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1870-now: learning resources

Carving out a life after slavery

Writing desk, attributed to William Howard, c. 1870, yellow pine, tobacco box and cotton crate wood, 154.31 75.88 x 60.17 (Minneapolis Institute of Art)
Writing desk, attributed to William Howard, c. 1870, yellow pine, tobacco box and cotton crate wood, 154.31 75.88 x 60.17 (Minneapolis Institute of Art)

Key points

  • Cotton was grown in the South, but often shipped to manufacturing plants in the northern states, making it an important crop for the American economy broadly. While this desk illustrates the tools that would have been familiar to its creator William Howard (a freed slave and laborer on Kirkwood Plantation), its refined decoration also demonstrates a range of influences and interactions that extended far beyond a southern plantation.
  • Cotton was labor-intensive and the financial success of plantations such as Kirkwood was dependent on slave labor. Following the Civil War and abolition of slavery, some southern states passed highly discriminatory and restrictive laws known as Black Codes; these laws enabled the exploitative practice of sharecropping, which kept African Americans indebted and reliant on landowners in the South.

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More to think about

In this video, the speakers use the term “enslaved people” instead of the commonly used term “slaves.” Why do you think the speakers made this choice, and do you think such subtle shifts in language can be important?

Winslow Homer, Taking Sunflower to Teacher

Winslow Homer, Taking Sunflower to Teacher, 1875, watercolor on paper, 7-5/8 x 6-3/16 inches (Georgia Museum of Art)
Winslow Homer, Taking Sunflower to Teacher, 1875, watercolor on paper, 7-5/8 x 6-3/16 inches (Georgia Museum of Art)

Key points

  • By depicting this young boy with a flower meant for his teacher, Winslow Homer captures a moment of possibility and transformation for Black American youth in the Reconstruction period following the U.S. Civil War. The sunflower, butterfly, and other details symbolize growth and transition, made possible through emancipation and federal legislation empowering Black people with rights to citizenship and voting (codified through the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution). At the same time, on a more local level, African American communities were creating their own opportunities for formal education, something that had been unavailable to them as enslaved laborers.
  • Homer employs
    in the portrayal of the boy in this setting, drawing on a strategy used in abolitionist imagery and literature since before the Civil War to elicit sympathy. In 1875, such a strategy was still necessary because efforts by local and state governments as well as self-empowered vigilante groups actively opposed the ways that Black people were experiencing progress in American society and civic life. While the sentimentality of the image is somewhat patronizing, by portraying the humanity of the young boy Homer importantly deviates from the caricatured and demeaning portrayals of African Americans of the time.
  • This watercolor painting is small, measuring only about 7.5 x 6.2 inches in size. Information regarding who would have seen this image in the 19th and early 20th century (before it entered the collection of the Georgia Museum of Art in 1945) is not readily available. However, the colors in the image are still quite vibrant, indicating that the painting has been well cared for, with reduced exposure to light that would have caused the colors to fade over time.

Go deeper

Read more about Homer’s watercolor, Taking Sunflower to Teacher, from the blog of the Georgia Museum of Art
Learn more about the experience of African Americans during Reconstruction, as conveyed in Thomas Nast’s 1874 political cartoon, “The Union As It Was—Worse Than Slavery”
Explore another image by Winslow Homer of Black Americans post-emancipation, his 1866 painting Army Teamsters

More to think about

Although this watercolor painting is not large, the subject is one that it seems Homer has thought deeply about, given the attention to detail and level of symbolism in the image. How do you imagine this small, intimate picture might have been viewed in the late 19th century? How can small, singular acts like this one contribute to larger causes, like the ongoing struggle for equality and rights for Black Americans?

Harry Fonseca, Two Coyotes with Flags

Harry Fonseca, Two Coyotes with Flags, acrylic on canvas (Gilcrease Museum) © Estate of Harry Fonseca
Harry Fonseca, Two Coyotes with Flags, acrylic on canvas (Gilcrease Museum) © Estate of Harry Fonseca

Key Points

  • Fonseca’s large painting of two coyotes draped in the American flag addresses issues of Indigenous identity and stereotypes in American popular culture. The coyotes wear war bonnets and hold tomahawks, reinforcing common assumptions of homogeneity across Native communities. The draped flag serves to conflate and confuse the distinctions between Native and “national” American identity. And, in these and other details–such as the coyote’s shoes–Fonseca also references his own layered identity as Native, a U.S. Navy veteran, and a queer man.
  • The
    style of the painting bolsters Fonseca’s allusion to the assumptions and overly-simplified perceptions about Native Americans within the nation’s popular imagination. The bold, artificial colors and cartoonish representation of the figures appear performative–merely for show–rather than authentic. Furthermore, the coyotes are to be understood as representing the trickster figure, a clever, shape-shifting character in various Native traditions whose antics are meant to fool, or misrepresent a deeper truth or identity. Fonseca portrays the trickster–often autobiographically–in many of his paintings.
  • Fonseca plays on a history of this kind of homogenized and staged representation of Native Americans, most notably reflected in the 19th century photographs of Edward Curtis, in order to remind viewers that these stereotypes have persisted and are pernicious for both non-Native and Native culture.

Go Deeper

Learn about another Fonseca painting, Creation Story, held in the collection of the National Museum of the American Indian.
Read more about Fonseca’s use of the coyote in “How the Character of Coyote Helped Artist Harry Fonseca Come Out”, by Amy Scott, Executive Vice President and Marilyn B. and Calvin B. Gross Curator of Visual Arts at the Autry Museum of the American West.
Review the United States Flag Code, from the American Legion.

More to think about

How do you see Fonseca’s pop art style reinforcing your personal understanding of stereotyping and misrepresentation?
What other stereotypes of Native American identity are you aware of or can you identify? How can you actively challenge these stereotypes?
If you are non-Native, are there homogenizing stereotypes of the culture with which you identify? How do these stereotypes appear and how can you challenge them or invite others to do so?
Note: discussing cultural stereotypes may be triggering for some learners, who may choose not to participate in this discussion or may prefer to write or share independently about their ideas rather than as part of a group. It is important to provide options for learners to address these questions in ways that feel most appropriate to them.

When department stores were new: women in the American city

Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones, The Shoe Shop, c. 1911, oil on canvas, 99.1 x 79.4 cm (Art Institute of Chicago)
Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones, The Shoe Shop, c. 1911, oil on canvas, 99.1 x 79.4 cm (Art Institute of Chicago)

Key points

  • The department store changed the way people shopped and provided new opportunities for social mobility and interaction between the classes in late 19th-century America.
  • Sparhawk-Jones used loose brushwork to capture the fast-paced movement of people within the department store. Her choice of subject for this painting emphasized the increased freedom of women in the modern city—a freedom that Sparhawk-Jones also enjoyed.
  • Women in the early 20th century were increasingly engaged with fighting for their rights, and finally won the right to vote in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment.

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More to think about

The Shoe Shop highlights the relationship of the department store to economic and social conditions in the U.S during the early 20th century. How do you think contemporary shopping practices reflect economic and social conditions in the early 21st century?

Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player

Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player, 1929, oil on canvas, 60.33 × 73.03 cm (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)
Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player, 1929, oil on canvas, 60.33 × 73.03 cm (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

Key Points

  • The banjo and the image of the banjo player are inextricably linked to African American history. The banjo is a westernized version of a gourd instrument from West Africa.
  • The figure of the Black banjo player proliferated as a racist stereotype in popular imagery and minstrelsy throughout the antebellum period and well into the Jim Crow era. Paintings like The Banjo Player, however, served to counter such demeaning portrayals and reframe Black representation by celebrating the musician as both dignified and accomplished.
  • The Banjo Player displays the exceptional talents of a young Hale Woodruff, working in Paris at the time and influenced by the work of Paul Cézanne as well as cubism and photographic portraiture.

Go Deeper

Leo G. Mazow, ed. Picturing the Banjo (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2006)

More to Think About

Look closely at the painting and explore the brushstrokes, colors, and forms of the composition. How does the style and quality of the painting contribute to the characterization of this banjo player?
Can you think of other examples of visual artists from marginalized communities reclaiming their representation through their imagery? How did they accomplish this? Share and discuss your answers with the class.

A beacon of hope, Aaron Douglas's Aspiration

Aaron Douglas, Aspiration, 1936, oil on canvas, 152.4 x 152.4 cm (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)
Aaron Douglas, Aspiration, 1936, oil on canvas, 152.4 x 152.4 cm (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)

Key points

  • In 1936, Texas celebrated its independence from Mexico with the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas. Like many world’s fairs, it included pavilions and exhibitions by different groups, including the Hall of Negro Life, which traced Texas history from an African American perspective. The building was located on the periphery of the fairgrounds and demolished immediately after the end of the fair.
  • Aaron Douglas was commissioned to paint four murals for the Hall of Negro Life, but only two survive today. His work reflected the philosophy of the Harlem Renaissance, influenced deeply by Alain Locke, who argued that African Americans should embrace and celebrate their African heritage.
  • The artist combined elements of modern abstraction and traditions of Egyptian and European art to chronicle history from an African American perspective. While Douglas modeled his figures on Egyptian forms and Michelangelo’s Libyan Sibyl from the Sistine Chapel, he also used simple geometric shapes to suggest the Middle Passage, the North Star (which doubled as the Texas Lone Star), and jazz music.
  • Using his characteristic silhouetted style, Aaron Douglas suggests specific references for the three figures on the podium, but leaves them open to more universal interpretations. For example, the seated woman can be understood both as both Mother Egypt and Sojourner Truth. The figures all represented the educated “New Negro,” speaking to the achievements and aspirations of African Americans in the early 20th century.

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More to think about

If you were to paint the two missing panels, what subjects would you include?

Vertis Hayes, The Lynchers

Vertis Hayes, The Lynchers,1930s, oil on canvas, 19-1/2 x 15-1/4 inches (Georgia Museum of Art, Athens)
Vertis Hayes, The Lynchers,1930s, oil on canvas, 19-1/2 x 15-1/4 inches (Georgia Museum of Art, Athens)

Key points

  • The subject and title of this painting refers to the all too common practice of lynching (public killing of an individual who has not received any due process) of primarily Black men during the Jim Crow era, including the 1930s when Vertis Hayes produced this work. 
  • The scene focuses on the crowd of observers present at a lynching and mirrors photographs taken at the time, some of which were used to create postcards to promote and memorialize such acts of racial hatred. Hayes depicts a range of reactions among the perpetrators, some of whose expressions and actions reinforce the potential for violence.
  • For many, the killing of Black people by police is seen as a contemporary form of lynching. This image, therefore, is not only a haunting portrayal of the nation’s past, but has disturbing resonance with what is happening in the United States today.

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More to think about

Which person in this painting draws your attention the most? Why? 
If you could talk to the artist, what would you want to ask him about this specific figure and about making the painting?

Research project ideas

The composition of this painting, and the choices the artist made about what to include and not include, forces us to confront questions of power and empathy—that of the perpetrators of the lynching and our own. Compare this work with images by two other artists who have engaged the subject of viewing or taking part in a lynching. 
What compositional choices did each artist make and how do those choices affect your experience of the image and understanding of the history of lynching in the U.S., past and present?  

Thelma Streat, Girl with Bird

Khan Academy video wrapper
Thelma Streat, Girl with BirdSee video transcript

Key points

  • Streat’s small portrait of a young girl exhibits her abstracted style featuring simplified forms and bold, flat areas of color. This style is influenced by a number of sources, including her experience with mural painting and her study of the art of various indigenous cultures from around the world.
  • Streat was a visual artist, singer, dancer, choreographer, and ethnographer. Throughout her work, she celebrated and defended African American identity. She also addressed the universality of humans through references to the specificity of shared qualities of people across cultures, particularly people of color.

Go deeper

Diego Rivera Mural Project (a collaboration between San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and City College of San Francisco)

More to think about

Consider how this portrait feels both universal and specific at the same time. Share and debate your ideas with classmates.

Beauford Delaney’s portrait of Marian Anderson

Beauford Delaney, Marian Anderson, 1965, oil on canvas, 160.02 x 130.81 cm (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond)
Beauford Delaney, Marian Anderson, 1965, oil on canvas, 160.02 x 130.81 cm (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond)

Key Points

  • Contralto singer Marian Anderson and visual artist Beauford Delaney, like many Black creatives throughout the 20th century, experienced freedom from the racism of the United States by working in Europe at points in their careers. Delaney worked in Paris from 1953 until his death in 1979. And, beginning in 1928, Anderson traveled and performed frequently across Europe, and the globe.
  • With her success on the national and international stage, Anderson broke barriers of segregation and became an icon of civil rights. Most famously, she performed at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 after being barred from Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
  • In portraying Anderson almost three decades later, Delaney blended his strengths in both portraiture and abstraction. He also drew heavily on his contemporaneous explorations of the color yellow.

Go Deeper

Patricia Sue Canterbury, Beauford Delaney: From New York to Paris (Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2005).
Stephen C. Wicks, Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin: Through the Unusual Door (The Knoxville Museum of Art, 2020).

More to Think About

The color yellow dominates this portrait of Marian Anderson. Delaney associated yellow with hope. How else does the color convey meaning in this painting?

Cleaning the museum—maintenance art

Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Washing/Tracks/Maintenance: Outside (July 23, 1973), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art ©Mierle Laderman Ukeles
Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Washing/Tracks/Maintenance: Outside (July 23, 1973), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art ©Mierle Laderman Ukeles

Key points

  • Ukeles’s public action called attention to the “invisible” labor often performed by women and the working class. She created a political body of art that focused on important, but undervalued, tasks. In this particular series of actions at the Wadsworth Atheneum, she highlighted the labor of maintenance and cleaning that is necessary to cultural spaces like the museum, but goes unnoticed and is often underpaid and undervalued.
  • In the 1960s and 1970s, institutional critique emerged as an artistic strategy that criticized the power structures and cultural hierarchies of spaces like the museum. Engaging with the inequities and injustices of how we think about maintenance work, Ukeles created a new area of art-making, which she called “Maintenance Art.” This included the repetitive, and often thankless work of cleaning and repair that is essential to the functioning of domestic and public spaces.
  • In creating her manifesto and performing public actions, Ukeles moved away from the role of the artist as a maker of objects in favor of producing more conceptual projects. This built on the example of Marcel Duchamp, whose readymade sculptures were based on the idea of taking an existing object, changing the way we look at it, and recontextualizing it as art. By making it visible through performance and photography, Ukeles does the same for maintenance work, and in the process hopes to change the way we think about this type of labor.

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More to think about

In her work Touch Sanitation, Ukeles spent a year shaking the hand of every employee of the New York City Sanitation Department, meticulously documenting her process along the way. Can art be an action rather than an object? Do you see this project as art, and what are your reasons for your position?

Ben Shahn, Contemporary American Sculpture

Ben Shahn, Contemporary American Sculpture, 1940, tempera on board, 21 1/2 x 30 inches (The John and Susan Horseman Collection, Courtesy of the Horseman Foundation)
Ben Shahn, Contemporary American Sculpture, 1940, tempera on board, 21 1/2 x 30 inches (The John and Susan Horseman Collection, Courtesy of the Horseman Foundation)

Key points

  • The subject of Ben Shahn’s painting is the intersection of high art with everyday life. Into a pristine museum gallery filled with modernist sculptures Shahn has inserted a series of three images depicting the living conditions of Americans struggling with poverty and inequality. 
  • These images were modeled on photographs the artist took while working for the Farm Security Administration as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal. Their subject matter reflects Shahn’s work as a social realist, raising awareness of societal issues in his art by documenting the harsh realities of life and work for many Americans.

Go deeper

Biographical information about Ben Shahn (Smithsonian American Art Museum)

More to think about

How does the insertion of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) images into the museum gallery change or impact your perspective on the modernist sculptures? Why?

Research project idea

  • The speakers in the video suggest that Shahn presents viewers with a visual representation of the tension he felt between his role in the art world and his desire for his art to have an impact on social good, with one role providing a potential platform to do the other. The painting depicts an actual gallery of modernist sculptures on view in the 1940 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Art at the Whitney Museum. While Shahn did not have any works included in this exhibition, his painting Presser is listed in the catalogue for the 1938 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting at the Whitney and his painting Pretty Girl Milking a Cow was included in the 1940–41 Exhibition. Research these exhibitions by reviewing the catalogues available through the Whitney Museum’s website. What other artists were also using their position within the artworld to speak to social issues? How did they do it? What kind of portrait of social realism can you create by looking at the artists who exhibited in these annual shows?

Stefanie Jackson, Bluest Eye

Khan Academy video wrapper
Stefanie Jackson, Bluest EyeSee video transcript

Key points

  • Jackson uses a surrealistic approach to convey the impact of physical and emotional racial violence on Black girls and the dreams they may conjure to escape or gain freedom from such violence. The surrealistic features of the painting include: disembodied or dematerializing forms; the blurring of boundaries between interior and exterior space; and the externalization of psychological tensions between beauty and ugliness, child and adult.
  • Many of the pictorial details in the painting are references to the characters and plot of Toni Morrison’s 1970 novel of the same name. While created almost 30 years apart, Jackson’s and Morrison’s works reflect a broader commitment by Black creatives to repossess the image of Black women and girls, who have been largely absent from the dominant history of visual art and literature.

Go deeper

Toni Morrison’s Profound and Unrelenting Vision, a reflection on The Bluest Eye fifty years after its publication. (By Hilton Als in The New Yorker, February 3, 2020)
See one graphic designer’s efforts at redesigning and Decolonizing Banania
Read about why mammy jars are still collected (The New York Times, March, 2019)
I Want to Explore the Wonder of What It Is to be a Black American (Jenna Wortham in conversation with Simone Leigh, Amy Sherald, and Lorna Simpson; The New York Times Magazine, October 8, 2019)

More to think about

Both Stefanie Jackson’s painting and the Toni Morrison novel it references prompt us to reflect on a racialized American society. In particular, we are forced to consider how racial trauma around identity, perceptions of beauty, and representation is perpetuated. How do you see this reality portrayed in Jackson’s painting and in our society today?

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