Lot 179
Aaron Douglas
(African-American; 1899 - 1979)
Emperor Jones
Woodblock prints on Japan paper
1926/1972.
Four original woodblock prints signed and titled by the artist, and most likely pulled by Stephanie Pogue of Howard University, on a single sheet. Each print measures 8 x 5.5". The titles of each image in the Emperor Jones Series are Bravado, Defiance, Flight, and Surrender. This series is based on the play The Emperor Jones by Eugene O'Neil. It is thought that the editions of the later printings from Douglas' original blocks were only 15, 15, and 20, and some of these have been cut to hang separately.
Aaron Douglas was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1899. He is the American artist most closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance and was known for a signature style that forged elements of African Art with a modern European aesthetic.
Shortly after receiving degrees from the University of Nebraska and the University of Kansas, he moved to Harlem, to be a part of Alain Locke's New Negro Movement. There, he studied with Winold Reiss, who encouraged Douglas to introduce African imagery and themes into his paintings, and also flatten his figures and incorporate geometric and Art Deco design elements into his works.
Murals and drawings were his primary focus early in his career. He did illustrations for a number of publications, including the Opportunity and The Crisis. Douglas contributed drawings and an essay entitled "The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts" to Alain Locke's 1925 anthology, The New Negroes.
In 1934, he was commissioned to do a series of murals at the Countee Cullen Branch of the New York Public Library. The series consists of four chronological compositions highlighting African-American heritage and history. His signature style developed from these murals - a series of concentric circles expanded from a fixed point, figure elements superimposed on its background. The shade of color on the figures was altered in the places where it intersected the circle. The person, or object, would bear several diffused shades of the same color, lending his work a dreamlike quality. These murals were especially noteworthy for their chromatic complexity and sophisticated design.
Aaron Douglas received two Rosenwald Fellowships, one in 1931 to study in France and the other in 1938, to tour Haiti and the American South. He was also elected president of the Harlem Artists Guild in 1935 and worked to obtain WPA recognition and support for African-American artists.
In 1937, he founded and chaired the Art Department at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he remained involved until 1966. He died in Nashville in 1979.
His work can be found in the collections of Fisk University, Tennessee; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
17 1/2" x 35 1/4" (sheet)
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