Women Artists of the Harlem Renaissance

by Amy Helene Kirschke (Editor)

Overview

Women artists of the Harlem Renaissance dealt with issues that were unique to both their gender and their race. They experienced racial prejudice, which limited their ability to obtain training and to be taken seriously as working artists. They also encountered prevailing sexism, often an even more serious barrier.

Including seventy-two black-and-white illustrations, this book chronicles the challenges of women artists, who are in some cases unknown to the general public, and places their achievements in the artistic and cultural context of early twentieth-century America. Contributors to this first book on the women artists of the Harlem Renaissance proclaim the legacy of Edmonia Lewis, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Augusta Savage, Selma Burke, Elizabeth Prophet, Lois Maillou Jones, Elizabeth Catlett, and many other painters, sculptors, and printmakers.

In a time of more rigid gender roles, women artists faced the added struggle of raising families and attempting to gain support and encouragement from their often-reluctant spouses in order to pursue their art. They also confronted the challenge of convincing their fellow male artists that they, too, should be seen as important contributors to the artistic innovation of the era.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626742079
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	08/04/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Amy Helene Kirschke was Professor Emerita in Art and Art History at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She was author of Aaron Douglas: Art, Race, and the Harlem Renaissance and Women Artists of the Harlem Renaissance, both published by University Press of Mississippi; author of Art in Crisis: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Struggle for African American Identity and Memory, winner of the 2007 SECAC award for excellence in writing and research; and coeditor of Protest and Propaganda: W. E. B. Du Bois, the "Crisis," and American History.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

Chapter 1 Harlem and the Renaissance: 1920-1940 Cary D. Wintz 3

Chapter 2 Lifting as She Climbed: Mary Edmonia Lewis, Representing and Representative Kirsten Pai Buick 22

Chapter 3 Meta Warrick Fuller's Ethiopia and the Americas Making Exposition of 1921 Renée Ater 53

Chapter 4 Laura Wheeler Waring and the Women Illustrators of the Harlem Renaissance Amy Helene Kirschke 85

Chapter 5 May Howard Jackson, Beulah Ecton Woodard, and Selma Burke Lisa E. Farrington 115

Chapter 6 Modern Dancers and African Amazons: Augusta Savage's Daring Sculptures of Women, 1929-1930 Theresa Leininger-Miller 157

Chapter 7 The Wide-Ranging Significance of Loïs Mailou Jones Susan Earle 175

Chapter 8 Elizabeth Catlett: Inheriting the Legacy Melanie Anne Herzog 205

List of Contributors 239

Index 243