Black Artists Are Slowly But Surely Making Strides In The Art World
When you think about the struggles that Black people have had in this country, discrimination often comes to mind. Some of the most innovative inventions, music styles, and cultural trends were created by Blacks, frequently without being properly credited. In many arenas, Black people have been written out of history altogether. The art world is no different. It has been dominated by artists of European descent for centuries as evidenced by the collections displayed in museums all over the country.
Until recent years, Blacks were grossly underrepresented--and not because they don't exist, but because they have been deliberately excluded. In an effort to re-write art history and make it a more accurate representation of the American experience, museum and art gallery curators are scouring the landscape in search of Black artists whose works were created during the 20th century and were virtually ignored by the establishment.
According to Lowery Stokes Sims, the first Black curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art who later became the president of the Studio Museum in Harlem, “There was a joke for a long time that if you went into a museum, you’d think America had only two black artists — Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden — and even then, you wouldn’t see very much. I think there is a sea change finally happening. It’s not happening everywhere, and there’s still a long way to go, but there’s momentum.”
Painter and printmaker Eldzier Cortor (1916-2015) is one of many artists whose work was once overlooked and is now being embraced. Some say that recognition this late in his career is bittersweet. Not only are Black artists just starting to narrow the gap of disparity in representation, they are also struggling with the disparity in earnings. Artwork created by black artists is still undervalued compared to their contemporaries, largely in part due to their forced anonymity. Many artists will not live to reap the financial benefits of their new-found fame. Cortor died in November 2015.
Black women have been virtually invisible from the museum and gallery scene. Los Angeles-based sculptors Betye Saar (89) and her daughter Alison are living through this changing trend. Betye remembers how Black artists were sooner well-received on the East Coast than out west, though she never felt the need to leave California to make it. Art is their family business and she is happy to pass the baton to Alison.
Not all members of the art world establishment have been blind to the existence of works by people of color. Trailblazing institutions with long-standing support of Black artists include Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Newark Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art (now closed), Howard University, and Clark Atlanta University.
The museums are now trying to catch up. Edmund Barry Gaither, director of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Boston, says that art shows from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s are credited for opening curators' eyes forcing, "...curators and historians to admit there was a whole body of art out there they hadn’t known. They showed how a discussion about African-American art is inseparable from a discussion of American art. One can’t exist without the other.”
This kind of progress is certainly a step in the right direction toward giving a historically underrepresented segment of our population their due. Some very talented individuals will finally get their moments in the sun before it sets. And for some up and coming artists, they will inherit the legacy of their predecessors. In this case, late is better than never.
