New Negro Artists and Post-War American Modernism: A Reconsideration
The study of American modernism tends to move through a series of major phases, with World War II as a historical divider between movements such as Regionalism and American Scene and later developments in formal abstraction associated with the New York School. Many scholars have adhered to this paradigm as a way of privileging post-war abstraction as an evolutionary triumph that left the more narrative art of the pre-war era behind. In this thesis, I argue for a reconfiguration of this structure to discover more continuity in how artists in the United States responded to the events of their time. Of particular concern is how certain artists used creative strategies originated in the 1930s to address the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s during an era when formal abstraction was predominant. The artists who began their careers in the late Harlem Renaissance, specifically those associated with Charles Alston, provide a case study in how American modernism can be reconsidered along these lines to become more inclusive. By concentrating on the Alston cohort, I demonstrate how race and racism was a factor in protecting the legacy of a small group of white artists in the 1950s while simultaneously minimizing the contributions of other artists who were not white. Race is an important factor in understanding this phenomenon, especially when considering how Black artists in the 1950s and 60s used their work both to engage with the currents of mainstream modernist innovation and to speak to the social changes of the civil rights era.
African American Art, American Art, Charles Alston, Modernism, Norman Lewis, Spiral Group
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