Aaron Douglas (1898-1979)

Window Cleaning
1935, oil on canvas
30" by 24"

Sheldon Memorial Art
Gallery and Sculpture Garden,
University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
Nebraska Art Association

Collection 1936.N-40

A SHORT BIOGRAPHY:

Aspects of Negro Life: An Idyll of the Deep South, 1934

Aaron Douglas was born on May 26,1899 in Topeka, Kansas. He was a baker's son at a time when a black was expected to be a servant or a laborer. However, Topeka had a thriving black community. They followed progressive intellectual and social doctrines and had strong leadership which provided Douglas with many role models at an early age. Douglas was encouraged at an early age by his mother to continue his creative interest in art. His most serious decision in becoming an artist came from his exposure to the African-American printer, Henry Ossawa Tanner.

Douglas educated himself despite many obstacles. He joined the exodus to the north after high school, in order to earn money to pursue a college degree. In 1917 he attended the University of Nebraska. He graduated from Nebraska with a B.A. in Fine Arts in 1922. Douglas taught art at Lincoln High School in Topeka for two years. Douglas was then accepted as the illustrator for Dr. Alain Locke's new book, The New Negro, published in 1925.

Douglas and his wife, Alta, went to Paris, France, where he expanded his knowledge of painting and sculpture. In Paris, Douglas got a chance to meet his idol Henry Ossawa Tanner. On his return to the U.S. in 1928, Douglas became the first president of the Harlem Artists Guild. In 1929 he traveled to Chicago to create a mural for the Shermon Hotel's College Inn Ballroom. At the end of 1930 Douglas created another mural for Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. For his efforts, Douglas became known as the "Dean" among his fellow students. From 1939 to 1966 Douglas was a professor of Art at Fisk University. He later became department head before he retired in 1966.

Aaron Douglas has been called "The Father of African-American Art." He earned that title through years of hard work and dedication to the idea that he would maintain a racial identity within an integrated society. Before Douglas died in 1979, he was recognized for making it acceptable for future African-American artists to express in their creations movements and depictions from their experiences as African-Americans.

Study for Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction,1934

NOTE:

The African craftsmen's emphasis on design rather than on representation had a lot to do with Aaron Douglas' choice of flat colors and his stylized, two-dimensional illustrations. Douglas' designs bring forth many of the works that we associate with The Harlem Renaissance. Some examples are the magazines, Fire and Harlem and Alain Locke's The New Negro . Douglas completed a mural, comprising five panels, for the W.P.A. in 1934. It was called "Aspects of Negro Life," and interpreted the African-American experience from its backgrounds in Africa to present day urban America.

Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction, 1934

HIS WORKS AND STYLE:

Douglas began his larger works late in 1927. He did several murals that display his signature style, silhouetted figures, cubist rays of light and color, and simple depictions of the cycles of the history of the black people in the world. During the Harlem Renaissance, Douglas remained true to his own artistic vision. People as laborers, old rituals and ceremonies, and most importantly portraits of black people as blacks, were themes throughout his career.

Aspects of Negro Life: The Negro in an African Setting, 1934

"I refuse to compromise and see blacks as anything less than a proud and majestic people."
Aaron Douglas

Bibliography:

http://sheldon.unl.edu/test/pages/Artists/Douglas_A/Douglas.html

http://satie.arts.usf.edu/~ooguibe/afroam4.htm

http://satie.arts.usf.edu/art/arhtest/harlem.html

by
Stephanie Fry
Michaela Holden

TEAM Assignment