MS01.01.03 - Box 01 - Folder 25 - The Black Image in American Painting 1700-1900 A Select Survey, Circa 1980

25

Thomas Eakins employed Blacks as models for portraits some of whom he painted as individuals of character (SLIDE #62) [u]Portrait of his Pupil - Henry O. Tanner[/u] (SLIDE #63) [u]The Negress [/u] 1869 (SLIDE #64). [u]Whistling for Plover[/u] shows a black man waiting in the marshes to aim his gun at the ducks that are to answer his call. [u]Negro Boy Dancing[/u] (SLIDE #65) shows one of the few genre scenes executed by Eakins. (SLIDE #66) A Study for [u]Negro Boy Dancing[/u] shows how observant the artist was to capture even the emotion on the mouth of the young dancer who bucks it out to the theme of the banjo.

Black American artists during the 19th century painted few images of other blacks. Robert S. Duncanson's (SLIDE #67) [u]Uncle Tom and Little Eva[/u] provides no relief from the stereotype image often associated with black lifestyle and the unsympathetic literature of the period. Edward Mitchell Bannister's (SLIDE #68) [u]Newspaper Boy[/u] or [u]Mulatto Boy[/u] is an excellent example of a portrait by a black artist. But Henry O. Tanner's celebrated (SLIDE #69) [u]Banjo Lesson[/u], 1893 provides us with an important definition of the Black experience as seen by a black artist. (SLIDE #70) His [u]Thankful Poor[/u], and the [u]Banjo Lesson[/u] are two of the major compositions completed by the artist prior to his going to Europe to paint, after which he turned principally to the interpretation of religious themes that were void of black subjects.

Finally it may be of interest to note that John Singleton Sargent, Frederick Remington, Thomas Moran and George Inness were among the many American artists who depicted Blacks in their art

26

during the later quarter of the nineteenth century. In each case the artist paid less attention to the racial features of the subject in an attempt to blend human figures into the setting without particular note.

Finally, it is of equal importance to note that the image of the Black in American art had not been undertaken as a subject around which an exhibition was worthy of presentation prior to the summer of 1964. It was Marvin Sadik, until recent, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, who assembled the first such exhibition at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. It was called The Portrayal of the Negro in American Painting. The exhibition ran through July 15, 1964. And perhaps for the very first time, students of American art, other than Blacks themselves, took special note of the Black theme as it appeared from colonial time to the mid twentieth century. Saliently displayed were canvasses showing blatent [blatant] feelings of racial inferiority previously cited. And perhaps for the first time art historians realized the deliberate biases of some of America's visual artists and recognized the contributions they made to the development and perpetuation of images without honor to [deleted: any] the race.

This brief overview of the subect is by no means a comprehensive study of the subject of race in American art nor is it meant to be a sociological analysis, instead, it brings to our attention a view of how American artists saw Blacks, first as exotica, in the manner that some European artists saw them though seldom as personalities. Secondly, they were depicted

27

as picturesque creatures who loved music, fun and dance and regarded their own state of life as being a part of God's will. This notion they leared through the teaching of Christian principles.

In the mid 19th century there developed a sentimental attitude among genre painters who even saw poverty and the deprived conditions under which most Blacks lived as a picturesque theme worthy of the pen of a gentleman but not one which spoke of the illness of the prevailing social order. Such attitude about black life prevailed among majority culture artists of all media; writers, filmmakers, radio and popular media, including visual artists until the mid 20th century. It is only in recent years that one notes a drastic change among mainstream visual artists in their portrayal of a more positive treatment of the Black image in American art. ^17^