During the 1920s–40s, the Great Migration took shape when millions of African Americans began to move away from the segregated rural South. Places all over the north blossomed especially Harlem in New York City, where it became a gathering point for some of the best African American artists in multiple genres. The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism exhibition at the Met Museum stipulates that the new development of the modern Black subject was central to the development of international modern art. The museum’s previous show of the same subject in 1969, “Harlem on My Mind,” was its first survey of African American culture. But it excluded works by Black painters and sculptors, relying only on newspaper clippings and photographs, drawing harsh critiques. This time around the museum worked closely with historically Black colleges and universities to include a significant amount of their treasured artworks in the show.
Featured image: Jacob Lawrence – Pool Parlor, 1942, watercolor and gouache on paper.
Kees Van Dongen: White Feathers (Plume Blanches), 1910-12. Oil on canvas.Laura Wheeler Waring: Mother and Daughter, 1927. Oil on canvas board.Laura Wheeler Waring: Girl in Pink Dress, 1927. Oil on canvas.Winold Reiss: Two Public School Teachers, 1925. Pastel and tempera on illustration board.Richmond Barthe: Boxer, 1942. Bronze.William H. Johnson: Jitterbugs II, 1941. Screenprint.James Van Der Zee: Children at Piano, 1932. Gelatin silver print.Roland Penrose: Four Women Asleep (Lee Miller, Ady Fidelin, Nusch Eluard, and Leonora Carringtin), Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England, 1937. C-type digital print from scan of original transparency. Weinhold Reiss: W.E.B. Dubois, 1925. Paster in illustration paper.William Artis: Woman with Handkerchief, 1939. Ceramic.William H. Johnson: Woman in Blue, 1943. Oil on burlap.Archibald J. Motley, Jr.: Picnic, 1934. Oil on canvas.Aaron Douglas: The Creation, 1935. Oil on Masonite. Aaron Douglas: Miss Zora Neale Hurston, 1926. Pastel on canvas.Langston Hughes book with illustrations by Jacob Lawrence: One-Way Ticket, 1949. Published by Alfred Knopf, New York.Carl Van Vechten: Bessie Smith Holding Feathers, 1936. Gelatin silver print.Yves Brayer: Ballet Dancers in the Attic Rotunda, Paris Opera,1942. Oil on canvas.Nola Hatterman: Louis Richard Drenthe/On The Terrace, 1930. Oil on canvas.
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