Study for Aspects of Negro Life: The Negro in an African Setting

Aaron DouglasWW-1934-139384

1934·Gouache, with touches of graphite, on illustration board·37.2 × 40.6 cm (14 11/16 × 16 in.)

<p>Aaron Douglas made this finished study for the first of five murals intended for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library. The murals depict the history of African Americans, from their origins in Africa to life in America in the 1930s. Blending Egyptian figures in profile and West African masks with cubism and art deco, Douglas utilized a hybrid Western-African aesthetic that became a hallmark of the Harlem Renaissance.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1934
Medium: Gouache, with touches of graphite, on illustration board
Dimensions: 37.2 × 40.6 cm (14 11/16 × 16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Aaron Douglas

Artist

Aaron Douglas

Drawing

Aaron Douglas is an American artist recognized as a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Working primarily in painting and mural-making, he developed a distinctive graphic vocabulary of silhouetted figures, concentric circles, and muted, layered color planes drawn from African sculptural traditions and Art Deco geometry. His murals for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem remain among his most significant public works.

Topeka, United States

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