Calling all my artists! Calling all my artists! Lovers of painting, literature, music, film, dance. Black bodies are art. Black art is beautiful and entirely underappreciated. In this post, we will be exploring many of the great artists of the past and some of the present. Like last time, there will be some background on who they were as well as book listings for more information about their story (for children and older readers).
I would like to note that while I cannot list everyone's name here, there will be many other names in other posts that also fall into this category. Activism is inherent to Black history and Black art, many of these artists are advocates in some way shape, or form. Black art, in any form, is also inherent to the Black experience.
Toni Morrison (1931- 2019)
"Born Chloe Anthony Wofford, in 1931 in Lorain (Ohio), the second of four children in a black working-class family. Displayed an early interest in literature. Studied humanities at Howard and Cornell Universities, followed by an academic career at Texas Southern University, Howard University, Yale, and since 1989, a chair at Princeton University. She has also worked as an editor for Random House, a critic, and given numerous public lectures, specializing in African-American literature. She made her debut as a novelist in 1970, soon gaining the attention of both critics and a wider audience for her epic power, unerring ear for dialogue, and her poetically-charged and richly-expressive depictions of Black America. A member since 1981 of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has been awarded a number of literary distinctions, among them the Pulitzer Prize in 1988."
Documentary: "Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am"
Book (adults): "Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination "
Book (children): "Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History"
Janelle Monae (1985-)
"Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, arranger, producer, and actor Janelle Monáe left her mark on 2010s R&B with an energized retro-futuristic sound wrapped in theatrical science-fiction concepts. After she spent years grinding away in the Atlanta underground, Monáe capitalized on support from OutKast's Big Boi and developed into one of the most dynamic artists of her time, fusing soul, funk, hip-hop, and new wave -- among other genres -- with a spirited approach that seemed to treat entertainment and art as indivisible. Growing up, Janelle Monáe Robinson felt constrained by the limited resources offered in her greater Kansas City, Kansas environment. When she finished high school, she moved to New York to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy with the intention of pursuing musical theater. After performing in a couple off-Broadway shows and encountering a lack of desirable roles, she opted to try her luck in Atlanta." As her career progressed, when she didnt find roles that suited her she made them, starring in and helping produce music videos, television shows, and movies.
latest album: "Dirty Computer (Explicit)"
latest film: "Antellebellum" (2020. Rated R)
Ava Duvernay (1972-)
"Although she did not pick up a camera until she was thirty-two, Ava DuVernay has made history as a writer, director, and producer. She was the first African American woman to win Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival, be nominated for a Best Director Golden Globe, direct a film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, and direct a film with a budget over $100 million. Her work has made her the highest-grossing Black woman director in American box office history. Her latest project, When They See Us, was nominated for 16 Emmy awards, making her and Beyoncé the first African American women in Primetime Emmy history to receive multiple nominations in their careers for directing.DuVernay was hired right out of college as a junior publicist at a small studio. From this position, she started her own public relations company called The DuVernay Agency in 1999. In addition to PR, her agency also launched several lifestyle and promotional networks including; the Urban Beauty Collective, Urban Thought Collective, Urban Eye, and HelloBeautiful."
Latest film: "A Wrinkle in Time"
Popular Film: "Selma"
Popular Show: "When They See Us" (Netflix)
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
"Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories, plays, and poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in his book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (Holt, 1951). His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period such as Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen, Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including their love of music, laughter, and language itself alongside their suffering."
Book (Children): "Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes "
Book(adults): "The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (Vintage Classics) "
Amanda Gorman (1998-)
"Amanda Gorman was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from Harvard University in 2020.
She is the author of the The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country (Viking Books for Young Readers, March 2021), the poetry collection The Hill We Climb (Viking, September 2021) and The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough (Penmanship Books, 2015). In 2017, Gorman was named the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States. She previously served as the youth poet laureate of Los Angeles, and she is the founder and executive director of One Pen One Page, an organization providing free creative writing programs for underserved youth.
Gorman was selected by President Biden to read her original poem "The Hill We Climb" for his Inauguration on January 20, 2021, making her the youngest poet to have served in this role. She also is the first poet commissioned to write a poem to be read at the Super Bowl. Her poem honors three individuals for their essential work during the COVID-19 pandemic. "
book (preorder): "The Hill We Climb and Other Poems"
book(children's): "Change Sings: A Children's Anthem "
Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
"Maya Angelou was an American author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, poet, and civil rights activist best known for her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction bestseller by an African American woman. Angelou received several honors throughout her career, including two NAACP Image Awards in the outstanding literary work (nonfiction) category, in 2005 and 2009. Angelou went on to earn a Tony Award nomination for her role in the play Look Away (1973) and an Emmy Award nomination for her work on the television miniseries Roots (1977), among other honors."
Book (adult): "The Complete Poetry "
Book(children): "Life Doesn't Frighten Me (25th Anniversary Edition)"
Book (children): "Maya Angelou (Little People, BIG DREAMS, 4) "
Josephine Baker (1906-1975)
"Josephine Baker, original name Freda Josephine McDonald, American-born French dancer and singer who symbolized the beauty and vitality of Black American culture, which took Paris by storm in the 1920s. As a child Baker developed a taste for the flamboyant that was later to make her famous. In 1925 she went to Paris to dance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in La Revue Nègre and introduced her danse sauvage to France. She went on to become one of the most popular music-hall entertainers in France and achieved star billing at the Folies-Bergère, where she created a sensation by dancing seminude in a G-string ornamented with bananas. She became a French citizen in 1937. During the German occupation of France, Baker worked with the Red Cross and the Résistance, and as a member of the Free French forces, she entertained troops in Africa and the Middle East. She was later awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour with the rosette of the Résistance."
Book: "Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker (Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Books)"
Hattie McDaniel (1895-1952)
"McDaniel demonstrated her talents as a singer and actress while growing up in Denver, Colorado. She left school while a teenager to become a performer in several traveling minstrel groups and in 1924 became one of the first African American women to sing on U.S. radio. With the onset of the Great Depression, she was forced to take work as a ladies washroom attendant in a Milwaukee club. The club, which hired only white performers, eventually made an exception and let her sing, and she performed there for a year before setting her sights on Hollywood. In 1932, she made her film debut as a Southern house servant in The Golden West. In American movies at the time, African American actors and actresses were generally limited to house servant roles, and McDaniel apparently embraced this stereotype, playing the role of maid or cook in nearly 40 films in the 1930s. Responding to criticism by groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) that she was perpetuating stereotypes, McDaniel responded that she would rather play a maid on the screen than be one in real life. Furthermore, she often subverted the stereotype by turning her maids into sassy, independent-minded characters who sometimes made white audiences shift uncomfortably in their seats. McDaniel, who won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, was the first African American actress or actor ever to be honored with an Oscar."
Book (adult): "Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood"
Book (adult): "Hattie: The Life of Hattie McDaniel"
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988)
"A poet, musician, and graffiti prodigy in late-1970s New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat had honed his signature painting style of obsessive scribbling, elusive symbols and diagrams, and mask-and-skull imagery by the time he was 20. “I don’t think about art while I work,” he once said. “I think about life.” Basquiat drew his subjects from his own Caribbean heritage—his father was Haitian and his mother of Puerto Rican descent—and a convergence of African-American, African, and Aztec cultural histories with Classical themes and contemporary heroes like athletes and musicians. Often associated with Neo-expressionism, Basquiat received massive acclaim in only a few short years, showing alongside artists like Julian Schnabel, David Salle, and Francesco Clemente. In 1983, he met Andy Warhol, who would come to be a mentor and idol. The two collaborated on a series of paintings before Warhol’s death in 1987, followed by Basquiat’s own untimely passing a year later."
Book (children): "Jean-Michel Basquiat (Little People, BIG DREAMS, 41)"
Book (adult): "Warhol on Basquiat: The Iconic Relationship Told in Andy Warhol’s Words and Pictures (Multilingual Edition)"
Documentary: "American Masters: Basquiat"
Edmonia Lewis (1843/45- 1907)
"Edmonia Lewis, the first professional African-American sculptor, was born in Ohio or New York in 1843 or 1845. Her father was a free African-American and her mother a Chippewa Indian. Orphaned before she was five, Lewis lived with her mother’s nomadic tribe until she was twelve years old. Lewis’s older brother, Sunrise, left the Chippewas and moved to California where he became a gold miner. He financed his sister’s early schooling in Albany, and also helped her to attend Oberlin College in Ohio in 1859. While at Oberlin she shed her Chippewa name “Wildfire” and took the name Mary Edmonia Lewis. Her career at Oberlin ended abruptly when she was accused of poisoning two of her white roommates. Lewis was acquitted of the charge, though she had to endure not only a highly publicized trial but also a severe beating by white vigilantes. Subsequently accused of stealing art supplies, she was not permitted to graduate from Oberlin. With a minimum of training, exposure, and experience, Lewis began producing medallion portraits of well-known abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Sumner, and Wendell Phillips. With sales of her portrait busts of abolitionist John Brown and Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the Boston hero and white leader of the celebrated all-African-American 54th Regiment of the Civil War, Lewis was able to finance her first trip to Europe in 1865. Edmonia Lewis was the first sculptor of African American and Native American descent to achieve international recognition."
Book (adult): "Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History’s Black and Indian Subject"
Book (children): "Seen: Edmonia Lewis"
Sources:
Allén, Sture. “The Nobel Prize in Literature 1993.” NobelPrize.org, Nobel Lectures, 1997, www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1993/morrison/biographical/.
Alexander, Kerri Lee. “Ava DuVernay.” National Women's History Museum, 2020, www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ava-duvernay.
“Amanda Gorman.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, 2021, poets.org/poet/amanda-gorman.
Biography.com Editors. “Maya Angelou.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 2 Apr. 2014, www.biography.com/writer/maya-angelou.
“Edmonia Lewis.” Smithsonian American Art Museum, americanart.si.edu/artist/edmonia-lewis-2914.
History.com Editors. “Hattie McDaniel Becomes First African American Actress to Win Oscar.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 24 Nov. 2009, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mcdaniel-wins-oscar.
“Jean-Michel Basquiat.” Jean-Michel Basquiat - 814 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy, www.artsy.net/artist/jean-michel-basquiat.
Kellman, Andy. “Janelle Monáe: Biography & History.” AllMusic, www.allmusic.com/artist/janelle-mon%C3%A1e-mn0000868086/biography.
“Langston Hughes.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, poets.org/poet/langston-hughes.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Josephine Baker.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2000, www.britannica.com/biography/Josephine-Baker.
Image Sources:
“Amanda Gorman.” MusicUntold, John Malveaux, 2020, musicuntold.com/index.php/amanda-gorman-the-inaugural-youth-poet-laureate-of-the-united-states/.
Bettman. “Hattie McDaniel.” KMUW, 12 Sept. 2019, www.kmuw.org/post/first-black-oscar-winner-hattie-mcdaniel-lacks-recognition-her-hometown-wichita.
“Janelle Monae-Uglydolls’ Portrait Session in LA.” More Culture Less Pop, Apr. 2020, moreculturelesspop.tumblr.com/post/184664783401/janelle-monae-uglydolls-portrait-session-in.
Korman, Murray. “Josephine Baker.” LMROnline, 21 Oct. 2020, lrmonline.com/news/josephine-baker-the-story-of-an-awakening-trailer/.
“Langston Hughes.” Mystic Museum of Art, 2014, www.mysticmuseumofart.org/entry/langston-hughes-poetry-reading/.
Manatakis, Lexi. “Maya Angelou.” Dazed, 4 Apr. 2018, www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/39580/1/maya-angelou-in-her-own-words-still-i-rise-poet-writer.
Rocher, Henry. “Motto Edmonia Lewis.” WikiCommons, 2010, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Motto_edmonia_lewis_original.jpg.
Rugoff, Lazlo. “Jean-Michel Basquiat.” The Vinyl Factory, 2020, thevinylfactory.com/news/jean-michel-basquiat-work-exploring-systemic-racism-new-online-exhibit/.
Toronto Star. “Toni Morrison's Novels Set Her at the Apex of American and International Letters.” Financial Times, 2019, www.ft.com/content/133203b6-b9c5-11e9-8a88-aa6628ac896c.
Witter, Scott. “Filmmaker Ava DuVernay.” Adweek, 2018, www.adweek.com/creativity/creative-100-ava-duvernay/.
NOTE: All the links lead to the book sourced on Amazon. Of course, you can take the name and author of each book and search through other retailers if you wish. In the future, I will make a blog post about some great discount stores to buy books from.
Disclaimer: All images in this post are credited to the owners/ authors. Cherished Chapters owns and claims nothing.
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