Joshua Johnson grew up in Baltimore and is renowned for his portraits of Maryland’s aristocracy. Yet, it wasn’t until around 100 years after his death that historians began to attribute works to him.
Henry Ossawa Tanner would defy all cultural expectations and courageously emigrate to Europe, becoming the first African American man to gain international fame as an artist.
Horace Pippin was born in 1888 and it was only 10 years later that he won a box of crayons in an art competition. He moved to New Jersey after completing grade 8 and got various jobs there from iron molder to hotel porter.
Her works started off in a rather traditional figurative manner before she developed and explored an exciting abstract style of form and color, which were significantly inspired by the patterns found in nature.
Douglas started to develop his own visual lexicon by fusing European modernism with what he had begun to learn about African art during his search for cultural identity.
From his earliest pastel portraits in New York and Boston to the eventual emergence of his nonrepresentational style, Delaney’s paintings were never just copies of preceding movements.
Alston was one of just a few Black supervisors for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression, and he mentored many younger painters.
Bearden’s style was influenced by varied sources such as jazz and blues music, Mexican muralist art, African sculptures, and Western European artworks.
The African American artist Jacob Lawrence was born in 1918 in New Jersey. He is known for his Black history paintings such as his Migration Series, which he produced when he was only 23 years of age.