My Africa Today

Throughout American history, Africans and their descendants have contributed richly to the visual arts, producing some of our country's finest paintings, sculptures, collages, prints, and other works.

Among the many great black artists, the following are some of our favorites. You can learn more about these and hundreds of other famous black Americans in Encarta.

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1. Edward Bannister (1826-1901) One of the first African Americans to receive national recognition as a painter, Bannister was also the only major black artist of the 19th century who did not study art in Europe. Raised in Boston, a barber and hair stylist by trade, Bannister exhibited his works at the Boston Art Club and Museum. Bannister's painting Under the Oaks took the first-prize medal at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, although the judges tried to rescind the award when they discovered he was black. Many of Bannister's most notable works have been lost.

2. Edmonia Lewis* (1844?-1911?) Believed to be the first woman sculptor of African American and Native American heritage, Lewis attended Oberlin College in Ohio, where her talent for drawing emerged. Lewis left for Italy while in her early 20s and spent much of her career working in Rome. Lewis is best known for The Death of Cleopatra, a piece she created in 1876 for America's first centennial celebration. The two-ton sculpture, which caused a sensation at the exhibit for its realistic portrayal of death, dropped out of sight and remained undiscovered until the late 1970s. Lewis's life after 1890 remains a mystery, and her place of death unknown.

3. Henry Ossawa Tanner* (1859-1937) Called by a contemporary art historian "the first genius among Negro artists," Tanner, a painter, was raised in Pittsburgh and attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He later relocated to Paris, largely to escape racial prejudice in America. With a style rooted in the techniques of romantic realism and impressionism, Tanner is best known for his scenes of African American life, including The Banjo Lesson, and his works focusing on Biblical subjects, including The Raising of Lazarus. Tanner's Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City was acquired for the art collection of the White House in Washington, D.C., in 1996; it was the first work by an African American painter to be chosen for the collection.

4. Augusta Savage (1892-1962) Specializing in portraits of African American leaders--including W. E. B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass--Savage was a dedicated arts educator as well as a sculptor. She began working with clay at age six, and received formal art training in New York City. After returning to America from several years' study in Paris, Savage opened an arts school in Harlem in 1932. Among her students were painters Jacob Lawrence and Norman Lewis. Savage campaigned for the empowerment of black artists, petitioning the Works Progress Administration to hire them for commissions. She opened New York's first gallery devoted to African American art in 1939.

5. Hale Woodruff (1900-1980) A gifted teacher as well as a fine artist, Woodruff founded the art department at Atlanta University, where he helped to promote African American artists and develop and strengthen a black arts community. Woodruff is most famous for the Amistad Murals (1939-1942), which depict key events of the 1839 incident in which enslaved Africans rose up against their captors. Woodruff's work includes elements of abstract expressionism and African art and is influenced by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, with whom Woodruff studied briefly in 1934.

6. William Henry Johnson* (1901-1970) Raised in South Carolina, Johnson studied art in New York City before moving to France, then Scandinavia. His European influences included Paul Cézanne and Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch. Upon returning to New York in 1938, Johnson switched from expressionism to a conscious primitivism, and he thereafter concentrated on portrayals of African American subjects in a spare, simplified style. Johnson sold few works in his lifetime, and spent his last two decades confined to a hospital, never realizing the eventual enormous popularity of both his expressionist and his primitive work.

7. Richmond Barthé (1901-1989) A prolific sculptor, Barthé's work focuses on representations of African Americans, including such famous figures as George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington. Raised in New Orleans and denied acceptance to art school because of his race, Barthé eventually won recognition in New York City, becoming a principle figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Although Barthé's career spanned more than 60 years, and his work has been incorporated into many major U.S. museum collections, his financial rewards never matched the acclaim his work received.

8. Charles H. Alston (1901-1977) Known for paintings that focus on the experiences of African American families of the 1950s and 1960s, Alston first gained recognition for his illustrations for The New Yorker and Mademoiselle magazines. In the 1930s Alston taught at the Harlem Art Workshop and directed the Harlem Hospital murals for the Federal Arts Project. In 1950 he became the first African American teacher at the Art Students League in New York City. Alston's colorful, figurative paintings convey a sense of racial pride and dignity.

9. Romare Bearden (1912-1988) Depicting various aspects of the African American experience, Bearden's paintings and collages include elements of the 20th-century art movements of cubism, social realism, and abstraction. His best-known works incorporate images from magazines and newspapers. Raised in New York City's Harlem district, Bearden attended the Art Students League in the 1930s, where he worked with German American expressionist artist George Grosz. Bearden produced some of his most innovative works in the late 1960s, often incorporating life-size imagery and combining collage with acrylics, oils, and mosaics.

10. Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) One of the most widely known and consistently successful African American artists, Lawrence's career spanned nearly six decades, from the Harlem Renaissance era to the end of the 20th century. An educator for much of his career, Lawrence is best known for his narrative series of paintings of African American historical figures and topics, as well as individual works that center on street life and families. Lawrence's style was influenced by a variety of artistic traditions, including expressionism and cubism. Among his more famous works is The Migration Series (1941-1942), a collection of 60 panels that chronicles the mass movement of African Americans to urban centers in the North.

11. Elizabeth Catlett* (1919- ) Sculptor and printmaker Catlett's work combines African and Mexican stylistic elements in exploring themes of injustice, endurance, and the relationship between mother and child. Catlett became the first female teacher at the School of Fine Arts at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1958, and much of her career has been spent working in that country. After retiring from teaching in 1976, Catlett focused on large-scale sculpture.

12. John T. Biggers (1924-2001) A painter best known for his complex, symbolic murals based on African and African American cultural themes, Biggers's works reflect his interest in the spiritualism of Africa and of the injustices inherent in American history. Biggers founded and chaired the art department at Texas Southern University, and was instrumental in launching the careers of a number of African American artists. In 1957 he was awarded a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) fellowship.

13. Robert Colescott* (1925- ) Colescott is known for his lively, colorful paintings, many of which are parodies of famous depictions of historical events. In these witty, expressive works, Colescott substitutes African Americans for white figures in an ironic commentary on racial inequality, as in his painting George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware (1975). In his early career, Colescott explored abstract and representational painting, and studied with French cubist artist Fernand Léger. His later work focuses on racial issues such as urban violence and women's subjugation.