Harlem+Renaissance+Artists

Group B. Find a Harlem Renaissance era painter, other visual artist, or non-musical performer and post a link both to this VISTA assignment and to the related WIKI page. Also include a short description/analysis of the piece of art. We will cover in class the details of this.

__Works of Archibald J. Motley Jr.__

__Works of Palmer Hayden__ By //Alyssa Turner//



Palmer Hayden was a controversial Harlem Renaissance painter. He lived from 1890 to 1973. He was hired to paint a series on African American soldiers by Creative Artist Public Service Program (CAPS) of New York in 1973. Palmer generally painted "ordinary people doing ordinary work with such vitality that it transcended all ethnic boundaries." This sparked a controversy from other African American people because they were upset about how Palmer portrayed African Americans doing racist things.

Sarah Barron



“Chain Gang” is a Harlem Renaissance period piece done by William H. Johnson in 1939. This oil painting was done on plywood, and can now be found in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It depicts African Americans hard at work, showing the intense labor of a chain gang. Johnson could have seen gangs like this one growing up in South Carolina, and wanted to show this pain of the South in his new life. Johnson was born in Florence, South Carolina, in 1901 and died in Central Islip, New York in 1970. During Johnson’s lifetime, he moved to Harlem right when the Renaissance was just beginning. There he went to the national Academy of Design, learning everything he needed to create a career for himself that would take him to places like North Africa and Europe. Sarah Barron