What is color to an artist?Archibald J. Motley Jr. The David C. Driskell David C. Driskell ( June 7, 1931) is a scholar in the field of African American art as well as an accomplished artist in his own right. Driskell is currently an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. A major publication, David C. Series of African American Art African American art is a broad term describing the visual arts of the American black community. Influenced by various cultural traditions, including those of Africa, Europe and the Americas, traditional African American art forms include the range of plastic arts, from , Volume IV by Amy M. Mooney Pomegranate pomegranate (pŏm`grănĭt, pŏm`ə–), handsome deciduous and somewhat thorny large shrub or small tree (Punica granatum , September 2004 $35., ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-764-92886-4 As a portrait artist, Archibald J. Motley Jr. constructed images of African Americans that virtually forced the beholder to take in all of his subject's humanity. That in its day was a courageous and confrontational posture for an artist. Absent were the stereotypes common in other depictions of black characters. "I tried to paint the Negro as I have seen him and as I feel him, in myself without adding or detracting, just being frankly honest," he once said. Yet critics sometimes accused him of engaging in caricature in his efforts to show the full range of "black" appearance, social strata and experience he saw in life. Motley himself was New Orleans Creole by birth and a product of Chicago's turn-of-the-century black elite by upbringing. The son of a founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was a labor union in the United States organized by the predominantly African-American Pullman Porters. Organized in 1925, it struggled for twelve years before winning its first collective bargaining agreement with the Pullman Company. and of socially ambitious schoolteacher, he grew up in largely white surroundings and married a white woman. In this book, Amy M. Mooney, professor of art history and critical theory at Columbia College in Chicago, traces his life and his journey as an artist who earned many "firsts" and lasting acclaim. Motley, who lived from 1891 to 1981, and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago Art Institute of Chicago, museum and art school, in Grant Park, facing Michigan Ave. It was incorporated in 1879; George Armour was the first president. Since 1893 the Institute has been housed in its present building, designed in the Italian Renaissance style by beginning in 1918, became the first African American to have a solo exhibition in an elite New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. gallery in 1928. He won a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship to study in Paris the next year. Best known for his now-classic Chicago jazz-age scenes, he aimed to command respect for the black race and also to establish an art form that broke through the bonds of color and to be seen as an accomplished artist, period, not just an accomplished black artist. In that, he expressed disappointment. "I have found that try as I will, I cannot escape the nemesis of my color," he told a New York Times critic in 1928. This fourth volume in the distinguished Driskell series has many captivating cap·ti·vate tr.v. cap·ti·vat·ed, cap·ti·vat·ing, cap·ti·vates 1. To attract and hold by charm, beauty, or excellence. See Synonyms at charm. 2. Archaic To capture. images of his work, as well as scholarly but accessibly written text and notes that give a deep understanding of the artist. It is also a lesson for the nonartist in how to look at a portrait--as a document with many clues to the personality the artist wants to illuminate. Gaze into Motley's eyes in his Self-Portrait (1920), read the signposts Mooney describes and see the man as he wished us to see him. Angela P. Dodson, executive director of Black Issues Book Review, collects art, including African pieces. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion