‘Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist’

Washington D.C.

:Arguably the foremost visual artist of the Harlem Renaissance, Aaron Douglas (1899–1979) employed a style that has been called geometrical symbolism in murals, paintings and illustrations. Combining angular Cubist motifs and a distinctive Art Deco dynamism with traditional African and African American imagery, he evolved a bold new visual vocabulary that reflected both current realities and hopes for a better future.

As preeminent African American art historian David C. Driskell once put it, Douglas's style was "an intriguing blend of abstract construction with objective perception." Presenting forceful ideas in a memorable artistic form, Douglas vividly captured the spirit of his time and established a new black aesthetic and utopian vision. Opening doors for African American artists and involving them in a dialogue with Modernism, his radical work had a lasting impact on the history of art.

African American philosopher and visionary Alain Locke called Douglas the "father of black American art." Indeed, his work clearly influenced such major black artists as Romare Bearden, William H. Johnson, Lois Maillou Jones, Jacob Lawrence and Hale Woodruff.

Nevertheless, Douglas's role and art have often been overlooked in the years since his death. Today, there is increasing recognition of the quality of his output, the significance of his achievements within the artistic movements of his time and the importance of his teaching legacy.

The revival of national appreciation for this special artist's oeuvre has culminated in the first nationally touring retrospective of his work, "Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist," on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) through August 3. Organized by the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas (where it opened last September), the exhibition brings together more than 80 paintings, prints, drawings and illustrations. Portraits of Douglas, printing plates, sketchbooks, ephemera and works by contemporaries put the artist's career in context.

The show was organized by Susan Earle, the Spencer's curator of European and American art, and coordinated here by SAAM's senior curator, Virginia Mecklenburg. Together, the exhibition and catalog successfully carry out Earle's mission "to claim Douglas's historical significance and rightful place in the history of American art and culture."

The exhibition examines the artist's evolution through three places closely related to his career: Kansas, where he grew up; New York, where he took center stage in the Harlem Renaissance, and Nashville, Tenn., where he taught for 29 years. Where portable, his large-scale public murals are shown with accompanying preparatory studies. In situ murals in New York and Nashville are represented in a video. A display of magazine and book illustrations documents Douglas's ability to combine art and text in creating powerful, socially engaged images.

Born and raised in Topeka, Kan., in 1899, the son of a laborer and housewife, Douglas was known in school as a reader of Dante and Shakespeare and a talented artist. Working as a busboy and dishwasher, he put himself through the University of Nebraska, where his artwork stood out. He became a regular reader of the NAACP's monthly, The Crisis , edited by W.E.B. Dubois, and the National Urban League's Opportunity , edited by Charles S. Johnson, progressive journals with creative works by African Americans.