Aesthetic, a history of unproductive integration is seen across the spectrum of music, beginning with the emergence of a newly formed narrative in mainstream appeal in the 1950s. Much of Baraka's cynical disillusionment with unproductive integration can be drawn from the 50s, a period of rock and roll, in which "record labels actively sought to have white artists "cover" songs that were popular on the rhythm-and-blues charts"[20] originally performed by African-American artists. The problematic nature of unproductive integration is also exemplified by Run-DMC, an American hip-hop group founded in 1981, who became widely accepted after a calculated collaboration with the rock group Aerosmith on a remake of the latter's "Walk This Way" took place in 1986, evidently appealing to young white audiences.[20] Hip-hop emerged as an evolving genre of music that continuously challenged mainstream acceptance, most notably with the development of rap in the 1990s. A significant and modern example of this is Ice Cube, a well-known American rapper, songwriter, and actor, who introduced subgenre of hip-hop known as "gangsta rap," merged social consciousness and political expression with music. With the 1960s serving as a more blatantly racist period of time, Baraka notes the revolutionary nature of hip-hop, grounded in the unmodified expression through art. This method of expression in music parallels significantly with Baraka's ideals presented in "Black Art," focusing on poetry that is also productively and politically driven. "The Revolutionary Theatre" "The Revolutionary Theatre" is a 1965 essay by Baraka that was an important contribution to the Black Arts Movement, discussing the need for change through literature and theater arts. He says: "We will scream and cry, murder, run through the streets in agony, if it means some soul will be moved, moved to actual life understanding of what the world is, and what it ought to be." Baraka wrote his poetry, drama, fiction and essays in a way that would shock and awaken audiences to the political concerns of black Americans, which says much about what he was doing with this essay.[21] It also did not seem coincidental to him that Malcolm X and John F. Kennedy had been assassinated within a few years, since Baraka believed that every voice of change in America had been murdered, which led to the writing that would come out of the Black Arts Movement. In his essay, Baraka says: "The Revolutionary Theatre is shaped by the world, and moves to reshape the world, using as its force the natural force and perpetual vibrations of the mind in the world. We are history and desire, what we are, and what any experience can make us." With his thought-provoking ideals and references to a euro-centric society, he imposes the notion that black Americans should stray from a white aesthetic in order to find a black identity. In his essay, he says: "The popular white man's theatre like the popular white man's novel shows tired white lives, and the problems of eating white sugar, or else it herds bigcaboosed blondes onto huge stages in rhinestones and makes believe they are dancing or singing." This, having much to do with a white aesthetic, further proves what was popular in society and even what society had as an example of what everyone should aspire to be, like the "bigcaboosed blondes" that went "onto huge stages in rhinestones". Furthermore, these blondes made believe they were "dancing and singing" which Baraka seems to be implying that white people dancing is not what dancing is supposed to be at all. These allusions bring forth the question of where black Americans fit in the public eye. Baraka says: "We are preaching virtue and feeling, and a natural sense of the self in the world. All men live in the world, and the world ought to be a place for them to live." Baraka's essay challenges the idea that there is no space in politics or in society for black Americans to make a difference through different art forms that consist of, but are not limited to, poetry, song, dance, and art. Effects on society According to the Academy of American Poets, "many writers--Native Americans, Latinos/as, gays and lesbians, and younger generations of African Americans have acknowledged their debt to the Black Arts Movement."[4] The movement lasted for about a decade, through the mid-1960s and into the 1970s. This was a period of controversy and change in the world of literature. One major change came through in the portrayal of new ethnic voices in the United States. English-language literature, prior to the Black Arts Movement, was dominated by white authors.[22] African Americans became a greater presence not only in the field of literature but in all areas of the arts. Theater groups, poetry performances, music and dance were central to the movement. Through different forms of media, African Americans were able to educate others about the expression of cultural differences and viewpoints. In particular, black poetry readings allowed African Americans to use vernacular dialogues. This was shown in the Harlem Writers Guild, which included black writers such as Maya Angelou and Rosa Guy. These performances were used to express political slogans and as a tool for organization. Theater performances also were used to convey community issues and organizations. The theaters, as well as cultural centers, were based throughout America and were used for community meetings, study groups and film screenings. Newspapers were a major tool in spreading the Black Arts Movement. In 1964, Black Dialogue was published, making it the first major Arts movement publication. The Black Arts Movement, although short, is essential to the history of the United States. It spurred political activism and use of speech throughout every African-American community. It allowed African Americans the chance to express their voices in the mass media as well as become involved in communities. It can be argued that "the Black Arts movement produced some of the most exciting poetry, drama, dance, music, visual art, and fiction of the post-World War II United States" and that many important "post-Black artists" such as Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, and August Wilson were shaped by the movement.[12] The Black Arts Movement also provided incentives for public funding of the arts and increased public support of various arts initiatives.[12] Associated writers and thinkers Don Evans Mari Evans Sarah Webster Fabio Hoyt W. Fuller Nikki Giovanni Rosa Guy Harlem Writers Guild David Henderson Audre Lorde Dudley Randall Sonia Sanchez Related exhibitions and conferences The Arts Council of England's (ACE) Decibel initiative produced a summary in 2003 in association with The Guardian newspaper.[23][24] An international exhibition, Back to Black — Art, Cinema and the Racial Imaginary, was held at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2005.[25] A 2006 major conference Should Black Art Still Be Beautiful?, organized by OOM Gallery and Midwest, examined the development of contemporary Black cultural practice and its future in Britain. On April 1, 2006, New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK, held a conference in honour of the late Donald Rodney. Gallery 32 and Its Circle, a 2009 art exhibition hosted at Loyola Mount University's Laband Art Gallery,[26] featured artwork displayed the eponymous gallery, which featured black artists in the Los Angeles area and played an integral role in the Black Arts movement in the area.[27] A recently redeveloped African and Asian Visual Arts Archive is located at the University of East London (UEL).[28] While African American art of the 18th and 19th centuries continued to reflect African artistic traditions, the earliest fine art made by professional African American artists was in an academic Western style. Among the leading black sculptors of the 19th century were Eugene Warbourg and Mary Edmonia Lewis, the first professional African American sculptor. The most distinguished African American artist who worked in the 19th century was Henry Ossawa Tanner, who painted African American genre subjects and reflects the realist tradition. In the early 20th century, the most important aesthetic movement in African American art was the Harlem Renaissance or the ‘New Negro’ movement of the 1920s. The Harlem district of New York became the ‘cultural capital of black America’. Practicing in New York, Stuart Davis was heavily influenced by African American culture and jazz music, though he was not an African American. Aaron Douglas consciously incorporated African imagery into his work. The most important African American photographer of that period was James Van Der Zee, who photographed people and scenes in Harlem for more than 50 years. During and immediately after World War II there arose to prominence a new school of African American artists, many of whom were the so-called ‘children of the Harlem Renaissance’. During the 1950s African American art was dominated by Abstract Expressionism and realism; their significant practitioners included Charles Alston, Romare Bearden and James Wells. In the 1960s and 1970s new classifications appeared in African American art based on continuing developments in abstract art and the rise of the figurative style known as Black Expressionism. The most prominent African American abstract painter was Sam Gilliam, based in Washington, DC. Martin Puryear emerged during the 1980s as a leading African American abstract sculptor. In the 1980s African American art was the subject of a number of pioneering exhibitions, such as Black Art—Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African American Art (Dallas Museum of Art, 1989), that brought together the works of African, Caribbean and African American academic and folk artists. Today’s artists, such as Kara Walker and Fred Wilson, continue to grapple with the complex issues of African American history and identity in contemporary visual art. Spiral was a collective of African-American artists initially formed by Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Norman Lewis, and Hale Woodruff on July 5, 1963. It has since become the name of an exhibition, Spiral: Perspectives on an African-American Art Collective.[1] A few of the paintings on display at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama. Contents 1 History 2 Artists 3 Name 4 Exhibitions 5 References 6 External links 6.1 Reviews History Active from the summer of 1963 through 1965, the group of artists met weekly to discuss the role of African-American artists in politics and the civil rights movement, as well as in the larger art world,[1] and organized one group exhibition. The group was initiated after artists Romare Bearden and Hale Woodruff invited other artists to discussions in Bearden's loft. Initially the group was concerned with logistical issues, such as obtaining buses to travel to the March on Washington in the summer of 1963. Soon afterward, their efforts turned toward aesthetic concerns, including what author Ralph Ellison called a "new visual order."[2] The members of the group were at varying stages in their careers when they first started meeting. While they did agree that their place, as artists, in the civil rights movement was important, they had differing views on what that place would be. The artists in the group were moved to come together and discuss their own engagement in the struggle for civil rights, even though each found engagement in a different way. The collective allowed for a shared response to the courage that defined the struggle for civil rights.[3] In the years leading up to the formation of Spiral, most of the artists were doing figurative work. Several started to experiment with abstraction as they grew as artists and began working more closely together. Bearden expressed the want of collaborating on a collage. But because the group used different techniques and mediums in their works, they decided that there would be other ways to impact the movement.[1] Although the group was active for only a short time, Spiral proved to be important as an historical initiative, and was one of the first artist groups to call for the cultural community's involvement in social change.[1] The group's only exhibition was May 14 through June 5, 1965, titled First Group Showing: Works in Black and White. The exhibition was in part a response to the trend of major art institutions to overlook the work of African-American artists. Bearden had suggested the exhibition's black-and-white theme because it comprised both socio-political and formal concerns. The Spiral group was relatively ignored in much traditional art history since its demise.[4] But interest in the group was rekindled by a group exhibition of the collective in Birmingham and New York in 2010-2011, and the associated catalogs. The exhibition looks at the way the Spiral collective came into its own during a period of American history full of unrest, and the varied visual responses of African-American artists.[3] A few more of the works on display at the Birmingham Museum of Art. Artists Romare Bearden - collages, watercolors, oils, and prints Hale Woodruff - murals, paintings, prints Norman Lewis - painter Charles Alston - painter, sculptor, illustrator, and teacher Emma Amos - painter, mixed media Calvin Douglass - painter Perry Ferguson - painter Reginald Gammon - oil paints, watercolors, drawings, and prints Felrath Hines - abstract expressionism Alvin Hollingsworth - comics, paints William Majors - drawing, painting, paper collages, 3D canvases Richard Mayhew - painter Earl Miller - painting, pencil drawings Merton Simpson-abstract paintings James Yeargans - painter Name Woodruff suggested the name "spiral" in reference to the Archimedean spiral that "moves outward embracing all directions, yet continually upward".[1] The name also represented the diversity of styles and interests represented by the work of the members as they "sought to move toward common goals as individual artists and as African-American people".[1] Exhibitions Spiral: Perspectives on an African-American Art Collective was on view at the Birmingham Museum of Art from December 5, 2010 through April 17, 2011. It was organized by Emily G. Hanna and Amalia Amaki.[3] The exhibition was on view at the Studio Museum in Harlem, July 14 through October 23, 2011. Spiral: American Masters was on view at Evolve the Gallery (accompanied by a full catalog) from April 12 through May 24, 2014.[5]
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