The Visual Artists of the Harlem Renaissance
By: Esme Sloane
Tags: Black History, Art History, Art, The Harlem Renaissance, American History

“Harlem Tenement in Summer, 1935” by Unknown (sourced by The New York Public Library on Unsplash)

The Harlem Renaissance came about due to the Great Migration north, where black Americans seeking refuge from the horrific persecutions of the Jim Crow south, fled to the northern states of the Union after the failure of Reconstruction. Harlem’s Artistic expression and the flourishing of the highest density of black population in the world at the time came from a multitude of factors. Grouping together rather than in secluded pockets meant there was more safety amongst each other, a white person couldn’t as easily get away with harming a person of color in Harlem as they would in a less black populated neighborhood; community protects. Then there was also the fact that most states, including New York where the burrough of Harlem resides, had segregationist policies. Businesses, Public Buildings, and banks had separate entrances, offices, water fountains, lavatories, and more (just about anything you can imagine) depending on race. If the community was all black and black-owned businesses were the status quo, there was no need for segregation. Why wouldn’t you want to live there?

Economically, this is also the reason why Harlem flourished. The community relied on itself, its own banks, its own businesses, its own people. When the Great Depression hit, it took a toll on Harlem, for sure, but the community survived because it relied on itself and didn’t tie itself to the machinations of the White Man’s Economy. Additionally, those in Harlem who didn’t find employment within Harlem used the Depression to their advantage. Black Americans were (and still are) vastly underpaid to white workers in all sectors, so the factory managers laying off white workers because they were too expensive to keep on were more than happy to take on more cost efficient black workers.

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president, he launched the New Deal, the mother of all stimulus injections. Among the many public administrations he set up was the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, which hired on ‘unskilled’ workers to rebuild infrastructure. This gave Harlem artists a steady revenue. If people were building walls and bridges, someone needed them to be painted. Harlem was decorated with government paid artists doing fantastic murals representing their community.

When we talk about the Harlem Renaissance, we usually end up talking about the wordsmiths like Ida B. Wells, Langston Hughes, or Zora Neale Hurston. But this neighborhood counted amongst its ranks both women and men visual artists. Among them: Aaron Douglas (who painted murals and book covers), Lois Mailou Jones (who painted landscapes and won many awards by having her white friends submit her paintings on her behalf. President Clinton had one of her paintings in the White House during his administration), Jacob Lawrence (who painted a 60 panel series chronologically detailing the black American’s journey to the North), Augusta Savage (An activist and educator who sculpted busts of W.E.B Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. Her bust of a black youth sits on permanent display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum), James Van Der Zee (a photographer who captured the likeness of the middle class families of Harlem as well as its notable residents), Richmond Barthé (a sculptor and coin designer who sculpted the busts of black men of all classes, among them Booker T. Washington), and Charles Alston (a painter who oversaw many of the public projects that sustained the artistic community in Harlem and fostered fellow artists).

Works Cited:

Sailsman, Kaycia. “7 Prominent Artists Of The Harlem Renaissance In NYC.” Culture Trip, The Culture Trip, 11 Feb. 2016, theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/new-york/articles/7-prominent-artists-of-the-harlem-renaissance-in-nyc/.

“National Gallery of Art.” Harlem Renaissance, www.nga.gov/education/teachers/lessons-activities/uncovering-america/harlem-renaissance.html.