A History of African-American Artists from 1792 to the Present, by Romare Bearden & Harry Henderson
Moses, Wilson J.
Untold stories, unseen pictures T his handsome book was coauthored by the late Romare Bearden, one of the most beloved African-American artists of our time, and Harry Henderson, a gifted...
...Why he would have misspelled his own name remains a mystery...
...Being of an independent, rebellious nature she was soon forced to drop out, but her brother persuaded her to apply to Oberlin College...
...A lay person, such as the present reviewer, will always judge a book of this sort largely on the quality of its color reproductions...
...Untold stories, unseen pictures T his handsome book was coauthored by the late Romare Bearden, one of the most beloved African-American artists of our time, and Harry Henderson, a gifted journalist...
...While its illustrations are far from commonplace, the overwhelming majority of readers will find its biographies both entertaining and informative...
...The strongest evidence that has been presented in support of Johnston's African ancestry is the discovery in A HISTORY OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTISTS FROM 1792 TO THE PRESENT Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson Pantheon Books, $65, 541 pp...
...This time she had no reputation for "wildness," but she became involved in a terrible scandal, when two of her fellow students became ill and accused her of poisoning them...
...Thomas Everett, who identified a portrait of herself and her children as the work of "J...
...But on October 26, 1960, the bust was discovered to be missing and has never been found...
...For example, there is the controversy surrounding Joshua Johnston...
...The authors found no references to her activities after February 1909...
...The distinguished archivist Dorothy Porter writing in the Dictionary of American Negro Biography found a reference in the American Catholic Encyclopedia (1911), giving her address as Rome, Italy...
...At her hearing the black abolitionist lawyer, John Mercer Langston, argued that no medical proof of poisoning had been gathered at the time and Lewis was never brought to trial...
...The date of Lewis's death is still unknown, but her life is one of the most interesting recounted here, and a number of her very striking sculptures are reproduced in photographs...
...Presumably Johnston painted portraits of many wealthy white Americans, some of whom might have left in their papers a mention of his race...
...Some librarians believe that Savage...[sent] someone to get it and that she destroyed it, possibly because she no longer admired Du Bois...
...Raised by two aunts who were from her mother's tribe, she grew up speaking Chippewa, learning to weave baskets and embroider moccasins...
...The book is well designed, with readable, attractive type on high-quality paper...
...It should be quite the collector's item but more than a coffee-table decoration...
...While no attempt has been made to present this as an encyclopedic compendium, it is an informative introduction to many of the notable AfricanAmerican artists since the eighteenth century and a fascinating selection from their works...
...There are 420 black-and-white illustrations and 61 color reproductions, including, according to the publisher's blurb, "rediscovered classics, works no longer extant, and art never before seen in this country...
...There is also a clue in a book held by one of his seated subjects, with the name "Joshu Johnson" crudely lettered on one of its pages...
...There are some brilliant ones here, including Aaron Douglass's More Stately Mansions which is currently so popular that it graces the covers of at least two African-American history books...
...Johnson...
...While at Oberlin, she had demonstrated some skills at drawing, and Brackett took her under his wing, offering her advice and encouragement...
...Before her hearing, she was abducted, beaten, and left for dead in the snow...
...Those knowledgeable in the field will lament the unfortunate absence of such artists as Benny Andrews and Faith Ringgold along with a number of other important figures...
...There she resided, apparently for the rest of her life, although she made several trips back to the United States...
...The work of Archibald Motley is jazzier in spirit, conjuring up the danger, the color, and the easy laughter associated with the exotic "Negro Renaissance" of the twenties...
...Was this American portraitist, flourishing in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, of African descent...
...Although one will not find in these pages an exhaustive history of AfricanAmerican art, one will discover a rich sampler...
...The authors express the hope that perhaps an answer is yet to be discovered in some obscure archive...
...Even African-American Studies specialists will discover a treasury of the rich and strange...
...The painting, in somber magenta tones, shows black workers against the architectural background of monumental Egyptian symbols, a Christian church spire, and some modernistic towers echoing the architecture of Timbuktu...
...His spirit is bluesy and brassy, but in retrospect, almost innocent...
...E. Burghardt] Du Bois from the Harlem Branch of the New York Public Library [where] it sat undisturbed from 1923 until 1960...
...There are concise photographic portfolios of the sculpture of Richmond Barthe and Augusta Savage...
...It is a biographical history containing, in addition to much new information on AfricanAmerican artists, some rare examples of their work...
...Her brother rented a small studio for her, and Lewis was able to sell enough of her work, including 100 plaster replicas of her bust of Robert Gould Shaw, the white Union officer who led an all-black regiment, to finance a sojourn in Rome...
...The text contains pathos, intrigue, gossip, and scholarly puzzles that will probably be new to the average reader...
...We are told that little of Savage's work survives, and that "Some of her work disappeared under curious circumstances, the most mysterious being the theft of her magnificent bust of [W...
...Ensuing difficulties with the local towns20 BOOKS people led to her being denied registration for her final term at Oberlin, and Lewis set out for Boston in 1863 where she secured an introduction to Edward A. Brackett, a sculptor known for his bust of John Brown...
...The answer to that question is a "definite maybe," or, as the authors put it, "During the last fifty years it has been increasingly accepted that Joshua Johnston was indeed an AfricanAmerican...
...Wilson J. Moses 1976 of what might have been his name in the will of Mrs...
...She was sent for a short period to the New York Central College at McGrawville by her older brother, but encountered language difficulties, unaccustomed as she was to pronouncing certain English consonants...
...She was born in Greenbush, New York, on July 14, 1848, of African and Chippewa descent, and orphaned at the age of nine...
...Bearden and Henderson relate the heroic struggle of Edmonia Lewis, a neoclassical sculptor and Catholic convert of the late nineteenth century, observing the tremendous difficulties over which she triumphed as a black woman artist in antebellum America...
Vol. 121 • February 1994 • No. 4
