by James X Patterson
Out of the thousands of African American artists who have made huge contributions to the Art world, American history, and Art history, this is a brief list of names. I hope this guide is informative, educational, and entertaining.
A is for Amy Sherald
B is for Jean Michel Basquiat
C is for Elizabeth Catlett
D is for David Hammons
E is for Emodia Lewis
F is for Derek Fordjour
G is for Sam Gilliam
H is for Barkley L. Hendricks
I is for Ida B Wells
J is for Kerry James Marshall
K is for Kara Walker
L is for Jacob Lawrence
M is for Melvin Van Peebles
N is for Senga Nengudi
O is for Octavia Butler
P is for Paul R Williams
Q is for Quincy Jones
R is for Faith Ringgold
S is for Augusta Savage
T is for Titus Kaphar
U is for Ulysses Davis
V is for Virgil Abloh
W is for Kehinde Wiley
X is for Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller
Y is for Brenna Youngblood
Z is for Zelda "Jackie" Ormes
A is for Amy Sherald - Painter
Born: August 30, 1973 in Columbus, GA
Notable Works
Official Portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama
Education: Clark Atlanta University and Maryland Institute College of Art.
Sherald specializes in portraits of African American Society and culture.
Quote: “I want my portraits to create a space where blackness can breathe.”
Her style consists of Realist Figures, muted skin tones, in high contrast garments, and monochrome backgrounds.
Sherald was the first woman and first African American to win the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC
2019 Smithsonian Ingenuity Award: Sherald received this award.
2023 Woman of the Year Award: Sherald received this award from The Bryn Mawr School
B is for Jean Michel Basquiat - Painter
Born: December 22, 1960, Brooklyn, New York, NY
Died: August 12, 1988, Great Jones Street, New York, NY
Notable works:
Riding with Death 1988
Hollywood Africans 1983
Untitled (1982)
A painting that sold for $110.5 million at auction in 2017. This was the highest price ever paid for an American artist's work at auction at the time.
Basquiat is considered a cultural icon being influential in Contemporary art, Graffitti, Hip-Hop, Neo-expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and Primitivism
Quotes:
“I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life.”
“I'm not a real person. I'm a legend.”
“The black person is the protagonist in most of my paintings. I realized that I didn't see many paintings with black people in them.”
“I don't listen to what art critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.”
“I am not a black artist, I am an artist.”
Basquiat's work explores the effects of power structures, identity, race, and politics, including references to popular culture and art history and remixing those concepts together making an explosive gestural apparatus for dialogue
C is for Elizabeth Catlett - Sculptor and Printmaker
Born April 15, 1915 Washington, D.C.
Died April 2, 2012, Cuernavaca, Mexico
Education: Howard University, University of Iowa, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, & Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda"
(English: National School of Painting, Sculpture and Printmaking)
Notable works:
Sharecropper 1952
Head of Negro Woman 1946
Magic Mask 1990
Students Aspire, 1977,
Quote:
“I am inspired by Black
people and Mexican people, my two peoples.”
Catlett is known for her dynamic linoleum prints and lithography of black women in moments of American history and her strong sculptural forms and figures depicting a variety of themes subjects and topics such as race, identity, politics, and feminism
D is for David Hammons - Performance & Conceptual Artist
Born: July 24, 1943, Springfield, IL
Education: Otis College of Art and Design, Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles Trade Technical College
David Hammons is a prolific artist in the Postmodernist and Post-minimalist Sculpture movements using objects, assemblages, and reimagining cultural symbols in Public Spaces.
Notable Works:
The African American Flag 1990
Higher Goals 1986
David Hammons Bliz-aard Ball Sale 1983
By following the through line of selling ice to Eskimos or what a snowball in hell has a chance to do
Hammons' tongue-in-cheek depiction of the actual selling of snowballs on the side of Cooper Street New York while advertising in local papers spoke on topics such as the “black” market, the street vendor vs capitalism, and the corporate snake oil salesman. David Hammons's work created an infinite list of allegories combined with powerful images.
Quote:
"I wish I could make art like that, but we're too oppressed for me to be dabbling out there... I would love to do that because that could also be very black. You know, as a black artist, dealing just with light. They would say, "How in the hell could he deal with that, coming from where he did?" I want to get to that, I'm trying to get to that, but I'm not free enough yet. I still feel I have to get my message out."
E is for Edmonia Lewis Sculptor
Born: July 4, 1844, Greenbush, Rensselaer County, NY
Died: Sep 17, 1907, Hammersmith, London, United Kingdom
Education: Lewis attended New York Central College & Oberlin
Lewis who was African American was also Native Indigenous American hailing from the Mississaugas of the Ojibwe Nation
Lewis is most known for her impeccable craftsmanship and attention to detail in the Neoclassical and Naturalism styles in Marble Sculpture
Notable works:
The Death of Cleopatra 1876
Young Octavian 1873
Old Arrow Maker 1872
Quote:
Some praise me because I am a colored girl, and I don’t want that kind of praise, I would rather you point out my defects, for that will teach me something.
F is for Derek Fordjour- Painter
Born: 1974 Memphis, TN
Education: Harvard University, Morehouse College, Hunter College
Fordjour works with newspaper, cardboard, and canvas to make elaborate, invigorating, and energized imagery of Black culture and scenes of cultural movements and moments that move bodies through space seemingly suspended in time. A conceptual relationship with Narrative, texture, and Color.
As well as Painting Fordjour has worked in sculpture, dioramas, life performance, and video.
Notable Works:
Three Stack, 2014
Birdman, 2022
CONfidence MAN, 2023
Pall Bearers, 2020
Quote:
“I am interested in ways we consume painting.
“For me, sculpture is sort of poetry, if my paintings are prose.”
“I think Artists are magicians. I think Artists traffic in illusion.”
G is for Sam Gilliam - Painter
Born: November 30, 1933, Tupelo, MS
Died: June 25, 2022, Washington, D.C.
Education: University of Louisville
Gilliam is best known for his Drape paintings, which were expansion of Modern Art, Abstract Expressionism, and the Washington Color School in entirely new ways. Suspending painted canvas from the walls or ceilings Gilliam transformed his medium and the contexts in which it was viewed.
Notable Works:
Light Depth 1969
Mars at Angles 1978
Tapestry 2000
Sac 1 2012
Quote:
“I'd actually say that your ideas come from the art collective, those artists that you've always been interested in and figuring out what they would do in those situations. That's what an artist is anyway. He's just a single member of a collective, the whole generation that went before.”
H is for Barkley L. Hendricks - Painter
Barkley Leonnard Hendricks
Born: April 16, 1945, Nicetown–Tioga, Philadelphia
Died: April 18, 201,7 New London, Connecticut
Education: Hendricks attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and Yale University.
Hendricks is best known for his larger-than-life-sized portrait oil paintings through his realist and post-modern techniques of Black Americans living in urban areas
Notable Works:
Sir Nelson. Solid! 1970
Lawdy Mama 1969
Sir Charles, Alias Willie Harris 1972
October’s Gone…Goodnight 1973
Quote:
“I know what I want to do and if it sort of attaches itself to certain areas of the culture that works out great for me.”
“When you go into certain galleries, there are a lot of other artists there, but I damn sure want you to remember mine.”
I is for Ida B. Wells- Writer
Born: July 16, 1862, Holly Springs, MS
Died: March 25, 1931 (age 68 years), Chicago, IL
Education: Rust College, Fisk University, LeMoyne-Owen College
Wells was an anti-lynching activist, investigative journalist, sociologist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Notable Works:
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law In All Its Phases 1892
A Red Record 1895
Mob Rule in New Orleans 1900
Quote:
''Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so. ''
J is for Kerry James Marshall- Painter
Born: 1955, Birmingham, AL
Education: Otis College of Art and Design
Marshall’s work is best known for its Black figures, large-scale paintings, and depictions of Black Folk history mixed with Western Art tropes combined together to reinvent narrative paintings of African-American life and history.
Notable Works:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self 1980
When Frustration Threatens Desire, 1990
Untitled (policeman)2015
Untitled, 2009
Quote:
I don't believe in hope. I believe in action if I'm an apostle of anything: There are always going to be complications, but to a large degree, everything is in your hands.
K is for Kara Walker - Painter
Born: November 26, 1969, Stockton, CA
Education: Atlanta College of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design
Walker is a painter, silhouettist, printmaker, installation artist, and filmmaker, who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her room-size tableaux of black paper cut-out silhouettes and large-scale allegorical sculptures.
Notable Works:
Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart 1994
Darkytown Rebellion, 2001
Fons Americanus, 2019
A Subtlety, 2014
Quote:
"I have no interest in making a work that doesn't elicit a feeling”
"I'm fascinated with the stories that we tell. Real histories become fantasies and fairy tales, morality tales and fable.”
L is for Jacob Lawrence- Painter
Born: September 7, 1917, Atlantic City, NJ
Died: June 9, 2000, Seattle, WA
Education: American Artists School
Lawrence was a prominent Artist during the Harlem Renaissance.
Lawrence called his style "dynamic cubism”, and others classified it as Social Realism. Lawrence was the first Black American Artist to be represented by a mainstream Art Gallery and to be written about in Fortune Magazine. Jacob Lawrence was one of the few painters of his generation who grew up in a black community, to be taught primarily by black artists, and to be influenced by black people.
Notable Works:
The Library 1960
1972 Olympic Poster
1977 Jimmy Carter Inauguration Poster
The Legend of John Brown No. 13 1977
Quote:
"I do not look upon the story of the Blacks in America as a separate experience to the American culture but as a part of the American heritage and experience as a whole.”
M is for Melvin Van Peebles-Filmmaker
Born: August 21, 1932, Chicago, IL
Died: September 21, 2021, Manhattan, New York, NY
Melvin Van Peebles was an independent filmmaker, actor, writer, producer, director, and composer.
Peebles is given credit for the creation of the term blaxploitation film, although it was originally coined by the NAACP as a critique and a detraction of his work.
Peebles is considered a pioneer in American and Black Cinema focusing on topics such as Black identity, Black culture, the Black experience, nudity, sex, violence, Exoticization, politics, international relationships, interracial relationships, cultural stereotypes, and parody of real-life events. His work is considered essential to Black film history.
Notable Works:
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song 1971
Watermelon Man 1970
Vroom Vroom Vroooom 1995
Posse 1993
Quote:
My life and career is defined by the constant pursuit of new forms of culture and self-expression.
N is for Senga Nengudi - Performance Art
Born: 1943, Chicago, IL
Education: California State University, Los Angeles,& Waseda University
Nengudi is best known for her abstract sculptures that combine found objects and choreographed performances. Nengudi is part of a group of African-American avant-garde artists known as Studio Z
Nengudi’s work creates conversations on form, shape, interaction, connectivity, cultural identity, collaboration, and ethnic and racial classification while "trying to break down the walls" for the black artist community.
Notable Works:
R.S.V.P. series, 1975–1977
Ceremony for Freeway Fets (1978)
"Inside/Outside", 1977
Quote: “Being Born Black in America Is a Political Act”
O is for Octavia Butler- Writer
Born: June 22, 1947, Pasadena, CA
Died: February 24, 2006, Lake Forest Park, WA
Education: Pasadena City College & California State University, Los Angeles
Butler was an award-winning science fiction writer and a pioneer in the genre. Butler was often called a prophet because her work predicted many aspects of the 21st century by reflecting on past societal oppressions, the rise of fascism, racism, global warming, women's rights, and political disparity. Exploring how technology can be used for good or evil, and how it can create chaos and inequality. Butler was one of the first African American and female science fiction writers, and in 1995 became the first in the genre to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.
Notable Works:
Parable of the Sower 1993
Bloodchild 1984
Wild Seed 1980
Dawn Xenogenesis: I 1987
Quote:
“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.”
P is for Paul R. Williams- Architect
Born: February 18, 1894, California
Died: January 23, 1980 (age 85 years), Los Angeles, CA
Education: University of Southern California, USC Viterbi School of Engineering,
Also a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity
Williams was a trailblazer architect based in Los Angeles, California. Most of the buildings he designed were in Southern California and included the homes of numerous celebrities, such as Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, and Desi Arnaz
Known for his acute skill, precision, and ability to read and draw his blueprints upside down Williams was the first Black architect to join the American Institute of Architects
Notable Works:
The Beverly Hills Hotel 1941-49
-The cursive script on the Beverly Hills Hotel's sign is based on Williams's handwriting
Guardian Angel Cathedral 1963
Berkley Square 1955
St. Jude’s Hospital 1962
Quote:
I am not on this planet to get something done - the things we accomplish are expressions of our purpose.
Q is for Quincy Jones - Composer
Born: March 14, 1933, Chicago, IL
Died: November 3, 2024, Bel Air, Los Angeles, CA
Jones was a record producer, composer, arranger, conductor, and bandleader whose work reshaped the music industry, and made a significant impact on the music business world as well. Jones also worked in movies, theater, and television. With a total of 28 Grammys, he won an Emmy Award in 1977 for the TV series Roots and a Tony in 2016 for The Color Purple.
Jones worked with Artists such as Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, and many others.
Jones became the first African American vice president of a major record company in 1961 at Mercury Records.
Notable Works:
The Color Purple 1985
The Wiz 1978
In the Heat of the Night 1967
Roots: The Saga of an American Family 1977
Thriller 1979
Quote:
Once a task has just begun, never leave it till it's done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all.
R is for Faith Ringgold - Textile Artist
Born: October 8, 1930, Harlem, New York, NY
Died: April 13, 2024, Englewood, NJ
Education: The City College of New York
Ringgold was an American painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts.
As a multimedia artist, Ringgold’s works explored themes of race, family, class, and gender. Her Art captured and encompassed the Black American experience. During her career, she promoted the work of Black artists and advocated against their marginalization by art museums and the art world. She wrote and illustrated over a dozen children's books during her lifetime.
Notable Works:
The American People Series #18: The Flag is Bleeding 1967
Tar Beach #2 1990
For the Woman's House 1971
Quote:
Art is a form of experience of the person, the place, and the history of the people, and as black people, we are different. We hail from Africa to America, so the culture is mixed, from the African to the American. We can't drop that. It's reflected in the music, the dance, the poetry, and the art.
S is for Augusta Savage - Sculptor
Born: February 29, 1892, Green Cove Springs, FL
Died: March 1962, New York, NY
Education: The Cooper Union, Académie de la Grande Chaumiere, Royal Academy of Fine Arts
Savage was a sculptor, art teacher, and community art program director.
In 1932, Savage established the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts and became an influential teacher during the Harlem Renaissance. Known for her impeccable skill and attention to detail Savage gained international recognition for busts of many leading political and cultural figures, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Dr. William Pickens Sr., and many others. Savage became the first African-American member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors in 1934
Notable Works:
Lift Every Voice and Sing (the Harp) 1939
Portrait Head of John Henry 1949
Realization 1938
Gamin 1930
Quote:
"I have created nothing really beautiful, really lasting, but if I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work."
T is for Titus Kaphar- Painter
Born: 1976, Kalamazoo, MI
Education: San Jose State University, De Anza College, Yale University
Titus Kaphar is a painter whose work reconfigures and re-envisions American history and art history to include and magnify African-American contributions. With the use of cut-outs, canvas reconstruction, and whitewashing Kaphar creates distinctive images that illustrate the erasure of black history and their achievements while bringing to the front the question of why they were originally removed. Highlighting atrocities with beautiful visual narration.
Notable Works:
BEHIND THE MYTH OF BENEVOLENCE, 2014
DARKER THAN COTTON, 2018
SHIFTING THE GAZE, 2017
THE FIGHT FOR REMEMBRANCE II, 2014
Quote:
I want to make paintings, I want to make sculptures that are honest, that wrestle with the struggles of our past but speak to the diversity and the advances of our present
"Painting is a visual language where everything in the painting is meaningful and important. It's coded
U is for Ulysses Davis - Sculptor
Born 1913 Fitzgerald, GA
Died 1990 Savannah, GA
Davis was a self-taught sculptor who carved wood such as mahogany, cedar, and poplar, to create portraits of historical and biblical figures, realistic animals, fanciful portraits of African tribal leaders, and mythological beasts. Davis designed many of his own tools, applying the metalworking skills he learned as a young man working as a railroad blacksmith and using black shoe polish to stain his work.
Notable Works:
Get Off My Back 1940-70
Strange Fruits 1968
Moses Going to the Mountaintop1990
Quote:
When asked to sell his work Davis would reply
"They're part of me, they’re treasure, and, If I sold these, I'd really be poor.”
V is for Virgil Abloh- Fashion Designer
Born: September 30, 1980, Rockford, IL
Died: November 28, 2021, Chicago, IL
Education: University of Wisconsin–Madison (BS), Illinois Institute of Technology (MA)
Abloh was a trained architect, fashion designer, and entrepreneur.
Founder of luxury streetwear clothing brands Pyrex Vision and Off-White. Abloh was appointed artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear collection in 2018. The first African-American to be artistic director at a French luxury fashion house.
Notable Works:
Pyrex Vision "Religion" Caravaggio Hoodie 2012
Off-White™ x Nike Air Jordan 1 2017
Louis Vuitton Virgil Abloh Fall/Winter 2020 Show
Quote:
"Everything I do is for the 17-year-old version of myself"
"Black influence has created a new ecosystem, which can grow and support different types of life that we couldn't before”
K is for Kehinde Wiley - Painter
Born: February 28, 1977, Los Angeles, CA
Education: San Francisco Art Institute, Yale University
Wiley is a portrait painter who is known for his masterful skill, and naturalistic depictions of black people that reference the work of traditional Old Master paintings posed as royal or religious figures with floral pattern backgrounds.
Notable Works:
President Barak Obama 2018
Three Wise Men Greeting Entry into Lagos 2008
Three Graces, 2023
Quote:
Artists are those people who sit at the intersection between the known and unknown, the rational and irrational, coming to terms with some of the confusing histories we, as artists, deal with.
"You throw yourself into moments of fear, and on the other side of it—if you survive—are the rewards.”
X is for Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller - Sculptor
Born: June 9, 1877, Philadelphia, PA
Died: March 18, 1968 (age 90 years), Framingham, MA
Education: The University of the Arts, Académie Colarossi
Fuller was a sculptor known for her groundbreaking depictions of the African and African-American experience. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, as well as the Harlem Renaissance, Many of Fuller’s pieces depicted history Religion, and the journey of many of African descent through the diaspora.
Notable Works:
Waterboy I, 1930
Danse Macabre , 1914,
Ethiopia, 1921.
Quote:
Art must be the quintessence of meaning. Creative art means that you create yourself.
Y is for Brenna Youngblood- Mixed Media
Born: 1979 (age 46 years), Riverside, CA
Education: California State University, Long Beach (B.F.A.), University of California, Los Angeles (M.F.A.)
Youngblood is known for creating photographic collages, sculptures, and paintings. Her work explores issues of African-American identity and representation, often referencing historically significant moments and organizations in African-American history.
Notable Works:
Democratic Dollar, 2015
The Army, 2005
Brassvase, 2004
TOWER OF POWER, 2017
Quote:
I enjoy people’s interpretations, what they bring from their lives, and their experiences, I enjoy the ambiguity of my work.
Z is for Zelda "Jackie" Ormes -Cartoonist
Born: August 1, 1911, Pittsburgh, PA
Died: December 26, 1985 (age 74 years), Chicago, IL
Ormes created her first comic strip, Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem, in the Pittsburgh Courier on May 1, 1937. Torchy Brown became the first comic strip created by an African-American woman to be nationally distributed. Torchy's story was about. A teenage girl who travels from Mississippi to New York City to become a singing sensation, whose path mirrored the journey of many African-Americans who ventured northward from the South during the Great Migration.
In August 1945, Ormes created Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger, a single-panel cartoon about sisters, social and political commentary which ran for 11 years.
In 1947 Patty Jo dolls were produced based on her little girl cartoon character which are now highly sought-after collectibles.
Quote:
"I have never liked dreamy little women who can't hold their own."
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