Exhibition of THE ART OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO (1851 to 1940)

ASSEMBLED BY THE American Negro Exposition - ON VIEW JULY 4 TO SEPTEMBER 2 1940 - TANNER ART GALLERIES - AMERICAN NEGRO EXPOSITION - CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

February 2024 I'm delighted to announce the acquisition of this supremely important artifact of Charles White material (https://www.eddiechambers.com/charles-white/), the catalogue for an important 1940 exhibition, one of the artist's first involvement in a group exhibition, taking place in his home town, when he was just 22 years old. Charles White's masterful, though melancholic drawing "There Were No Crops This Year" graced the cover of this catalogue, and it was noted that the drawing (which depicted two despondent African Americans, facing despair and unimaginable hardship and hunger, on account of there being "no crops that year") had won "First Award in Black and White"

There was just the one essay in the catalogue, a short one provided by Alain Locke. In little more than six hundred words however, Locke managed to touch on many important considerations.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO EXPOSITION’S SHOWING OF THE WORK OF NEGRO ARTISTS

The authorities of the American Negro Exposition are to be congratulated on assembling the most comprehensive and representative collection of the Negro’s art that has ever been presented to public view. Not only are the East, Mid-west, West, North and South notably represented in their best contemporary work, but an historical background of the previous generations of Negro artists from the early pioneers through to Tanner has also been added. A small but representative collection of the ancestral African art adds a third dimension, so that the visitor can follow, at a glance, the art history of our people.

            For many it will be a surprising revelation. The general public knows the Negro’s outstanding achievements in music, dance and entertainment; it knows little of the quieter and more technically difficult achievements in the fine arts,

            Although the volume and quality of our artists’ work in painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts has measurably increased in the present generation, even markedly in the last decade, this exhibit shows that from the earliest times the Negro has been contributing his quota of talent in this important field. We only recently have learned to appreciate the beauty and originality of the ancient African art, but it has been there all along for over a millenium (sic). Few know that Negro artists were painting in colonial America, when American art itself was in its swaddling clothes. Not too many yet know how this present generation of younger artists are maturing and catching the stride of the national awakening in art by which a characteristic native American art is being developed. An art that adequately reflects America, must, of course, include the American Negro, and artists, with their more liberal tradition and spirit, have not been slow in realizing this. In contemporary American art of this generation, both the Negro and the White artist stand on common ground in their aim to document every phase of American life and experience. More and more you will notice in their canvases the sober realism which goes beneath the jazzy, superficial show of things or the mere picturesqueness of the Negro to the deeper truths of life, even the social problems of religion, labor, housing, lynching, unemployment and the like. For today’s beauty must not be pretty with sentiment but solid and dignified with truth.

            Nor is the Negro artist of today so very different from his brother artists. Product of the same social and cultural soil, he is typically American after all. And yet, he must somehow reflect what he sees most and knows best, his own folk, and his own feeling of life. In so doing, he can teach us to see ourselves, not necessarily as others see us, but as we should be seen. Finding beauty in ourselves. We can and must be spiritually stronger, and in consequence, socially and culturally more worth while.

            This exhibit as only been made possible by wide-scale cooperation, from the Federal Art Projects, National and State, particularly the Illinois State project, all of which have come to the rescue of the artist in the depression, from the Harmon Foundation, which for over a decade has importantly advanced the cause of the Negro artist and of Negro art, from many persons and institutions that have lent their treasures, and to whom detailed acknowledgement is made elsewhere. All these services, including the important ones of the Eastern and Western Juries of Selection and the Jury of Prize Awards, have been toward the one objective – to put Negro art on the map and to carry its inspiring message to the heart of every visitor to the Exposition.

ALAIN LOCKE

Chairman of the Art Committee

Locke’s text was illustrated with “Robert S. Duncanson (1821-1871) Blue Hole (oil) 1851. Lent by the Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio. The exhibition begins with the date of this painting.”

Within the catalogue, the exhibits were divided into the following sections:

AWARDS

OIL PAINTING

WATER COLOR PAINTING

BLACK AND WHITE

SCULPTURE (First Award won by one Alice Elizabeth Catlett of Washington, D.C. for her "Negro Mother and Child"

EARLY PERIOD - MEMORIAL EXHIBITION

SCULPTURE

MODERN PERIOD - MEMORIAL EXHIBITION

ART OF THE CONTEMPORARY NEGRO

OILS (which included another work by Charles White - "Through the Years of Poverty a Passionate Tune was Born"

WATER COLOR

BLACK AND WHITE

SCULPTURE

CERAMICS

HARMON EXHIBIT

OILS

BLACK AND WHITE

CHILDREN'S ART

AFRICAN ART

JURY ON SELECTIONS

EASTERN JURY

WESTERN JURY

JURY ON AWARDS

ART COMMITTEE FOR THE EXPOSITION

NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON ART - NEW YORK, CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, D.C., ATLANTA, NASHVILLE, CINCINNATI, NEW ORLEANS.

TANNER ART GALLERIES

There were 316 exhibits listed, though the work in the Children's Art section and African Art section was not numbered or itemized. As could be expected, a great many of the leading figures of 19th and 20th century African American Art were represented in the exhibition. Interestingly, there were also significant numbers of artists in Exhibition of THE ART OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO (1851 to 1940) whose names today are less familiar to us.