"Grafton-Tyler-Brown" (February-22-1841-1918)

Born of free ancestry in Pennsylvania,Grafton followed the lure of the West to California in the mid 1850s,taking part in the expansion that would change the face of the nation.He was able to find work as a lithographer in San Francisco and in time formed his own business in 1866.He is considered the first African American professional artist in California.

His early Creations consisted of illustrating and documenting the settlements,gold-rush towns and ranches that were springing up in the territories surrounding San Francisco.This served as part of the commercialization of the developing nation.His business as a commercial draftsman was successful e sold it in 1879 and 1882 left the Bay Area for Canada,where many Black,found a more racially tolerant environment.He turned to paint as his primary medium and began to focus on the beauty of the Candian landscape.By 1885 the Pacific Northwest and it mountainous landscapes which serve as subtle but poignant reminders of the encroachment of civilization.

"Robert-Louis-Thompson"{June 26,1937-

He was an African American painter and one of the youngest African American artist of his day to gain fame in the United States.

He was the youngest of three children born to a businessman and schoolteacher.His daddy died in an auto accident when he was 13,and he was sent to live with relatives who influenced  through exposure to art and jazz.After high school graduation in 1955,Robert went back Louisville,finding work as a department store widow decorator.He soon won a scholarship to the University of Louisville's Hite Art Institute.It was there that his artistic style shifted from large-scale,gestural abstract to a more figurative expressionism.

In 1958,a summer stay in Provincetown Massachusetts,further influenced  his craft;he moved to New York  a year later.His first exhibition at the Delaney Street Museum came about within first year there and by then Robert had developed what would be his signature style.

After his marriage to Carol Plenda in 1960,the two left  for Europe for two and-a-half years,funded by a Walter Gutman Foundation Grant and a John Hay Whitney Fellowship.In 1963,upon returning to New York,he joined the Martha Jackson Gallery;all of his shows there broke attendance records.

By making his first major sale at 21,Robert was in a class by himself  in recognition in the world of

art not until the emergence of  Jean-Michael  Basquait in the 1980s would  another African-American be so embraced.

As a painter the world  at his feet,his personal life was a mess.Consumed by alcohol and drug problems,Robert and Carol fled to to Italy,hoping the change of  scenery would help.Instead,on Memorial Day in 1966,he was found dead of an apparent overdose.

"Aaron-Douglass" (May 26,1899-February 2,1979)

Was an African American painter,illustrator and arts educator.He was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance.

He was born in Topeka Kansas,to Aaron & Elizabeth Douglass.He developed an interest in art during his childhood and was encouraged in
his pursuit by his mama.Aaron graduated from Topeka High School in 1917.

Aaron received a B.F.A. from the University of Nebraska in 1922 and a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Kansas the next year.
Commenting on his days at the University of Nebraska,where he won a
prize for drawing,he recalled:"I was the only black student there.Because I was sturdy and friendly,I became popular with both faculty  and students." His ability to get along notwithstanding,Aaron longed to draw from an undraped model and felt constrained by the
"Victorian attitudes" that prevented the school from using nudes in the classroom.

In 1925,Aaron moved to New York City settling in Harlem.Just a few months after his arrival he began to produce illustrators for both The Crisis and opportunity,the two most important magazines associated with the Harlem Renaissance.He also began studying with Winold Reiss,
a German artist who had been hired by Alain Locke to illustrate The New Negro. Winold teaching helped Aaron develop the modernist style he would employ for the next decade.Aaron engagement with African & Egyptian design brought him to the attention of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois and Dr.Locke,who
were pressing for young African American artists to express their African heritage and African American folk culture in their art.

In 1926,he married Alta Sawyer.They lived together in Harlem and for the next several,years opened their home to an important,powerful circle of artists and writers we now call the Harlem Renaissance.

Aaron was heavily influenced by the African cultured he painted for.His natural talent plus new acquired inspiration allowed him to be considered the "Father of African American arts."  That title led him to say," Do not call me the Father of African Arts,for I am just a son,of Africa,and paint what inspires me.'   

In addition to his magazine illustrations for two the most important African-American magazines of the period,he illustrated books, painted,canvases and murals,and tried to start a new magazine showcasing the work of younger artists and writers.It was during the early 1930s that Aaron completed the most important works of his career,his murals at Fisk University (on which he had the assistance of Painter Edwin Harleston) and at the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library (now the Schomburgh Center for Research in Black).

Throughout his early career,Aaron looked he looked for opportunities to increase his 
knowledge about art. In 1928-29,Aaron studied African and Modern European art at
the Barnes Foundation in Merion,Pennsylvania,on a grant from the foundation.In 1931 he traveled to Paris,where he spent a year studying more tradition French painting and drawing techniques at the at the Academie Scandinave.

In  1940,he moved to Nashville, Tennessee,where he founded the Art Department at Fisk University and taught for 27 years.Coinciding with this move was a shift to a more traditional painting style,including portraits and landscapes.His striking illustrations,murals,and paintinngs of the life and history of people depict an emerging African American individuality in a powerful personal way.Working primarily from the 1920s-1940s,Aaron linked African American with their African past and proudly showed African American contributions to society decades before
the dawn of the Civil Rights movement.His work made a lasting impressing on future impressing on future generations of African American artist.

Best represented by black & white drawings with African American silhouetted figures, as well as by portraits,landscapes,and murals,Aaron art  fused modernism with ancestral African images,including fetish motifs,masks,and artifacts.His work
celebrates African American versatility and adaptability,depicting people in a variety-of settings-from rural and urban scenes to churches to nightclubs.His illustrations in books by leading African American leading African American writers
established him as as the African American artist of the period.

Beginning in the 1920s,Aaron illustrations appeared in books by James Weldon Johnson,Countee,Alain Locke,and other prominent African American writers,activists,and intellectuals.They were also featured in such magazines as The
Crisis,Opportunity,Harper's and Vanity Fair.From the late 1920s-the 1940s,his art was shown across the United States at universities,galleries,hotels,and museums,
including the Harmon Fondation in New York,the museum of of Fine Arts in Dallas
Howard University's Gallery of Art,the traveling show of Harlem Renaissance artsworks sponsored by the Studio Museum of Modern Art.Aaron died in Nashville.

    

"Edward-Mitchell-Bannister" {1828-January 9,1901}

Was a Black Canadian-American Tonalist Painter.Like other Tonalists,his style are predominantly pastoral subject matter were drawn from his admiration for Millet and the French Barbizon School.


He was born in St.Andrews,New Brunswick and moved to New England in the late 1840s,where he remained for the rest of his life.Edward was well known in the artistic community of adopted home of  Providence Rhode Island and admired within the wider East Coast art world (he won a bronze medal for his large oil "Under the Oaks" at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial),he was largely forgotten for almost a century for a complexity of reasons,principally connected with racial prejudice.


With the ascendency of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1970s,his work was again celebrated and collected.In 1978,Rhode Island College dedicated its Art Gallery in his name with the exhibition:"Four From Providence -Alston,Bannister,Jennings & Prophet." This event was attended and commented on by numerious notable political figures of the time,and supported by the Rhode Island Committee for Humanities and the Rhode Island Historical Society.Events like this,across the entire cultural landscape have ensured that his artwork and life will not be again forgotten.


Primarily known for his idealized landscape and seascapes,Edward also executed portraits,biblical and mythological scenes,and genere scenes.An intellectual autodidact,his taste in literature were typical of an educated Victorian painter,including Edmund Spenser,Publis Vergilius Maro,John Ruskin and Alfred Tennyson,from whose works much of his iconography can be traced.


Edward died of a heart attack in 1901 while attending a prayer meeting at his church,Elwood Avenue Free Baptist Church.He is buried in the North Burial Ground in Providence.

"Lois-Mailou-Jones"(November 3,1905-June 9.1998)

Was an artist who painted  and influenced other during the Harlem Renaissance and beyond,during her long teaching and artistic career.Lois

was the only African-American painter of the 1930s & 1940s to achieve fame abroad,and the earliest whose subjects extend beyond the realm of portraiture.She was born in Boston Massachusetts and is buried on Martha's Vineyard in the Oak Bluffs Cemetery.


Her daddy,Thomas Vreeland Jones was a building superintendent who later became a lawyer after becoming the first African American to earn a law degree from Suffolk Law School,her mama Carolyn Jones was cosmetologist.

Some of her art work.

Lois parents encouraged her her to draw and paint as a child in water color.During childhood her mama took her and her brother to Martha's Vineyard where she became lifelong friends with novelist Dorothy West.She attended  The High School of Practical Arts in Boston.Meanwhile she took Boston Museum of Fine Arts evening classes and worked as an apprentice in constume design.


Lois held her first solo exhibition at the age of 17.From 1923-1927 she attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston studying design,taking night courses at the Boston Normal Art School.Lois purchased graduate work at the Design Art School and Harvard University.She continued her education even after beginning work,attending classes at Columbia University and receiving her bachelor's degree from Howard University in 1945,graduating magna cum laude.


In 1928 she was hired by Charlotte Hawkins Brown after some initial reservations,and founded the art department at Palmer Memorial Institute in North Carolina.As a prep school teacher Lois coached a basketball team,taught Folk Dancing and played the Piano for church services. Only one later,she was recruited to join the art department at Howard University in Washington D.C.,and remained as professor of design and watercolor painting until her retirement in 1977.While developing her own work as an artist,she was also known as an outstanding mentor.


In 1934 she met Louis Vergniaud Pierre-Noel,who would become a prominent Haitian artist,while both were graduate students at Columbia University.They corresponded for almost twenty years before marrying in the south France in 1953.Louis & Pierre lived in Washington,D.C. and Haiti.They had no children.Pierre died in 1982.


In the early 1930s Louis exhibited with the William Harmon Foundation and other institutions,produced plays and dramatic presentations and began study of masks from various cultures.In 1937 she received a fellowship to study in Paris at the Academie Julian.During one year's time she produced over 30 watercolors.She returned to Howard Universityand began teaching watercolor painting.Louis said of her time in Paris:




THE French were so inspiring.The people would stand and watch me and say 'mademoiselle,you are so wonderful.'In other words the color of my skin didn't matter in Paris and that was one of the main reasons why I think was encouraged to really think I was talented.


In 1938 Louis produced Les Fetiches (1938) a stunning,African inspired oil which is owned by the Smithsonian American Art Museum,her Les Fetiches was instrumental in transitioning negritude'-a distincity francophone artistic phenomenon-from the predominantly literary realm into the visual.Lois work provided an important visual link to Negritude authors including Aime Cesaire,Leon Damas,and Leopold Sedar Senghor.It was one of her best known works,and her first piece which combined traditional African forms with Western techniques and materials to create a vibrant and compelling work.She also completed Parisian Beggar Woman with text supplied by Langston Hughes.


Her maine source of inspiration was Celine Marie Tabary,also a painter,whom she worked with for many years.Celine subbited Lois paintings for consideration for jury prizes since works by African-American artists were not always accepted.Lois traveled extensively with Celine,including to the South of France,and they frequently painted each other.They taught art in the 1940s.


In the 1940s and early 1950s Lois exhibited at the Phillips Collection,Seattle Museum of Art,National Academy of Design the Barnet Aden Gallery,Pennsylvania's Lincoln University,Howard University galleries in New York and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.In 1952 Lois Maliou Jones Peintures 1937-1951,a collection of more than 100 reproductions of her French paintings,was published.


In 1954 Lois was a guest professor at Centre D'Art and Foyer des Artes Plastiques in Port-au-Prince,Haiti where the government invited her to paint Haitian people and landscapes.He work became energized by the bright colors.She and her husband returned there during summers for the next several years,in addition to trips to France.There she completed "Pleasant girl,Haiti" and also exhibited her work.In 1955 she unveiled portraits of the Haitian president and his wife commissioned by United States President Dwight David Eisenhower.


Lois numerious oils and watercolors inspired by Haiti are probably her most widely known works.In them her affinity for bright colors,her personal understandings of Cubism's basic principles and search for a distinctly style reached apogee.In many of her pieces one can see see the influence of the Haitian Culture,with its African influences,which reinvigorated the way she looked at the world.These include Ode toKinshasa and Ubi Girl from Tai.Her work became more abstract and hard-edged,after her marriage to Pierre Noel.Her impressionist techniques gave way to a spirited,richly patterned and brilliantly colored style.


In 1962 she initiated Howard University's first art student tour of France,including study at Academie de la Grande Chaumiere and guided several more tours over th years.In the 1960s she exhibited at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts,Boston Cornell University,and galleries in France,New York and Washington D.C.


In 1968 Lois  documented work and and interviews of contemporary Haitian artists for Howard University's "The Black Visual Arts" research grant.And continued the project in 1969 and 1970,traveling to eleven African countries.Her report Contemporary African Art was published in 1970 & 1971 she delivered 1000 slides and other materials to the University as fulfillment of the project.In 1973-74 she she researched "Women artists of the Caribbean and Afro-American Artists.


Her research inspired Lois to synthesize a body of designs and motifs that she combined in large,complex compositions.Lois return to Africa themes in her work of the past several decades coincided with the African American expressionistic movement in the United States during the 1960s.Skillfully integrating aspects of  African masks,figures,and textiles into her vibrant paintings,Lois continued to produce exciting new works at an astonishing rate of speed,even in her late eighties.In her nineties,Lois still painted Bill Clinton & Hillary Clinton collected of her island one of island landscapes Breezy Day at Gay Head while they were at the White House.

"Julien-Hudson"(January 9,1811-1844)

Was a 19-century free man of  color  who lived in New Orleans.He was a successful painter.He is known as the first African American or French Creole of Color operating in American by whom a self portrait was found.


He was born in New Orleans.His daddy,John T.Hudson,was a British ship chandler and ironmonger.His mama,Suzanne Desiree Marcos,was a free New Orleans quadroon (of Caucasian and African origins).Before studying painting,he briefly was a tailor's apprentice in the mid-1820s.He then studied with Antoine Meucci,an itinerant miniaturist painter,between 1826 & 1827.Julien's learning then continued in Paris with well-known artist Alexandre Abel de Pujol (after 1827).After returning to New Orleans,Julien opened his own studio on Bienville Street in 1831.Many free of color because professional artists,muscians or writers.


He died in New Orleans.

"Thelma-Johnson-Streat" (August 29,1912-May 1959)

Born in Yakima, Washington,she was the daughter James & Gertrude Johnson.Thelma grew up in Boise,Idaho,Pendleton,Oregon and Portland,Oregon and graduated from Washington High School,in Portland.Thelma started painting at 9 years old and at 17,she gained national recognition when her painting titled "A Priest" won honorable mention at the Harmon Foundation exhibition in New York City in 1929.In 1935,she married Romaine Streat in Portland and in 1939;she worked with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera on his Pan American Unity mural in San Francisco.Thelma also headed the children's Education Project to introduce American kids to the contributions of African Americans through a series of colorful murals.

Thelma gained prominence in the 1940s for her art,performance and work to foster inter-cultural understanding and appreciation.Thelma became the first African-American woman to have a painting exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York in 1942.By 1947,she was one of only four African American abstract painters to have had solo shows in New York.The other three were Romare Bearden,Rose Piper,and Norman Lewis.In 1949,she became the first American woman to have her own television program in France.In addition Thelma traveled to Haiti,Mexico  and Canada to study the traditional dance and culture of indigenous people.She realized that prejudice and bigotry are learned and usually during childhood.So,throughout the 1940s & 50s,she tirelessly performed dances,songs,and folk tales from many cultures to thousands of youngsters across Europe,Canada,Mexico,and the United States in an effort to introduce them to the beauty and value of all cultures.In 1950,Thelma peformed a dance recital a Buckingingham Palace for the King &Queen of England.Her talents included painting,textile design,book illustration,interpretive and ethnic dance,singing,folklore,teaching art and multi-culturalism.


Her paintings have appeared in exhibits at such prestigious museums and galleries as Museum: of Modern Art (MoMA),THE American Contemporary Art Gallery,the Honolulu Academy of Art,the San Francisco Museum of Art,(Vincent Price's) The Little Gallery,the DeYoung Memorial Museum,City of Paris Gallery,Art Insitute of Chicago,the Albany Institute of the History of art,the Kenkeleba Gallery and the Portland Art Museum.Her most famous painting,"Rabbit Man," is part of the MoMa's permanent collection.Many world personalities who have owned Thema's work including singer Roland Hayes,artist Diego Riveria,actress Fanny Brice,dancer Kathrine Dunham,and actress Paulette Goddard.Thelma founded Children's City near Honolulu with her second husband,John Edgar Kline,to introduce children to art and to the value of cultural diversity.


Many of her portraits presented men,women,girls,and boys of every color,age,shape, and sizewith dignity.Her was sometimes controversial.In 1947 the Los Angeles times reported that Thelma was threatened by the Ku Klux Klan for her painting called "Death of a Negro Sailor," portraying an African American sailor dying after risking his life abroad to protect the democratic rights he was denied at home.Thelma's response was that a program showing,not only African American tribulations,also African American contributions to the nation's wealth needed.Soon after she initiated a visual education program called "The Negro in History" Here through a series of murals depicting the contributions of people of African descent,panels showed African Americans in industry,agriculture,medicine,science,meatpacking,and transportation.There was even a panel on the contributions of African American women.

"James-Amos-Porter" (December 22,1905-February 28,1970)W

Was a pioneer in establishing the field of  African American art history.He instrumental as the first scholar to provide a systematic,criticial analysis of African-American artists and their work of art.An artist himself,he provided a unique and critical approach to the analysis of the work.Dedicated to educating and writing about African-American artists,James set the foundation for artists and art historians to provide an unearth the necessary skills essential to their artistic and scholarly endeavors.James determination to document and view African-American art in the context of American art created the canon.Born in Baltimore,Maryland,James had a long career in the visual arts as an artists and historian.Under the direction of  James Vernon Herring,heading of the Art Department at Howard University,James studied painting,drawing,and art history.He was a member of  Alpha Phi Alpha.


Upon graduating with a bachelor of science in 1927,he accepted a position as instructor of painting and drawing at Howard.Throughout his academic professional career,James also painted,and continued to exhibit nationally and internationally.


After completing undergraduate work,James attended the Art Institute in New York City.He also studied in Paris at the Institute of Art and Archelogy at the Sorbonne,where he received a Certificat de Presence in 1935.When James returned to the United States,he pursued an M.A. in art history at New York University,completing it in 1937.James thesis,later the foundation for his book,Modern Negro Art,focused on African-American artists and artisans.


During his studies,he met Dorothy Burnett,a librarian at the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library,where he did research.On December 27,1929 James & Dorothy were married .They one daughter,Constance Porter.They became professional as well as personal partners.Dorothy worked with James,providing bibliographic information critical to his investigations.Both worked at Howard University.Dorothy worked with James,providing bibliographic information critical to his investigations.Both worked at Howard University.Dorthy was the director of Moorland Foundation,later known as the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.She developed and catalogued information about African-American artists.

James interest in nearly forgotten and often ignored artists of African descent was sparked by reading a brief article on African-American landscape artist Robert Scott Duncanson.Due to the account's brevity,James followed his curiosity to research Robert and other artists  of African descent.
He published  Modern Negro Art in 1943,the first comprehensive study in the United States of African American art.James decisively placed African-American artists within the framework of American art.He was the first to recognize and document the significant  contributions these artists made to the history of American art. With James systematic approach,Modern Negro Art,became and still is the foundation of African-American art history and later texts.

James included art of Cuba,Haiti,and Africa in his investigations of artists of the African diaspora.He visited Haiti and Cuba on a Rockefeller Foundation grant in 1945/46.The Cuban government spurned his painting,The Cuban Bus.His through research on these countries and west African stimulated his creating courses at Howard in "Latin American Art" and "African Art and Architecture."

James taught at Howard for more than forty years, together with such artists as James Lesesne Wells and Lois Mailou Jones.He headed the Art Department,and served as Director of the Art Gallery from 1953-1970.

The list of artists who studided under James is long one.It includes Tritoba Hayes Benjamin.David C.Driskell,Sylvia Snowden,Mildred Thompson (1936-2003) and many others.Mildred wrote of James that he


" ... was a kind and gentle teacher.His method was personal and individual.He taught  step by step as if guiding me through an initiation.He watched over the development of my crafts while at the same time helping me to develop the character that would enable me to practice  the craft for a lifetime."


In 1933 he received the Schomburg Portrait Prize,from the Harmon Foundation,for the painting entitled Woman holding a Jug (1930).

In 1965 the National Gallery of Art selected James as one of the best teachers in the nation.Together with 24 other honorees,he was presented the award by Lady Bird Johnson.

"William-Ellisworth-Artist" {February 2,1914-1977}

William moved to New York in 1927.He studied sculpture and poetry at Augusta Savage studios in

the early 1930s and was a part of the Harmon Foundation exhibition in 1933.He received the John Hope Prize,which led to a scholarship at the Art Students League in 1933-34.William was hired by Audrey McMahon,the director of the College Art Association,along with several other artists to teach crafts and paint murals in churches and community centers.

In 1950 he received his Bachelors in Fine Arts,and in 1951 his masters in Fine Arts from Syracuse University,where he studied with the sculptor Ivan Mestrovic.From 1956-1966 he was Professor of Creamics at Nebraska Teachers College after which he was Professor of art at Mankato State College,until 1975.During this time a joint retrospective exhibition with his works was held in 1971 at Fisk University.He is also featured in against the odds,an exhibition of African American Artists from the Harmon Foundation.

His works can also be found at Atlanta University,the Whitney Museum,the Two Centuries of Black American Art exhibited and collected by Fisk University,Hampton University,the North Carolina Museum of Art,and  Private collectors.

"James Hampton" {April 8,1909-November 4,1964}

Was an African American  Janitor who secretly built a large assemblage of  religious art from scavenged  materials,and is considered and outsider artist.

He was born in Elloree,South Carolina.His daddy was a gospel  singer and a traveling Baptist  preacher.In 1928,James left for Washington DC,to join elder brother Lee,where they shared an apartment.James worked as a short-order cook until 1942 when he was drafted into the United States Army Air Forces.He served as a carpenter with the noncombatant 385th Aviation Squadron around  the Pacific theatre.He was honorably  discharge in 1945  and returned to Washington DC.

In 1946,James became a night janitor with the General Services Administration.Lee died in 1948.

In 1950,he returned a garage in northwest Washington.A month after James death; Meyer Wertlieb,owner of the garage,came to find out why the rent had not been paid.He knew that James had been building something in the garage.When he opened the door he found a room filled with many symmetrical,glittering objects surrounding a central throne. For 14,years,James had been building a throne out of  various old materials like aluminum and gold foil,old furniture,various pieces of  cardboard,old light bulds,shards of mirror and old desk blotters.He had pinned it together with tacks,glue,pins and tape.

It is unknown whether James considered himself  to be an artist.

The text The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millenium General  Assembly  was written on the objects in James handwriting. He had emblazoned the words Fear Not above the central throne.The complete work consists of a total of 180 objects,many of them inscribed with words from the Boook of  Revelation.The objects on the right  side of the central throne appear to refer to the  New Testament;those on the left side,to the Old Testament.

James had also kept a 108-page loose leaf  notebook titled St.James:The Book of  the 7  Dispensation.Most of the text had been written in an unknown script  that remains undeciphered.The text is on line online. and has been the subject  of research.

Some of  his text,had been accompanied by botes in English.In James writing,for example he used the title "Director,Special Projects,for the State Eternity and ended each page with the word  "Revelation."He also written texts,some of which refer to religious visions,on various pieces of people and cardboard on a few pages in each of several other notebooks.

James was  somewhat  reclusive.He had few close friends and spent much of his personal  personal time working on his shrine.He was quite humble  but often referred to himself as "St.James." James attended various churches in Washington and expressed an interest in finding a "holy woman"to assist  with his  life's work.He never married.James kept his project secret from most
friends and family.His relatives first heard about it when his sister came to claim his body.In 1970,James work was donated anonymously to the Smithsonian American Art Museum,where it is often on display.

"Robert "Buck" Brown"(February 3,1936-July 2,2007)

Was an African American painter and cartoonist best known for creating Playboy magazine's naughty "Granny" character.


Robert was born in Morrison,Tennessee.Moved to Chicago as a child after  the separation of his parents.He graduated from Englewood High School  in 1954.


Robert joined the United States Air Force and later received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of  Illinois 1966.


Robert started to develop a reputation as a cartoonist and sold his first cartoon to playboy in 1962."Granny" was his first color work for the magazine published in 1966.In all,Robert had more than 600 cartoons published by the magazine.


He also had thousands of other drawings published by publications such as Esquire,Ebony,and Jet.Many of his cartoons were filled with commentary on
civil rights issues affecting African Americans.Robert created several album covers for the Chiaroscuro Jazz Record label,including The Red Holloway Quintet's Standing Room Only,Frank Wess Quartet's Surprise,Surprise,Jay McShann's My Baby With The Black Dress On and A Lindy Hop Complication.
Robert was also a painter of what he described as " soul genere paintings" depicting humorous images of everyday life.


At the time of his death his survivors include his wife,Mary Ellen;a son,Robert BrownIII; his mama,Doris Lemmings;a brother Ted Edingburg;a sister,Willa White;and six grandchildren.

"Isaac Scott Hathaway"[April 4,1872-March 12,1967]

Was an educator and artist known for creating more than 100 busts and masks of prominent African American.He taught what is now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) for more than twenty years as the first chair of the department of ceramics in the college's art department.
Isaac was born in Lexington Kentuck,to Elijah and Rachel Hathaway.He and his two sisters were raised by their daddy and grandparents,their mama died in 1874.Isaac attended Chandler Junior College and the New England Conservatory of Music's Art Department,pursuing his childhood dream of sculpting busts of " famous Negroes." Isaac spent two years at the Conservatory of Music before returning to Lexington to teach English at Keene High School,beginning in 1891.
He developed his sculpting,and patrons-both white and African American-demanded his skills.In 1904,he was commissioned to cast a death mask of a former ambassador to Russia Cassius Marcellus Clay.By 1907,Isaac was living in Washington DC and sculpting busts and life masks of significant figures.The masks he completed during this period included likenesses of author and sociologist Monroe Nathan Work and historian Carter Godwin Woodson.
Isaac married Etta Pamplin of Maryland.She died during childbirth during the first year of their marriage;their son,Elsmer,died in 1941.His second marriage ended in

dIvorce.
In 1915,Isaac moved from Washington DC to Arkansas to teach ceramics at the Branch Normal College in Pine Bluff,now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.Here,he created busts busts of orator Frederick Douglass.Isaac began sketching Frederick's likeness while living in Washington DC and reportedly modeled Frederick's famous hair after the mane of a lion at the Washington Zoo (now the National Zoo).Isaac opened and chaired the department of ceramics at the college and strengthened its arts program for African American students.He met and married his third wife,Umer Porter,in Pine Bluff in 1926.She was also an artists,and she created a bust of her husband that is displayed in the Hathaway /Howard Fine Arts Center at UAPB.
In 1937,he left Pine Bluff to establish the Ceramics Department at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee,Alabama.In 1938,Father Bruno Drescher of Chicago,Illinois,commissioned Isaac to model a sculpture of the Catholic Saint Martin de Pores.In addition to the commission,Bruno requested 100 statuettes.After receiving the statuettes,Bruno praised Isaac's talent,saying,"I do not believe there is a sculptor in the United States who can excel you in producing a likeness."
In a Federal Writers' Project interview conducted in 1939,Isaac compared the molding and shaping of clay to the molding and shaping of children.He said:"This reminds me of our duty to our children.They should be shaped into usefulness as they grow."
While at Tuskegee,Isaac continued to sculpt busts and life mask and,in 1943 sculpted his first bust of George Washington Carver.The original bust stood twelve inches tall.Isaac and George taught at Tuskegee at the same time,and their friendship developed over Isaac's experiments with Alabama clay as a sculpting medium.
In 1945,he was selected to design two commemorative coins honoring African Americans,becoming the first African American to design a coin for the U.S. Mint.The first coin commemorated Booker T.Washington and was minted 1946-1951.The second coin commemorated George Washington Carver from 1951-1954.
As he moved from Lexington to Pine Bluff to Tuskegee,Isaac relocated his art studio and the Isaac Scott Hathaway  Art Company.His twelve-inch busts of notable figures such as Frederick Douglass,Booker T.Washington,and George Washington Carver proved to be popular in African-American homes throughout the South.
In 1948,he became director of ceramics at Alabama State College in Montgomery.Isaac retired from teaching in 1963 and returned to Tuskegee.He died in Montgomery Alabama.

"Horace-Pippin"(February 22,1888-Jul6,1946)

Was a swelf-taught African American painter.The injustice of  slavery and American segregation figure prominently in many of his works.
Horrace was born in West Chester,Pennsylvania,and grew up in Goshen,New York.There he attended segregated schools until he was 15,when he went to support his ailing mama.As a boy Horace responded to an art supply company's advertising contest and won his first set of crayons and a box of watercolors.As a child,he made drawings of racehorses and jockeys from Goshen's celebrated racetrack.Prior to 1917,Horace variously toiled in a coal yard,in an iron foundry,as a hotel porter and as a used-clothing peddler.Horace was a member of St. John's African Methodist Protestant Church.
He served in the 369th infantry,the famous Harlem Hellfighters,in Europe during World War 1,where he lost of his right arm after being shot by a sniper.He said of his combat experience.
"I did not care what or where I went.I aked God to help me,and I did so.And that is the way I came through that terrible and Hellish place.For the whole entire battlefield was hell,so it was no place for any human being to be.While in the trenches,Horace kept illustrated journals of his military service,of which six drawings survived.He initially took up art in in the 1920s to strengthen wounded right arm;his activity as a painter began in earnest around 1930,when he completed his first oil painting,The End of The War: Starting home.By the late 1930s,critic Christian Brinton,artist N.C.Wyeth and John Mcoy,collector Albert C.Barnes,dealer Robert Carlen and currators Dorothy Miller and Holger Cahill championed Horace's distinctive paintings that captured his childhood memories and war experiences,scenes of everyday life,landscapes,portraits,bibical subjects,and American historical events.Horace enrolled in art classes at the Barnes Foundation during autumn 1939 and spring 1940 semesters.
One of his best-known paintings,his Self-portrait of 1941,shows him seated in front of an easel,crading his brush in his right hand (he used his injured right arm when painting).His painting of John Brown Going to his hanging (1942) is in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.Among his work there are many genere paintings,such as the Domino Players (1943),in the Philips Collection,Washington D.C.,and several versions of Cabin in the Cotton.His portraits include a depiction of the contralto Marian Anderson singing,painted in 1941.He also painted landscapes and religious subjects.
In the eight years between his national debut in the Museum of Modern's Art's traveling exhibition "Masters of Popular Paintings" (1938) and his death at the age of 58,Horace's recognition increased on the east and west coasts.During this period,he had three solo exhibitions (1940,1941,and 1943) at the Carlen Gallery,Philadelphia,Pennsylvania and solo exhibitions at the Arts Club of Chicago (1941),and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1942),while private collections and museums such as the Barnes Foundation,the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of Art,purchased his works.His paintings were featured in nationally surveys held at the Art Institute of Chicago,Chicago Illinois;Carnegie Institute,Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania;Corcoran Gallery of Art,Washington,D.C.;Dayton Art Institute,Ohio;Nationally Gallery of Art,Washington D.C.;Newark Museum,Newark,New Jersey;Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,Philadelphia,Pennsylvania.and Tate Gallery,London United Kingdom.In 1947,critic Alain Locke described him as "a real and rare genius,combining folk quality with artistic maturity so uniquely almost to defy classification."

"Grafton Tyler Brown" (1841-1918)

Was an American painter,lithographer and cartographer.He was the first African American artist to create works depicting the Pacific Northwest and California.He was born in Harrisburg,Pennsylvania.His daddy was a freedman and was involved in the abolitionist movement.Grafton worked for a printer in Philadelphia and when he was fourteen.It was there where he learned the skill lithography.He moved to San Francisco in the 1860s.He worked as a lithographer before becoming known as a painter in the 1880s.In San Francisco,he worked at Kuchel &Dressel from 1861-1867.In 1867 he opened his own firm and 1878 he created The Illustrated History of San Francisco,which consisted of 72 topographical images of the city.His work in the Bay Area in the Nevada Territory included documentation of settlements,property sales,claims and city boundaries.The following year he sold his company.Grafton left the Bay area in 1882 and  to Victoria,Brisish Columbia.While there,he participated in the Amos Bowman Geological Survey.While participating in the survey,he served as draftsman and documented the Cascade Mountains.In 1884 he moved back to the United States and traveled throughout the northwest and west,painting such sites Mt.Rainer.He lived in Portland,Oregon,painting such landscapes and also traveling to Yosemite and Yellowstone National Park to paint.In 1893,Grafton moved to St.Paul Minnesota.In St.Paul he worked again as a draftsman,this time for the United States Army Corps of Engineers and for the city of St.Paul's engineering department.He died in St.Peter,Minnesota.

"Jean Michel Basquiat"(December 22,1960-August 12,1988)

Born to a Haitian daddy and a first-generation Puerto Rican mama,Jean

grew up in Brooklyn.As a child,he created drawings inspired by comic books and television cartoons.His mama who often took him to local art museums nurtured his early interest in artIn May 1968,a car hit Jean.He suffered a broken arm and his spleen had to be remove.While hospitalized,his mama gave him a copy of Gray's Anatomy,a book that inspired many of his later works as well as the name of the noise band he co-founded in 1979,Gray.After his parents separated in 1968,he and his two sisters lived with their daddy spending two years in Puerto Rico during that time.At the age of 17,Jean dropped out of  high school and lived,by choice,in the streets with various friends.His career as an artist began in 1977 when he began to spray-paint New York City streets and subways with one of his high schools classmates,Al Diaz.The works were signed SAMO,an acronym for "Same Old Shit"and consisted of short poetic phrases such as "Plush Safe he think;SAMO." In December 1978,The Village Voice published an article about the SAMO writings.While working on the SAMO project,which ended in 1979,Jean sold hand-painted postcards and T-shirts to make money.His art was publicly exhibited for the first time in the 1980 Times Square Show.Art critics responded positively to Jean's debut in May of 1981,after being included in several group shows,he had his first solo exhibition in Modena,Italy.His first one-man show in the United States took place in March of 1982 at the Annina Nosei Gallery.John was featured in the 1983 Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York,where he became the youngest artist ever to be included.Between 1983 and 1985,Jean produced 31 works in collaboration with Andy Warhol.Jean was devastated by the death in 1987 of Andy who had been his close friend and mentor.A year later at the age of 27,Joan died of  a drug overdose in his his New York Apartment.Within the span of eight years,he went from being an anonymous tag-writer to an internationally celebrated artist.His large,colorful works combine graffiti art with abstract expressionism.

"Hughie Lee Smith" [September 20,1915-

Worked for the Ohio Works Progress Administration and the Ford factory in River Rouge during the 1930s and 1940s;did a series of lithographic prints;painted murals at the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois;
taught art at Karamu House,Cleveland,late 1930s,the Grosse Pointe War Memorial in Michigan,1955-56,Princeton County Day School,New Jersey,1963-65,Howard University,Washington DC,1969-71,The Art Students League,New York City,1972-87,and elsewhere.Works shown in museums,Schools,schools,galleries,and collection across the U.S.,including the American Negro Exposition,Chicago;Detriot Artists Market;Cleveland Museum of  Art;Whitney Museum of American Art;Museum of Modern Art;the June Kelly Gallery,New York City;and the Evans-Tibbs collection,Washington,DC.
Like his paintings Hughie presented a riddle.Although his works were exhibited at museums,schools,and galleries around the United States,earned him many honors and awards,and were hung on the set of the Cosby Show Show,Hughie did not enjoy a major solo exhibition of his work until fifty years after he began painting.
His first retrospective exhibition--at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton in 1988-occurred when he was 73.
Unlike  contemporary,painter Jacob Lawrence,Hughie didn't receive much attention as a young artist.He slowly,gained national recognition as he produced a steady stream of oil paintings.He created an impressive series of lithographic prints and was commissioned by the U.S. Navy to paint several murals.
His works,which often featured the fantastic elements of magical realism and surrealism,are well known for their hard-hitting social commentary.Many critics have observed that his paintings bear a strong resemblance to the works of Italy's Giorgio de Chirico & American artists Edward Hooper.
Hughie did not receive a great deal of attention during his lifetime for a number of reasons.
First,his paintings often confronted views with a world where African Americans and white people maintained a cautious or uneasy distance from one another.Second,his work was mainly shown in African American art exhibits and for many years remained largely unrecognized in mainstream art circles.Third,he chose to paint figuratively at a time when abstract expressionism was at its height.
Hughie artistic did not pass completely unnoticed.During the 1980's he was awarded a day in his honor in Cleveland,Ohio and given the key to the Hartford,Connecticut.He also received honors from the Maryland Commission on Afro-American History & Culture,and prizes,from the National Academy of Design & Audubon Artists.In 1996,the Lotos Club awarded him with its Medal of Merit and,that same year,Hughie was presented  with the Benjamin West Clinedinst Medal from the Artists Fellowship inc.
In 1988,a retrospective of Hughie works were shown at the New Jersey State Museum.Works selective for the exhibit  included his depictions of alienated youth during the 1940s,his desolate landscapes of the 1950s & 1960's,and his paintings of isolated African Americans and white people confronting or refusing to confront one another.While allusions to the isolation of African Americans are presents,the paintings also portrayed the inability of some human beings to make contact with each othe.Accordings to some art critics,
what made Hughie unique was his ability to fuse the African American experience with his own brand of surrealism.
In 1994,the City of New York commissioned him to paint the official portrait of David Dinkins,the former mayor of New York City.The portrait was completed and hung in City Hall.Hughie died in Albuquerque, New Mexico after battling cancer.

"Georgette E.Seabrooke Powell"(August 2,1916-December 27,2011)

Was born in Charleston,South Carolina,and grew up in the Yorkville neighborhood of New York

City.She graduated from Washington Irving High School,the prestigious Cooper Union fir the Advancement of Science and Art.both in New York City,receiving the silver medal for painting.At age 57,she earned her bachelor's of Fine Arts in Washington,D.C. As a teenager,Georgette studied with two great artists,James Lesesne Wells,at the Harlem Art Workshop and Gwendolyn B.Bennett,at the Harlem Community Center.She also studied with several Harlem Renaissance Artists,who inspired her and that she remained close to and they were August Savage,Romare Bearden,Charles Alston,& Jacob Lawrence.
While studying at Cooper Union,Georgeette was chosen at age 18,the youngest to receive the title "Master Artist",and was commissioned to be part of the Federal Art Project (FAP),for the Works Progress Administration (WPA),where she painted a controversial large-scale mural in the Harlem Hospitl.She was determined reflect of her environment and portray African-Americans in her piece-not illustrations commonly depicted in public works of art at that time---and she would not relent until her concepts were accepted.Today,her mural is being restored and can be seen in the Lobby of Harlem's Hospital's new wing.She was also selected to paint a mural of Queens General Hospital in Long Island New York.Georgette was a Registered Art Therapist,and worked in this capacity at the Department of Human Services,District of Columbia.She worked with
children &adults at Area B.Mental Health Clinic & D.C.General Hospital.Georgette founded Tomorrow's World Art Center,Inc.in 1975,formerly
called Operation Heritage,which she operated from 1969-1975.She served as an artist educator,mentor,and coach for numerous aspiring artists in the Washington DC,MetroThrough this organization she began sponsoring "Art in the Park," a community event that spanned 38
years,showcased aspiring artists.
Georgette has exhibited throughout the United States and other countries to
include Venezuela,Nigeria,& Senegal.She has received countless awards and honors to include the "2003 Visionary Leadership Project.","Legacy Keeper"from Dr.Camille O.Cosby,President & Co-founder & Renee Pouissant,Executive Director,Co-founder.She is in the D.C. Hall of Fame,receiving "The Legacy Award in Cultural Art," the Hall of Fame,D.C. Department of Recreation and parks,two Mayor's Awards from District of Columbia Mayors;The ageless Heroes Award for creavity,Blue Cross/Blue Shield,presented by the former President George HW Bush,
the Sojourner Truth Award,presented by the National Assocition of Negro Business and Professional Women's League,and many others.
Georgette was married to the late Dr.George W.Powell and raised three children.
She and George built a retirement home in Palm Coast,Florida.

"Edwin Harleston"[March 14,1882-1931]

He was one of eight children,his daddy was a rice planter,a sea

captain,and a funeral home owner.Edwin received a scholarship to study at the Avery Normal Institute in Charleston and graduated valedictorian in 1900.For four years he attended Atlanta University where he played football and sang in a quartet.In 1905,he relocated to Boston to attend the art school of the Boston Museum of Fine Art.
There Edwin studied under William Paxton & Frank Benson until 1913.
The seven year course was formed under the Beaux Arts tradition and formed the foundation of his style.Edwin reluctantly returned to the South Carolina to help in his daddy's funeral home.It was during this time that he became active in local civic rights groups and eventually became president of the newly formed Charleston South Carolina branch of the NAACP.He led an effort that soon forced the public school system to hire African American teachers.In 1920 Edwin married Elise Forrest a photographer and two years later they opened a studio,which produced both of their works.
Influenced by much of her work,he developed a highly realistic and academic technique of portraiture;many of his works were commissioned.A few of his subjects were the president of Atlanta University ,philanthropist-Pierre S.DuPont and the president of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company.Edwin other painting include The Bible Student 1924,and Miss Bailey with the African Shawl 1930.At the request of Aaron Douglass,he assisted in in painting murals for Fisk University that depicted a panoramic view of African American History from slavery onward.This work was complete in 1931 the year that he died.Shortly before his death  Edwin received the Alain Locke Prize for portrait painting for his work.The Old Servant at an exhibition of the Harmon foundation.