African-American Abstract Expressionists of The 1950s
For African American artists a barrier to success in the post-War era was the prevailing blight of racism and segregation. This resulted in exclusion of artists of African-American origin from major exhibitions and critical attentions. The best evidence of this is the absence of African-American artists in the New York School Annuals between 1951 and 1957. These annual exhibitions represented a total of 265 New York School artists, none of whom were African-American.
Those artists would include the following:
- Charles Alston (1907–1977)
- Romare Bearden (1911–1988)
- Edward Clark (born 1926)
- Beauford Delaney (1901–1979)
- Harlan Jackson (born 1918)
- Norman Lewis (1909–1979)
- Thomas Sills (1914–2000)
- Merton Simpson (born 1928)
- Alma Thomas (1891–1978)
- Hale Woodruff (1900–1980)
Read more about this topic: New York School
Famous quotes containing the word abstract:
“Just as a chemist isolates a substance from contaminations that distort his view of its nature and effects, so the work of art purifies significant appearance. It presents abstract themes in their generality, but not reduced to diagrams.”
—Rudolf Arnheim (b. 1904)