My oil painting, African American, appears as the cover art for the summer 2009 edition of Rattle, a journal dedicated to “Poetry for the 21st Century.”
One of the foremost poetry publications in the United States, Rattle has been publishing for 15 years. The “Tribute to African American Poets” edition will celebrate the work of 30 African American poets. You can order your copy directly from the Rattle website.
Ernest Crichlow (1914-2005) spent his life painting and drawing the African American experience. He was involved in the 1930’s Harlem Renaissance, worked in the Federal Art Project as part of the Great Depression era Works Progress Administration, and in 1942 was an exhibiting artist in New York City’s very first exhibit of Black American artists – a show that included…
Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was one of America’s greatest African American artists – but you could just as easily say that he was one of the preeminent artists of the 20th Century. There’s no doubt that his narrative style, a blend of social realism and flattened abstract picture planes, was to influence legions of artists – myself being one of them….
I started 2012 by taking in four exhibits in the Los Angeles area; Art Along the Hyphen: The Mexican-American Generation and The Colt Revolver in the American West at the Autry National Center, as well as Places of Validation, Art & Progression and The African Diaspora in the Art of Miguel Covarrubias: Driven by color, shaped by Cultures at the…
I was horrified to read in the Los Angeles Times that the historic collection of African American art owned by L.A.’s Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company has been “carted off to be auctioned in New York.” The LAT article, Historians angered by auction of black art, revealed that “Golden State plans to sell 94 artworks Oct. 4 at Swann…
On Sept. 2, 2005, NBC television broadcast a special one hour telethon designed to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, but the scripted telecast went awry when rapper Kanye West condemned George W. Bush for racism. I watched A Concert for Hurricane Relief as it was broadcast for the west coast, edited and censored, which was something I…
In April of 1967 the Heritage Gallery of Los Angeles published Images of Dignity, a monograph on the life and work of the great African American artist Charles White (1918-1979). I acquired a copy of the book just a year later when I was fifteen-years-old, the hardback volume providing one of my first insights into the works of White, American…
