Black History Month: African American Artists

A landmark work of art history: lavishly illustrated and extraordinary for its thoroughness, A History of African-American Artists -- conceived, researched, and written by the great American artist Romare Bearden with journalist Harry Henderson, who completed the work after Bearden's death in 1988 -- gives a conspectus of African-American art from the late eighteenth century to the present. It examines the lives and careers of more than fifty signal African-American artists, and the relation of their work to prevailing artistic, social, and political trends both in America and throughout the world. Beginning with a radical reevaluation of the enigma of Joshua Johnston, a late eighteenth-century portrait painter widely assumed by historians to be one of the earliest known African-American artists, Bearden and Henderson go on to examine the careers of Robert S. Duncanson, Edward M. Bannister, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Aaron Douglas, Edmonia Lewis, Jacob Lawrence, Hale A. Woodruff, Augusta Savage, Charles H. Alston, Ellis Wilson, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Horace Pippin, Alma W. Thomas, and many others. Illustrated with more than 420 black-and-white illustrations and 61 color reproductions -- including rediscovered classics, works no longer extant, and art never before seen in this country -- A History of African-American Artists is a stunning achievement.

African American heritage is rich with stories of family, community, faith, love, adaptation and adjustment, grief, and suffering, all captured in a variety of media by artists intimately familiar with them. From traditional media of painting and artists such as Horace Pippin and Faith Ringgold, to photography of Gordon Parks, and new media of Sam Gilliam and Martin Puryear (installation art), the African American experience is reflected across generations and works. Eight pages of color plates and black and white images throughout the book introduce both favorite and new artists to students and adult readers alike. African American heritage is rich with stories of family, community, faith, love, adaptation and adjustment, grief, and suffering, all captured in a variety of media by artists intimately familiar with them. From traditional media of painting and artists such as Horace Pippin and Faith Ringgold, to photography of Gordon Parks, and new media of Sam Gilliam and Martin Puryear (installation art), the African American experience is reflected across generations and works. Eight pages of color plates and black and white images throughout the book introduce both favorite and new artists to students and adult readers alike. A sampling of the artists included: Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Achamyele Debela, and Melvin Edwards.

Filled with reproductions of Kehinde Wiley's bold, colorful, and monumental work, this book encompasses the artist's various series of paintings as well as his sculptural work--which boldly explore ideas about race, power, and tradition. Celebrated for his classically styled paintings that depict African American men in heroic poses, Kehinde Wiley is among the expanding ranks of prominent black artists--such as Sanford Biggers, Yinka Shonibare, Mickalene Thomas, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye--who are reworking art history and questioning its depictions of people of color. Co-published with the Brooklyn Museum of Art for the major touring retrospective, this volume surveys Wiley's career from 2001 to the present. It includes early portraits of the men Wiley observed on Harlem's streets, and which laid the foundation for his acclaimed reworkings of Old Master paintings by Titian, van Dyke, Manet, and others, in which he replaces historical subjects with young African American men in contemporary attire: puffy jackets, sneakers, hoodies, and baseball caps. Also included is a generous selection from Wiley's ongoing World Stage project; several of his enormous Down paintings; striking male portrait busts in bronze; and examples from the artist's new series of stained glass windows. Accompanying the illustrations are essays that introduce readers to the arc of Wiley's career, its critical reception, and ongoing evolution.

Known for his oversize paintings of contemporary African-Americans in heroic poses inspired by the great history and portrait painters of the past, Kehinde Wiley's clever and ironic "reversals" have provided rich commentary on the nature of race and power in our society. His work began primarily from photographs he took of young men on the street in Harlem that he remixed with a fusion of historic painting styles, including elements of the French rococo. As rich visually as it is conceptually, Wiley's work has drawn attention since his earliest shows in 2001. In the last decade, he has become one of the most important artists of the moment, with work as relevant and resonant to the hip-hop generation as it is to high-end collectors and major museums. This volume--the only comprehensive monograph on Wiley's work--offers an in-depth understanding of this important artist's work. It chronicles both the earliest paintings and photographs and his recent forays into sculpture--bust portraits in bronze in the manner of Renaissance artists.

Bearden was a diverse artist who worked in many mediums. This book, which accompanies a major retrospective at the National Gallery of Art, is the last word on this important figure. 300 illustrations.

Details the talented painter's turbulent childhood, explosive dealings with the elite art world, relationships with such figures as Andy Warhol and Madonna, and rise to fame, which led to his death from a drug overdose at the age of twenty-seven.

This thought-provoking work examines the dehumanizing depictions of black males in the movies since 1910, analyzing images that were once imposed on black men and are now appropriated and manipulated by them. * Discusses the social, historical, and literary evolution of African American male roles in the cinema * Analyzes the various black images presented each decade from blackface, Sambo, and Mandingo stereotypes to archetypal figures such as God, superheroes, and the president * Shows how African American actors, directors, and producers manipulate negative and positive images to advance their careers, profit financially, and make social statements to create change * Demonstrates the correlation between political and social movements and their impact on the cultural transformation of African American male images on screen over the past 100 years * Includes figures that demonstrate the correlation between political and social movements and their impact on cultural transformation and African American male images on screen