#African American

North American Art

QUIZ: Do You Know Your Black American Artists?

Candy Bedworth 10 May 2025

The Carters (Beyoncé amd Jay-Z) in front of Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, 1503, Louvre Music

All Louvre Masterpieces from Beyoncé & Jay-Z’s APES**T Video Explained

The famous music video shows Jay-Z and Beyoncé at the Louvre Museum in Paris. There are shots of them standing in front of the Mona Lisa wearing...

Zuzanna Stańska 21 April 2025

Alma Thomas, Tiptoe Through the Tulips, 1969, acrylic on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Tiptoe Through the Tulips by Alma Thomas

The style of Alma Thomas has been compared to Byzantine mosaics and the Pointillism of Georges Seurat. However, it firmly belongs to the Washington...

James W Singer 23 March 2025

Women Artists

Lavett Ballard’s African American and Female Narratives

Lavett Ballard in her art practice creates a lexicon of images of African American culture and female identity. The physical testimonies of the...

Maia Heguiaphal 4 March 2025

Alma Thomas, Earth Sermon – Beauty, Love And Peace, 1971, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA. Women Artists

Celebrating Alma Thomas: An African American Expressionist

Abstract Expressionism was a movement dominated by male artists. Painters such as Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning have held center...

Heather Johnson 24 February 2025

Review

Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica at the Art Institute of Chicago

The verb “to project” has a variety of meanings. It can allude to planning a project, presenting an idea, or promoting a concept. The exhibition...

Aniela Rybak-Vaganay 20 February 2025

Harriet Powers Women Artists

Harriet Powers: A Black Female Folk Artist Who Regained Her Glory

For much of the 20th century, the work of Harriet Powers, an enslaved and later emancipated Black folk artist, was erased from the art historical...

Kristin Urban 7 February 2025

Women Artists

Emma Amos: The Story of Postmodernist African-American Artist

Emma Amos (1937–2020) was a postmodernist artist whose thought-provoking works have left an indelible mark on the art world. Amos emerged as a...

Arianna Richetti 7 February 2025

History

Jacob Lawrence and the Great Migration

As a child of the Great Migration, Jacob Lawrence was well placed to undertake such a mammoth task in detailing the journey from the rural South that...

Wendy Gray 4 February 2025

Aaron Douglas, Judgment Day, 1939, oil on tempered hardboard, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Judgement Day by Aaron Douglas

Judgment Day by Aaron Douglas is a masterpiece of Black history. It encapsulates the dynamic culture of the Harlem Renaissance through its striking...

James W Singer 4 February 2025

North American Art

The Bright Age of African-American Art: Harlem Renaissance in the US

In the first quarter of the 20th century, the Harlem region of New York City witnessed an unprecedented surge in artistic production. Known as the...

Merve Parla 4 February 2025

Women Artists

Augusta Savage: The Woman Who Defined 20th-Century Sculpture

Augusta Savage was a sculptress whose name is often missing from the list of illustrious Harlem Renaissance artists. Throughout her life, she merged...

Anastasia Tsaleza 4 February 2025