Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
MTA Member The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) in New York City, is launching a groundbreaking exhibition showcasing 160 works of art by African-American artists from the time of the Harlem Renaissance, through July 28th.
The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism exhibit features works by some of the greatest Black artists of the 20th century, whose impact took shape in the 1920s-40s. The exhibition includes 160 works of art by artists such as Charles Alston, Aaron Douglas, Meta Warrick Fuller, William H. Johnson, Archibald Motley, Winold Reiss, Augusta Savage, James Van Der Zee, and Laura Wheeler Waring. These artists and their works represent the era of the Great Migration, which saw millions of African Americans moving from the segregated rural South to metropolitan areas such as New York City. The effect of this mass migration and World War I is the development of a new cosmopolitan Black aesthetic finding its place as a part of modern art worldwide.
Denise Murrell, curator of The Met, describes the message of the exhibit, stating "It was about breaking down this idea that to be American was to be white, to be European was to be white, and to show the multicultural aspect of both of these populations in the 1920s through the 1940s." The exhibit relies heavily on contributions of paintings. sculpture and works on paper from collections of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery.
The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism exhibit features works by some of the greatest Black artists of the 20th century, whose impact took shape in the 1920s-40s. The exhibition includes 160 works of art by artists such as Charles Alston, Aaron Douglas, Meta Warrick Fuller, William H. Johnson, Archibald Motley, Winold Reiss, Augusta Savage, James Van Der Zee, and Laura Wheeler Waring. These artists and their works represent the era of the Great Migration, which saw millions of African Americans moving from the segregated rural South to metropolitan areas such as New York City. The effect of this mass migration and World War I is the development of a new cosmopolitan Black aesthetic finding its place as a part of modern art worldwide.
Denise Murrell, curator of The Met, describes the message of the exhibit, stating "It was about breaking down this idea that to be American was to be white, to be European was to be white, and to show the multicultural aspect of both of these populations in the 1920s through the 1940s." The exhibit relies heavily on contributions of paintings. sculpture and works on paper from collections of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery.
