June Issue 2001
Journey Towards Sunrise at the Asheville Art Museum in Asheville, NC
The Asheville Art Museum in Asheville, NC, is proud to announce the opening of the exhibition, A Journey Towards Sunrise on view through July 1.
This exhibition will feature prints by 20th century American masters Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence and John Biggers; accompanied by a selection of works by contemporary artists Beverly Buchanan, Juan Logan, Clarence Morgan and Tarleton Blackwell. These seven important artists are all associated with the Carolinas. The first three artists participated in the Harlem Renaissance or were directly influenced by it. The Harlem Renaissance is a period from about 1920 to 1930 that saw an incredible flowering of art, literature and music. The Renaissance encouraged an exploration of African American culture and creativity. Black Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage and to become "The New Negro," a term coined in 1925 by sociologist and critic Alain LeRoy Locke.
Buchanan, Logan and Blackwell are artists who came of age in the generation following the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance, and their work continues to be influenced by the creative explorations that originated in the 1920s.
Romare Bearden (1914-1988) was born in outside
Charlotte, NC. Shortly after his birth the family moved to New
York City. They lived in Harlem where, by the early 1920s, the
Harlem Renaissance was developing. The Bearden family's apartment
became a meeting place for Harlem intellectuals and jazz musicians.
Thus, at an early age Bearden became immersed in politics and
music. Bearden's work explores history, community and the struggles
of individuals to overcome the obstacles of daily life.
Romare Bearden developed a technique in which he would paint broad
areas of color on various thicknesses of rice paper and then glue
these papers onto canvas. Bearden would then tear sections of
the paper away until a motif emerged. He received many honors
and awards during his life including the North Carolina Medal
of the State and the National Medal of the Arts.
Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000), as both a storyteller
and a historian, interpreted the history, the daily life and the
struggles of African Americans for over sixty years. He did this
through his own style, one that is at once representational and
abstract.
Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, NJ and in 1930 he settled
in New York City with his family. In 1932 he took classes at the
College Art Association, and studied under Charles Alston at the
Harlem Art Workshop. He enrolled in Federal Art Project classes
from 1934-37. In 1938 he had his first solo exhibition in the
Harlem YMCA and joined the WPA Federal Art Project easel section.
Lawrence and Bearden were friends in New York City.
Lawrence married Gwendolyn Wright in 1941. He created his paintings in series, some of his earliest projects focused on Frederick Douglas and Toussant L'Overture. The later series - several examples of which are represented in this exhibition - focused on the Black general who led a successful slave revolt against the French in Haiti. In 1943 he moved to Brooklyn, and was inducted into the US Coast Guard. After a one-man show in 1944, the Museum of Modern Art circulated his Migration of the Negro series nationally. He was discharged from the Coast Guard in 1945, and in the summer of 1946 taught at Black Mountain College with his wife.
Lawrence was accorded many honors in his life. In 1974 the Whitney Museum of American Art organized a retrospective of his work. In 1978 he was commissioned to paint a mural for the Kingdome Stadium in Seattle, and in 1979, was commissioned to paint a mural at Howard University. He was invited to the White House by President Carter to celebrate ten black artists in 1980. In 1984, Lawrence was commissioned to do a mural for the University of Washington, and was awarded the Washington State Governor's Arts Award.
John Biggers (1924-2001) was born in Gastonia, NC, in a shotgun house built by his father. He was the youngest of seven children born to Paul and Cora Biggers. His father was a Baptist preacher, schoolteacher, principal of a three-room school, shoemaker, and farmer. His mother did laundry and cooked for wealthy families in the area.
Biggers studied at Lincoln Academy and Hampton
Institute, now Hampton University, a historically black college
in Virginia, planning to study the practical trade of plumbing.
During his first year there, he enrolled in an art class. While
at Hampton, Biggers was introduced to the art of the American
Regionalists and the Mexican muralists. He also was influenced
by figures prominent in the Harlem Renaissance.
In 1943 Biggers was drafted into the U.S. Navy. In 1949 he moved
to Houston, where he became the founding chairman of the art department
at Texas Southern University, then called Texas State University
for Negroes. He held that position for thirty-four years. In 1957
Biggers made his first trip to Africa, one of the first American
black artists to do so, to study African traditions and culture.
The experience transformed his life and work. On his return, Biggers
created a visual diary of his travels, Ananse: The Web of Life
in Africa. The book, published by the University of Texas
Press in 1962, included eighty-nine drawings and accompanying
text. In Black Art, Ancestral Legacy, Alvia Wardlaw wrote
about Biggers's resulting works such as Three Kings and Jubilee:
"That such glorious celebrations of the beauty and power
of African culture were executed in the heart of segregated Texas
is testimony to the enormous impact Africa had on this talented
artist." From his retirement until his death, Biggers devoted
all his time to his art. "Four Seasons", the print included
in this exhibition, depicts four African American women standing
in front of their shotgun houses. Each woman represents a different
season of the year. The geometric patterns that Biggers uses to
create the work relates to African textiles such as Kuba cloth.
The use of the shotgun house is also symbolic. Small, one room
wide, these houses are found in many lower income neighborhoods.
For Biggers shotgun house is a corruption of "shogun"
house, in the Yoruba language, god's house.
The contemporary artists in the exhibition include:
Beverly Buchanan (1940-) was born in Fuquay; NC grew up in Orangeburg, SC. She received a BS in medical technology from Bennett College, Greensboro, NC, in 1962, before earning master's degrees in Parasitology and Public Health from Columbia University, NY, in 1968 and 1969. In 1971 she attended art classes at the Art Student's League in NY leading to her first solo exhibition at the Cinque Gallery NY in 1972. By 1977 she settled in Georgia to devote full attention to art. In 1980 she was awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has been exhibiting regularly since 1971.
Buchanan's early sculpture demonstrated an innate interest in the architecture of poverty. Made of cast concrete, clay, pigment and other materials, these primeval, block-like forms conveyed a sense of archaeological ruin and mystery. Buchanan's art gradually evolved from abstract, organic forms into the expressionistic, representational works she executes today. Her sculptures are based, in part, on the sharecropper shacks that can be found along the back roads of the rural south. Buchanan's sculpture and drawings challenge the icons of hopelessness; they are elegies that salute the integrity, resilience and resolution of man.
Juan Logan (1946-) was born in Nashville, Tennessee. At age two he moved with his family to the mountains of Western NC near Marion. He is both a sculptor and a painter. He studied at Clark College, Howard University and the Maryland College of Art. His subjects range from masked figures to old-time camp meetings. His works have been exhibited throughout the US. Logan currently lives in Chapel Hill, NC.
Shape and form are important aspects of Logan's work. His art is highly symbolic; his vocabulary includes neckties, houses, crosses and angular leg shapes. These forms refer to "trusted" individuals, those who protect the community. Hooded figures appear in many of Logan's images. While the reference to the KKK is obvious and menacing, Logan attempts to expand the idea of the concealed figure to include the masks that most people wear and hide behind.
Clarence Morgan (1950-) was born in Philadelphia. He first studied commercial art before enrolling in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1971. In his third year he received a scholarship that enabled him to travel to Europe and North Africa. This trip helped to further Morgan's interest in art history and has had a lasting effect on his art. After graduating from the Academy in 1975, he received an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. Morgan moved to Greenville, NC, after graduation and began teaching at the School of Art of East Carolina University in 1978. In 1990 he participated in a solo exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Art.
Morgan is widely known for his impasto abstracts, characterized by vibrancy and a bold use of color, and dramatic movement. He tends to utilize the contrast of juxtaposition; of sharp geometric shapes and curvilinear forms, together with heavy, thick brushstrokes, with smooth, barely covered surfaces. Additionally, he incorporates obvious male and female forms together in the same canvas; the resulting form is highly androgynous in nature. Morgan currently teaches at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. His frequent travels continue to provide inspiration for his art.
Tarleton Blackwell (1956-) received a BA in art education from Benedict College in SC. He then attended the University of South Carolina, where he received an MA in 1983 and an MFA in 1984. Blackwell's art speaks to his own life, his childhood, family and friends in rural SC. Pigs from his childhood, his dog, his students, and childlike forms, borrowed from his students appear in Blackwell's paintings and drawings. In his more recent works there are occasional references to the paintings of Diego Velasquez (1599 -1660). Blackwell's painting, Hog Series XLIV: Pope Innocent X, shows the Piggly Wiggly pig dressed as Pope Pius X. This painting references not only Velasquez's painting, but also Francis Bacon's (1909-1992) Study After Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. In 1990, Blackwell graduated from the Gipton-Jones College of Funeral Service in Atlanta, Georgia. He has worked as an embalmer at his family's funeral home, and claims that his experience there has given him a greater understanding of the human body. Blackwell is currently an instructor for artistically talented students in grades five through twelve in the Manning and Kingstree districts of SC.
The exhibition includes work from the collection of the Bank of America; Hodges Taylor Gallery, Charlotte, NC; Jerald Melberg Gallery, Charlotte, NC and private collections.
The Asheville Art Museum Shop will feature books and other items related to the exhibition as well as current books on American art of the twentieth century. Museum members receive a 10% discount on all purchases. Proceeds from the Museum Shop support the Museum's public programs.
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or call the museum at 828/253-3227.
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
427, Bonneau, SC 29431
Telephone, Answering Machine and FAX: 843/825-3408
E-Mail: carolinart@aol.com
Subscriptions are available for $18 a year.
Carolina Arts
is published monthly by Shoestring
Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2001 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
Online, Copyright© 2001 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved
by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use
without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina
Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.