A MONA Moment If I were given the keys to a time machine, and could choose one place to
go, it might well be a walk down the streets of Harlem in 1925. This was the era of the Harlem Renaissance, perhaps the greatest flowering of American art, literature and music in the 20th Century.
In the vanguard of the visual arts wing of the Harlem Renaissance was a young high school art teacher from Kansas City named Aaron Douglas. Douglas caught the attention of some leaders of the NAACP, who saw in him the makings of a cultural leader. And indeed, he went on to great things. Douglas is generally considered to be the premiere, visual artist of the Harlem Renaissance.
He is also of interest to us here in Nebraska because he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1922. He was the only African-American in his class.
Often referred to as the father of African-American art, Douglas wrote these powerful words to poet Langston Hughes:
Douglas's biographer, Linda Nieman states, "Almost overnight, Douglas' work secured his place in the youthful pantheon of Harlem's avant garde, meriting prizes, publication, commissions and scholarship support. The compelling force . . . and dynamic energy of his early graphic designs heralded the birth of a racially self-conscious African-American Art."
From the MONA collection, and on the NPR website we have two Aaron Douglas works. In these later works of his Douglas shows his genius for using economy of means to achieve expressive, nuanced richness. In Portrait of a Young Man, Douglas' skilled draughtmanship in rendering the subject's face suggests pensiveness, a pensiveness underscored by the broadly abstracted suggestion of his arms folded reflectively.
Aaron Douglas and the Harlem Renaissance
By Ron Roth
Director
Museum of Nebraska Art
"Let's bare our arms and plunge them deep through laughter, through pain, through sorrow, through hope, through disappointment, into the very depths of the souls of our people and drag forth material crude, rough, neglected. Then let's sing it, dance it, write it, paint it. Let's do the impossible. Let's create something transcendentally material, mystically objective, earthy. Spiritually earthy, dynamic."
