#blackartist

Your art history post for today: by African-American artist Charles White (1918–1979), “General Moses and Sojourner Truth,” 1954, wolff carbon pencil and white chalk over traces of graphite pencil, 27 7/8 in x 38 inches, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, ©The Charles White Archives. #arthistory #blackart #blackartist #BlackHistory #drawing From the museum: ‘Charles White’s 1954 drawing General Moses and Sojourner Truth, represents two famed African American women who fought for equality in different ways. Harriet Tubman is presented in the guise of “General Moses,” grasping a staff like the one Moses used to part the Red Sea. The intellectual nature of Sojourner Truth’s writings and speeches in support of abolitionism and women’s rights is suggested through her upward gaze, in contrast to Tubman’s direct engagement with the viewer.’

By Aaron Douglas (1899-1979), "Harriet Tubman," 1931, oil on canvas, 54 × 72" (137.1 X 182.9 cm), Bennett College, Greensboro, N.C. #arthistory #blackhistory #blackhistory #blackart #blackartist #art #painting #oilpainting From the Camden Civil Rights Project: 'Douglas uses modernist imagery to depict the slave era heroine, Harriet Tubman, who was responsible for leading more than three hundred slaves to freedom by way of the Underground Railroad. Douglas wrote that he portrayed Tubman "as a heroic leader breaking the shackles of bondage and pressing on toward a new day." Behind her and stretching back symbolically to Africa are the black men and women who toiled and prayed through three hundred years of servitude. "The group of figures to the right... symbolizes the newly liberated people as laborers and heads of families. The last figure symbolizes the dreamer who looks out towards higher and nobler vistas, the modern city, for his race. He represents the preachers, teachers, artists, and musicians of the group. The beam of light that cuts through the center of the picture symbolizes divine inspiration.”’