The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity

The Afro-American Artist: A Search for IdentityAuthor(s): Elsa Honig FineSource: Art Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Autumn, 1969), pp. 32-35Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/775273 .

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The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity Elsa Honig Fine

Today the black militant is trying to forge his

image on the American cultural scene. Not content to be a pale imitation of white middle class society, all too fre-

quently the goal of his brethren in the earlier decades of this century, he wants to be judged on his own terms, by his own values and standards. He no longer feels inade-

quate because of his peculiar speech patterns, hair tex- ture or body structure. He is forcing additions and

changes in the curriculum in the high schools and uni- versities. Refusing the role of the "invisible American," the black is demanding recognition and compensation for centuries of subjugation and discrimination.

The black musician has left his imprint on the American culture. The black painter is trying to do the same. These questions are often asked: Why is there not a black visual art tradition comparable to the black musi- cal tradition? And what is the role of the black visual artist? Where do his traditions lie, with the American culture or with his African heritage? And what should be the unique contribution of the black artist? Should he

express his inner emotions in his art, or does his responsi- bility rest with his people? These are not new concerns.

They are questions that have troubled black intellectuals for nearly a century, reaching their climax during the

Negro Renaissance of the 1920's, and reemerging with the militancy of the sixties.

The system of slavery, especially the domestic and rural form, forced rapid assimilation on the African

Negro. The plantation was a social system all its own, and the isolation and intimate contact with the master's

family forced the white man's language, religion and values on the black man. And the plantation owners' bio-

logical urges forced the white man's blood upon the blacks. These offspring, who often served as "house nig- gers," became the elite of the plantation and scorned the boisterous "common field hands." Mimicking their mas- ters, they accepted their "restrained manners and conser- vative standards." The middle-rank of slaves included the artisans, the cook and the gardener, who knew their place, and enjoyed special privileges. It was from the common field hands, with their bent and tortured bodies,

MRS. FINE, B.F.A. in painting from Syracuse University, M.F.A. from Tyler College of Fine Arts, Temple Univer-

sity, is a candidate for the Ed.D. (emphasizing art history and art education) at the University of Tennessee where her husband is a Professor of Clinical Psychology. She became interested in this neglected area of American art when she decided to apply for a teaching position at a

predominantly black college in the Knoxville area. m

thrust together in the intimacy of the slave quarters, en-

during the burden of overwork, that the black folk arts

emerged. The Negro folk culture became the American

peasant culture. With their rejection of the poor whites, and their paternalistic acceptance of the Negro, the southern plantation system became the "closest approxi- mation in American social history to the conditions and social climate of peasantry." When the black migrated north, he carried his traditions with him. Since he was never allowed to become part of the great American "melting pot," his folk culture was not dissipated. Rather, the enforced segregation served to strengthen and enrich his expressive style. Today, the Negro folk culture, as communicated through the blues, the spiri- tual, jazz, soul music and rhythmic dance movements is an integral part of the total American cultural

experience?.' When, in the late nineteenth century, Negro visual

artists began to emerge, they were mocked as the epitome of pretentiousness by whites as well as blacks, as art was considered the "ultimate expression of a civilized people." Although black Africa boasted a long tradition in the arts, the American Negro, cut so abruptly from his roots, was unaware of it. Stripped of all expressive materials, the captive blacks expressed their creative urges through their bodies, through song, speech and movement. In Africa, weaving, metal work, and sculpture were the dominant arts, and "African art skills were technical, rigid, controlled and disciplined; characteristic African art expression is, therefore, sober, heavily conventional- ized, and restrained. The American African arts are

freely emotional, exuberant, and sentimental." The Afri- can used subtle colors; the Afro-American's affinity for

extravagant color is an emotional reaction to his repres- sive American experience.2

Visual art expression in Western culture is an essen- tially middle-class endeavor. The aristocrat could be a connoisseur and a patron of the arts, but working with one's hands denied this tradition. Painting as a fine art grew out of the artisan class, which eventually became the middle-class. The peasants and the primitive produced folk art; the fine arts are a product of leisure, secu- rity, and education. Ever since Edmonia Lewis, a black sculptor, attended Oberlin College in Ohio, 1859, the Negro artist has followed the white man's course in seeking to develop his art. While he has certainly been sub- jected to the indignities of a black in a white society, his training and experience as an artist have been the same as the white artist's. Educated in the best schools at home, frequently benefiting by travel and study abroad, the serious Negro artist responded to the rapidly chang- ing art movements of the late nineteenth and the twen- teeth centuries as an artist, and not as a black artist.

Margaret Just Butcher writes that "we must not ex- pect the work of the Negro artist to be different from

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that of his fellow artists. Product of the same social and cultural soil, the Negro's art has an equal right and obli-

gation to be typically American at the same time that it strives to be typical and representative of the Negro. Ul-

timately the American Negro must make as distinct a contribution to visual arts as he has made to music."3

The difficulty in this statement rests in the last sen- tence. Negro music developed as the folk expression of an oppressed people who were denied all other means of creative experience. Music and dance spring from the grass-roots; art is a function of middle-class life. Although black painters have been participating in the American visual art scene for over 100 years, their contribution has been minimal compared to their dominant role in Amer- ican popular music. The inadequate representation of blacks may be due to the inferior education that has been foistered on them. John T. Scott, instructor in art at Xavier University, states that "because of no education in art (or very poor education that functions negatively), the lower-income bracket Negro is visually illiterate."4 About 60% of the Negroes attending college go to predominantly Negro colleges. The art instructors there are lower paid, lower ranked, and they exhibit their works less than do their colleagues at non-Negro institutions; usually they are graduates of schools with facilities similar to those they are teaching in.* Slide collections and

library resources are limited at the predominantly Negro schools, as are print collections and exhibit space. In other words, the students arriving at these institutions usually have an inadequate background, and with limited facilities and poorly prepared teachers, their chance for professional competence is remote.5 There probably will not be a truly great Afro-American artist until Amer- ican society completely accepts the black man.

When the fad for African sculpture, stimulated by the paintings and sculpture of Picasso, Derain, Vlaminck and Matisse, reached America the question was raised as to the relationship between African primitive art and the productions of the Amercian Negro. At first the primitive artifacts were regarded as awkward attempts at realism, but with increased observation, sophisticated European critics discovered that the distortions were "not a crude attempt at realism but a skillful re-working of forms in simplified abstraction and deliberately emphasized sym- bolisms."6

Many Negro artists resented this forced identifica- tion with African, claiming the American experience was

stronger than the racial one. Alain Locke, an early advo- cate of black consciousness, hoped for the development of an Afro-American art idiom based on the discovery of Af- rican art. In France and Germany several artists were said to have been liberated by this new aesthetic; unques- tionably African Negro art had influenced the oeuvre of

the early twentieth century artist. But for them, accord-

ing to Locke, it was just an "exotic fad." For the black American artist, asserted Locke, since there was an "his- torical and racial bond between themselves and African art . . . [it] should act with all the force of a rediscovered folk-art, and give clues for the repression of a half-sub- merged race-soul."7

This search for identity by the black artist in Amer- ica has been a continuous process. The nineteenth century artist often sought solace in Europe, which is more color-blind than America. Many twentieth century artists have done the same. But the search continues. Who is he, and whom does he represent? The poet, Paul Dunbar, in responding to a query in 1906 as to the difference between white and black poetry, claimed that: ". .. their

[the blacks'] poetry will not be exotic or differ much from the whites. For two hundred and fifty years the environment of the Negro has been American, in every re- spect the same as that of all Americans."8

Langston Hughes urged his brethren to portray their blackness in their art. Expressing at that time the black slogans current today, such as "black is beautiful," "black pride" and "black power," and the feeling of the separateness and uniqueness of the black experience back in 1926, Hughes wrote, "We younger artists who create now intend to express our individual dark skinned selves without fear or shame. If the white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful.''9

Afraid of being identified with the caricatures created by the white artist, Negroes usually shunned Negro subject matter. When a Negro was portrayed in a less than appealing manner, whether the depiction was honest or not, the Negro middle-class protested. When Eu- gene O'Neil caught what W. E. B. DuBois called the "Negro-temper" in "The Emperor Jones," the educated blacks rebuked him, and they in turn were chastised by DuBois, who wrote that the Negro should feel secure enough to "lend the whole stern human truth to the transforming hand of the artist." At this time, DuBois developed his "Truth in Art" theory which appealed for honest expression in art, rather than using art as propaganda. As early as 1913 he viewed the black as "primar- ily an artist," and later wrote: "We are the only Ameri- can artists."1o

A black cultural regeneration, labeled the "Negro Renaissance," or the "New Negro Movement" was in evidence in the large northern urban centers by the mid- twenties. The shape and direction of the movement was debated by the leading Negro intellectuals of the day. Alain Locke continued to urge the black artists, lacking a tradition of their own, to adopt their ancestral arts. He continued, "We ought to and must have a school of

Negro art, a local and racially representative tradition.""

33

* On this problem see ART JOURNAL, Winter, 68/9, p. 228 and Summer, 69, p. 432.-EDITOR.



By this time, discouraged by constant rebuffs from white society, DuBois' attitude had changed. Writing in Crises, the official publication of the N.A.A.C.P. ("Crite- ria of Negro Art?" October, 1926), he expressed his anger at literature such as Van Vechten's Nigger Heaven, that treated the black man as a caricature, a buffoon. "Truth in Art" be damned, "I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda." At a 1926 N.A.A.C.P. convention, DuBois argued that "the Negro artist . . . must turn his art into conscious propaganda, because for the Negro, though not for white America, art and propaganda were unified by their common devotion to truth, beauty and right."'2 By 1931, when he was advocating a

separate Negro society and flirting with the Communist

party, DuBois declared that the role of art was to lead so-

ciety in fulfilling its highest ideals. Art was to serve the

people, and the Negro artist would be judged according to racial, and not artistic standards. DuBois seemed to be

parroting the Communist aesthetic, which has produced a school of "social realism" in art, thereby thwarting the

great achievements of modern art in Russia that were so visible in the first decade of this century.

Other intellectuals, in disagreeing with Locke and DuBois, argued that the latter's philosophies would only further segregate the blacks. A split developed that threatened to enfeeble the new movement. The dichot-

omy, as described by James Porter,* had one group con-

tending "that to avoid imitation of white tradition the

Negro must deny everything that might be construed as derivative from white experience;" and the other insist-

ing "that the Negro should encompass all experience, not

attempting to supress non-Negro influence, for such

suppression meant intellectual and aesthetic negativism." A more rational guide for the black apologist was

elicited by the sociologist, E. Franklin Frazer, in Ebony and Topaz, when he reasoned that "to turn within the

group experience for materials for artistic creation and

group tradition is entirely different from seeking in the

biological inheritance of the race for new values, attitudes, and a different order or mentality."

All the propaganda of the twenties failed to produce a Negro aesthetic. Those who attempted to identify with their African heritage were reduced to academicism, or

superficial renditions of stereotyped images. Still the search for an identity continued. When the

Negro was content with his personal adjustment to his role in American art, he was challenged by his colleagues. Accused by a white artist of painting like a white man, Malvin Gray Johnson, a promising young painter in the 1930's replied that in his training he was taught the prin- ciples of art, the use of lines, forms and colors, the same as the white student. "We Americans of both races know and live the same life, except that the Negro encounters racial

restrictions.13 When Hale Woodruff, a prominent

black artist teaching at New York University, was asked during a symposium if he thought there was a special relationship that the Negro had to American society, his re- sponse in 1968, revealed longings similar to those of Johnson, expressed thirty years before. Replied Wood- ruff:

Everything the Negro artist does has to do with his image of himself and his aspirations. It involves human as well as racial fulfillment. The Negro artist faces all the "artistic," hence, economic and cultural problems all artists face. But for the Negro artist these problems are aggravated by the fact that the "power structure" of the art world is not altogether prepared to accept him as "just another artist," particularly in the visual arts. They still desire, seemingly, a non- white quality which presents the Negro artist as being unique and therefore different from other artists.14

Charles Alston, a contemporary of Woodruff, agrees that there is no such thing as a "black art," although there is a "black experience." "I've lived it," commented Alston. "But it's also an American experience. I think black artists want to be in the mainstream of American life, and I believe in their insistance on it."15 Most of the members of the symposium participating with Woodruff expressed similar sentiments. The exception was Julius Lester, the militant poet, who urged blacks to repudiate white institutions.

To resolve their commitments as artists in the Civil Rights movement, a group of blacks formed a loosely structured group called "Spiral" in 1963. Among the artists were Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Hale Wood- ruff, and Alvin Hollingsworth, Emma Amos, Perry Fer- guson, Norman Lewis, Reggie Gamon, James Yeargans, Earl Miller, Felrath Hines and Merton Simpson. Rang- ing in age from twenty-eight to sixty-five, and in style from realism to minimal, they sponsored an exhibit, limited to black and white paintings, for symbolic reasons. No unifying themes emerged, the group agreed, nor did any evidence of any such thing as "a Negro quality or a Negro art."16

A visitor from a foreign country sees the Afro-Amer- ican as American. His attitudes and values, his goals and ideals, are all shaped by the American environment. His dream has been the American dream. Yet his experience in this country has been unique. Snatched from his ancestral home, denied any cultural continuity, he was forced to absorb the life he saw, but was never allowed to become part of the great American "melting pot." He has been an alien in his own land. Yet this situation can be used advantageously. The creative artist, in order to be free to explore new worlds, must remain separate from, or alienated from the larger culture. Being outside the culture, he is free to mold it, shape it, and lead it to higher ideals, without fearing the judgment of the larger society. This is both the tragedy and the opportunity of the black artist. Shaped by his environment, trained by

* Professor Porter is Head of the Department of Art. Howard University. -EDITOR.

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its institutions, he has an addendum, a deeper and richer, though often tragic, experience from which to draw his

inspirations. Returning to Africa for roots and tradition is not

the answer. The Afro-American seeking solace in black Africa has found that he is a stranger in a distant land.

By taking advantage of the opportunities offered by both American societies, black and white, separate yet similar, the Negro artist will be free to create. The bloodshed and hostility engendered by the battle with the larger group can only lead to creative impotence. This is not to

say that he should submit to oppressive situations. Where there is discrimination, the battle should be fought. But to destroy a society is not a creative act.

Perhaps Edward Wilson, a sculptor at the State Uni-

versity of New York at Binghamton,* has the solution. Rather than committing himself exclusively to the fight for equality, the black artist should "commit himself to

seeking humanistic values." To seek the universal in the specific, to transform the Negro experience into "univer-

*Professor Wilson, who is chairman of the Department of Art at Bingham- ton has assisted the College Art Association in developing a program for assistance to Negro colleges and is a member of the committee carrying out the program.-EDITrroR.

sally understood terms," this is the role of the Afro-Amer- ican artist. The Negro jazz musician has done this, and of all the black artists, Jacob Lawrence comes closest to

realizing this fulfillment.17

1 Margaret Just Butcher, The Negro in American Culture (New York, 1957), 10-34. 2 Ibid., 207-9. 3 Ibid., 240. 4John T. Scott, "Programs for Change: A Symposium" Arts and Society (Summer-Fall, 1968), 284. 5Mary J. Rouse and Douglas Reynolds, "Art Education in the Negro Col- leges," Arts and Society (Fall-Winter, 1968), 419-30. 6 Butcher, Culture, 223. SAlain Locke, "American Negro as Artist," American Magazine of Art, 23 (Sept., 1931), 220. s Benjamin Brawley, The Negro Genius (New York, 1937), 12. 9 Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," Nation, 122 (June 23, 1926), 692. o10 Francis L. Broderick, W. E. B. DuBois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis (Stanford, Calif., 1959), 151. 11 Alain Locke, "The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts," The New Negro, quoted in James A. Porter, Modern Negro Art (New York, 1943), 99. 12Broderick, DuBois, 157-60. 13 Porter, Modern, 100-4. 14 "Artist in an Age of Revolution: A Symposium," Arts and Society (Sum- mer-Fall, 1968) 219-37. 15 Grace Glueck, "The Best Painter I Can Possibly Be," New York Times (Dec. 8, 1968). 16 Jean Siegal, "Why Spiral?" Art News, 65 (Sept., 1966), 48-51. 17 Ed Wilson, "A Statement," Arts in Society (Fall-Winter, 1968), 411-16.

Studio Watts Learning Center for the Arts

The police arrived at Studio Watts early Sunday morning and set barricades at either end of the street. It was a little overcast and cool, but it was April, and the sun would be hot later on. Barbara Ekholm was soon mark-

ing out three foot squares on the asphalt, joined by a few early morning volunteers, and by 9 o'clock, 300 squares had been drawn and numbered, the colored chalk set out on the registration table, and people began to arrive for the Third Annual Watts Chalk-In.

Jim Woods, who is the President and founder of Studio Watts, liked the chalk

drawings he saw in the Paris subways. After the Studio began in 1964, and he needed

ways to get the community together, he

thought of those drawings. Three years ago, the first Chalk-In was held, and about 300

people came by the Studio. $100 was awarded to the artist whose drawing was voted the best

by all who came. Voting was handled by county registrars. The next year, the number of participants swelled, newspapers covered the story, and $500 in scholarship aid was awarded. This year, the Chalk-In was no lon-

ger an independent production of Studio Watts. A community organization had devel-

oped with representatives from all over Los

Angeles. TV and radio spots were produced and broadcast as a community service, city busses ran free advertisements, and $2000 in

scholarship aid was granted to winners of the

competition. The Chalk-In is one way the Studio re-

cruits new apprentices. No overt recruitment

is done. Since the Studio is interested in find-

ing people with initiative, it leaves the first

step to the individual. In addition, to draw

special attention to photgraphy as an art

media, young photographers and professional photographers of the southeast Los Angeles community were encouraged to attend the event and exhibit their work in the Chalk-In

Photographic Exhibit held one month later,

June 1, 1969. Only the 25 finalists in the

Photographic Exhibit were shown, and the

scholarship award was $200. There was the same number of finalists in the professional category with an award of $300.

A special exhibit of African Art was shown in connection with the second event to pro- vide an opportunity for the residents of the

community to see original examples of African

Art, displayed to show the relationship and influence of African on Western Art, creating a better understanding of African Culture and its outstanding aesthetic achievements in the

history of world art. The money realized from the $2.00 entrance donation will become part of the Studio Watts Museum of African and Ethnic Art Fund. A further goal of these events is the creation of a separate $25,000 endowment for both the Annual Watts Chalk-In and the Chalk-In Photographic Awards.

Apprentices at the Studio work with master artists in the areas of painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, drama and design. The ratio of apprentices to master is kept below 15 to 1. The Studio is now serving 160 apprentices. Apprentices are not admitted on the basis of past work or portfolio, but on the basis of their interest and commitment.

As their involvement with the Studio grows, they are given the opportunity to participate in other Studio programs, such as the Gran- tee Fellowship Program, which pays certain expenses while the apprentice learns with professionals outside of the Studio. The In- ternational Scholarship Porgram allows apprentices to participate in programs in Los Angeles that bring them together with foreign students. The ultimate aim of the Inter- national Scholarship Program is for the apprentice to go abroad and live for a summer with parents and friends of foreign students he meets. Graduates of Studio Watts Learn- ing Center for the Arts have gone on into ca- reers and/or other learning institutions. The studio has a very good relationship with Stan- ford University, Harvard University, the Uni-

versity of California, Los Angeles, and the new California Institute of the Arts.

The Board of Directors of the Studio has stated: "Our sole purposes for existence remain to allow chance for the improvement of the individual by the use of the arts and also to enable him to better define his relationship to the main stream of our society. Our tool continues to be art-a now proven tool that reduces the momentum of polariza- tion-and our achievement is the growing number of more aware people who have joined us and are introducing constructive and creative change wherever they are." A three part campaign is being conducted by the Development Board, established last No- vember, for private funding from National and California foundation grants; the Corpo- rate Affiliates Program; and individual dona- tions.-P.E.

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Documents

The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity