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Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s

Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s
Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s
Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s
Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s
Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s
Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s
Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s
Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s
Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s
Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s
Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s
Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s

Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s

This is a marvelous, rare and Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting on canvas, approximately dating to the 1930's - 1940's. This work depicts a modernist portrait of a seated African American woman, wearing a brilliantly colored teal outfit and holding a cup of coffee in her right hand. Highlights of blue pigment accentuate her pensive face, and the style of this piece bears strong semblance to Malvin Gray Johnson's portrait work 1896 - 1934.

This piece is signed: "Langston" in red pigment on the verso. I could not find any information on this artist, aside from the famous Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes 1901 - 1967.

Perhaps you know more about the artist or their work? Approximately 28 1/2 x 34 1/2 inches including frame.

Actual artwork is approximately 22 x 28 inches. This is a very old painting and canvas, which appears to have been re-stretched on new stretcher bars and reframed sometime in the 1950's - 1960's.

The top stretcher bar appears to be original to the painting, and is a dark and weathered wood, while the other stretcher bars are more modern replacements. This is evident in Pictures 10 & 12 please see photos. Very good condition for nearly 100 years of age, with some mild paint loss and craquelure in the upper left corner. This one is in far better shape, and artistically superior to the previous one that I owned. This historic and museum worthy artwork is priced to sell. Acquired from a private art collection in Los Angeles, California, but I believe this painting originated from New York City. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks! What was the Harlem Renaissance?

The Harlem Renaissance was an influential movement of African-American art, literature, music, and theatre. The movement emerged after the First World War, and was active through the Great Depression of the 1930s until the start of the Second World War. Most of the artists associated with the movement lived and worked in the predominantly African-American neighborhood Harlem in New York, which became a great cultural hub flourishing with creativity. The artists associated with the Harlem Renaissance aimed to take control over representations of their own people, instead of accepting the stereotypical depictions by white people.

They asserted pride in black life and identity, and rebelled against inequality and discrimination. Identity, pride, agency, transformation, African American culture, African art, modernism, black avant-garde. Augusta Savage, Aaron Douglas, Hale Woodruff, James Lesesne Wells, Archibald John Motley, Beauford Delaney, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, James van der Zee, Palmer Hayden, Jacob Lawrence, Allen Lohan Crite.

Historical and Social Context of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance started after a summer of bloody race-related riots in 1919, known as the Red Summer.

It was half a century after the abolition of slavery, and lynchings were still common in the South, attempts to pass an anti-lynching bill in Congress were repeatedly refused, and white supremacy was widely accepted and reinforced by the prevailing cultural forces of contemporary books and movies. They had been treated with far more respect and equality whist away in France than they were used to back home.

In the meantime, during the war years in Europe, half a million African-Americans had left the American South for industrialized Northern cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Columbus and Cleveland in search of employment and communities less rife with bigotry. In New York, the Harlem neighborhood had been planned for middle-class white families but had been overdeveloped, so many black families started moving there. The Different Disciplines of the Harlem Renaissance. A burgeoning black creativity began to arise in Harlem.

Writers, artists, musicians and theatre practitioners inspired each other and often worked across disciplines, aiming for art that defied stereotypes and that fought against injustice and discrimination. Providing most of the intellectual grounding for the Harlem Renaissance was the philosopher, sociologist, writer, and patron of the arts Alain LeRoy Locke and his essay Harlem, Mecca of the New Negro. The essay introduced Harlem and its cultural boom to a wider public. He expanded on these ideas in his anthology of essays.

(1925) which included his influential essay "The New Negro". The initial name of the movement, "The New Negro, " derives from this anthology and essay.

The essay called for a "new dynamic phase. Of renewed self-respect and self-dependence" in the community. Leading writers of the Harlem Renaissance include Langston Huges, Zora Neale Thurston, Arna Bontemps, Jean Toorner and Claude McKay. Langston Hughes wrote the brilliant poem "I, too" (1926), which demonstrates a yearning and demand for equality. / They send me to eat in the kitchen / When company comes, / But I laugh, /And eat well, /And grow strong. / Tomorrow, / I'll be at the table / When company comes. / Nobody'll dare / Say to me, / "Eat in the kitchen, " / Then. In terms of music, the popularity of jazz spread more and more, with musicians like Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington associated with the Harlem Renaissance. In theatre and performance, great actors like Paul Robeson and Josephine Baker were making their mark. In the visual arts, artists portrayed African American life, taking agency over the portrayal of their own people. Moreover, it was an avant-garde movement where artists were experimenting and allowing themselves a vast variety of influences, including, for example, the European modernists. The Visual Arts of the Harlem Renaissance. Sculptors, painters and printmakers were key contributors to the Harlem Renaissance. Aaron Douglas, who is sometimes referred to as "the father of African American art", was an important figure in the movement, who defined a modern visual language representing black Americans in a new light. In his cycle of four murals, "Aspects of Negro Life", commissioned by the Public Works of Art Project to decorate the section of the New York Public Library intended for research into black culture, Douglas combined imagery from African-American history with scenes from contemporary life, fusing the influences of African sculpture, jazz music and geometric abstraction.

Douglas was influenced by modernist movements such as Cubism, and he and other artists also found a great source of inspiration in West Africa, in particular the stylized sculptures and masks from Benin, Congo and Senegal. They viewed this art as a link to their African heritage. Many artists also turned to the art of antiquity, especially Egyptian sculpture. One of these artists is Meta Warrick Fuller, a female sculptor who became a protégé of Auguste Rodin in Paris, before returning to work in the United States.

(1921), was inspired by the period of the Pharaohs in ancient Egypt, and is widely considered the first Pan-African American work of art. Her sculpture was an allegory for the musical and industrial contributions of African Americans to the development of the United States.

Printmakers James Lesesne Wells and Hale Woodruff explored a streamlined approach, drawing from African and European artistic influences. They worked with block printing, lithography and etching, creating a distinctive visual language and making a mark with their inventive, modern printmaking. Photography was also an important element in the Harlem Renaissance. The most iconic photographs capturing this art movement, this very specific time and place, were taken by photographer James Van Der Zee.

He recognized the incredible richness of the intellectual and artistic life in Harlem during those years, and realized he had to capture it on film. Van Der Zee produced thousands of photographs of and for Harlem's flourishing middle class. He took both formal, posed photographs in his studio, and photo essays of street scenes, cabarets, restaurants, barbershops and church services. His images immortalize the story of this thriving artistic community.

The Legacy of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance left a huge legacy. For one, the stars of the next African American artistic generation, like Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis and Jacob Lawrence, were taught by Augusta Savage, a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Furthermore, the movement inspired generations of black artists to come. In the words of Wil Haygood. Were it not for this movement, other art movements may not even have sprung up. The Harlem Renaissance gave women, gave impoverished people all over this country a hint of just what you can do if you want to put your art on the line, because all they really wanted was to show America that, if you give us a fair chance, we will produce greatness. From that movement they have stitched, the black American, forevermore, into the artistic fabric of this country. This item is in the category "Art\Paintings". The seller is "willsusa_utzeqm" and is located in this country: US. This item can be shipped to United States.

  • Artist: Langston
  • Signed By: Langston
  • Size: Large
  • Signed: Yes
  • Material: Canvas, Oil
  • Region of Origin: New York, USA
  • Framing: Framed
  • Subject: Figures, Portrait, Women, African Americans
  • Type: Painting
  • Original/Licensed Reproduction: Original
  • Item Height: 34 1/2 in
  • Style: Americana, Black Folk Art, Modernism, Modern, Harlem Renaissance
  • Features: One of a Kind (OOAK)
  • Production Technique: Oil Painting
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
  • Handmade: Yes
  • Item Width: 28 1/2 in
  • Time Period Produced: 1925-1949


Important Antique Black African American Harlem Renaissance Oil Painting, 30s