AFRICAN AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN
ART HISTORY 107
FALL SEMESTER 2003
THE COURSE SCHEDULE

INSTRUCTOR: RAYMOND HOLBERT

This course will cover the history of African American art through a brief background survey of West African art and through American art history. A survey of African tribal art and spiritual practices through the art produced before the slave trade. A survey of African-American art from the earliest crafts produced by slaves through sculpture, printmaking and painting produced by free African-Americans, through the colonial and Civil War period, reconstruction and the "Great Northern Migration." The northern and southern approaches to the practice and the history of art done by African-Americans and other American counterparts that made American art unique. The Harlem Renaissance, W.P.A., Civil Rights, Protest art, and contemporary art will be covered as unique contributions of art. Parallels in American art and an examination of "the art of exclusion" of African-Americans from the history of American art.

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THE DAILY COURSE SCHEDULE

• T August 19: INTRODUCTION
  CHAPTER ONE AND TWO: WILLETT BOOK
  The purpose and design of the course. Initial handouts, outlines, schedule, book list, explanations. Africa as a background to African American art.

• R August 21 AFRICAN ART
  CHAPTER THREE: WILLETT BOOK
  Background of African art and the geography of West and Central Africa. The Green Sahara, Tassili and Tibesti Regions. Ancient Civilizations: The Nok, The Jenné, The Ife. The early Art of Rock carving and cave painting. Nomadic and Agrarian societies.

• T August 26 AFRICAN SOCIETIES AND ART
  CHAPTER THREE: WILLETT BOOK
  Art and tribal practices: Animism, spiritualism, all art is functional. Spirits, nature, harmony and variety of art. Materials and techniques, Influence of other cultures on the art. Inter tribal differences in the art. People oriented, Animal oriented and combination oriented art. The Magician and the artist. Levels of status. The differences in coastal and inland societies.

• R August 28: ANCIENT ART
  CHAPTER THREE: WILLETT BOOK
  Nok and Ife civilizations. Terra cotta figures, Bronze and copper cast figures and the lost wax process. Great Benin as a Royal society. Connections with Europe. Court society. The destruction of this civilization. Ancient Sculpture. Durable and non-durable art.

• T September 2: MASKS (Spirit oriented)
  CHAPTER FOUR AND FIVE: WILLETT BOOK
  The categories, variations and purposes. The Face mask. The purpose of masks and surrounding rituals. The importance of the costume and peer support of the ceremony.

• R September 4: FIGURES (Human oriented) ART OF RITUAL DISPLAY (Ritual Oriented)
  CHAPTER SIX: WILLETT BOOK
  Ancestor figures: The purpose and practice of the figure. Spiritual representation. Scale and status. Guardianship. Fetish Figures: The magician-artist. Practice of spiritual alchemy. Need for and making of figures. Principal locations and meanings. Funerary and Reliquary figures: Purposes, characteristics and locations. Practices and techniques.

• T September 9: BODY ART, UTILITY ART, OPEN DISCUSSION, REVIEW OF AFRICAN ART
  The practice of functional art for daily use. Body art: The use of the human body in tribal society as a form of art. Scarification. Body adornment. Body painting. Hair decoration. Locations and times of adornment.

• R September 11: SURVEY OF EUROPEAN ART:
  PATTEN BOOK: Chapter 1
  Examples of the art produced in Europe 1500-1850. The contrast, approaches and practices between European and African art.

• T September 16 QUIZ #1 (AFRICAN ART) CULTURAL DEPRAVITY AND SLAVERY 1616-1865:
  The Great Triangular Trade and the slave trade: Trade locations. European trade and colonization: France, England, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Holland, Belgium. Reasons for it. How it changed the Western world and linked America and Europe. North and South America and the dispersal of Africans to the Western hemisphere. Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana and other ports of entry. Cultural differences between slaves from the colonies, central and South America and the Caribbean.

• R September 18: THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY
  Afram male and female roles. The Craft Heritage: African-American contributions to the building of the Colonies through crafts. The evolution from African to African-American arts and crafts. Slave occupations and establishment other than farming and field work. Carpentry, Ironworkers, Smiths, pottery, basketry, quilts. Early American Archeology. From the original 13 colonies to the south.

• T September 23: EUROPEAN INFLUENCE ON THE COLONIES. THE MAINSTREAM
  Images of African-Americans in Fine Art: The earliest images of African-Americans by European and American non-Afram painters. A visual survey of the Afram image 1550-1850.

• R September 25: AMERICAN RELIANCE ON THE EUROPEAN ARTISTIC TRADITION
  European traditions influence American art. The Portrait, Landscape, Still-life, Marine painting and Genre Painting of everyday life become standard practices in Colonial American Art.

• T September 30: AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTISTS/AMERICAN ART TRADITION
  The church as cultural center of American-Americans. The emergence of professional artists: Scipio Morehead/Joshua Johnston. Free blacks and the abolitionists movement: Patrick Henry Reason. Discrimination and the problem of Patronage. The Journeyman Artists from the Colonial period to the mid 19th century.

• R October 2: AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTISTS OF AMERICAN ART /EMANCIPATION AND CULTURAL DILEMMA 1865-1920-THE AMERICAN MAINSTREAM:
  PATTEN BOOK: Chapter 2
  The first major landscape painter: Robert Stuart Duncanson. The Diverse search for professional status: Charles Ethan Porter/Edward Mitchell Bannister/Grafton Tyler Brown/Mary Edmonia Lewis/Henry Ossawa Tanner/May Howard Jackson/Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller/William Edouard Scott. The emergence of photography. Study in Europe: From the mid 19th century to World War 1:

• T October 7: OPEN DISCUSSION AND REVIEW
  Characteristics of the Colonial through Civil War period.

• R October 9: MIDTERM EXAMINATION
  

• T October 14: EMANCIPATION AND CULTURAL DILEMMA:
  PATTEN BOOK: Chapter 3
  The "Great Northern Migration" and moving from the south to the north after the Civil War. Population changes and greater opportunities.

• R October 16: THE EUROPEAN CONNECTION TO AFRICAN AND INTERNATIONAL ART
  African Art and its' influence on Modern art from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Pablo Picasso, Maurice DeVlaminck, André Derain, Amedeo Modigliani, and others. The influence of the spiritual arts on the Avant Garde of Europe. The leadership and the philosophy of Alain Locke as a spokesman for the "New Negro."

• T October 21: THE EFFECT OF MODERN ART-THE MAINSTREAM
  Change in European art. The 1913 Armory exhibition at the N.Y. Military Armory. The continued development of European art. The effect on American art. Passing the leadership of the art world to America.

• R October 23: NEW AMERICANISM AND ETHNIC IDENTITY 1920-1940:
  PATTEN BOOK Chapter 3
  The New Negro between World War 1 to World war II. From "Genre" art to the "Ashcan School" to "Social Realism." The continued Emergence of photography. Aaron Douglas as the most significant artists in Harlem during the Renaissance. Contributions of non Aframs to the "New Negro" movement: Winold Reiss, Betsy Graves Reyneau, Carl Van Vechten, Doris Ullman, Miguel Covarrubias as visual documentarians of Afram cultural images. James A. Porter and James V. Herring as significant educators. James Van Der Zee, and Richard S. Roberts as a principal photographers and their predecessors; P.H. Polk, Addison Scurlock.

• T October 28: NEW AMERICANISM AND ETHNIC IDENTITY 1930-1945
  The spread of the Harlem Movement. The continuation of study in Europe: From the early 20th century to World War II. The African-American in paris.

• R October 30: NEW AMERICANISM AND ETHNIC IDENTITY 1930-1945
  The William E. Harmon Foundation and featured artists: Images of African Americans and their environments as depicted by African-American Artists. Social Realism and Murals

• T November 4: NEW AMERICANISM AND ETHNIC IDENTITY 1930-1945
  What painting depicted about African-Americans: Images of Social Realism of American life and environments. The continued stream of study by Aframs to Europe. How printmaking provided a greater perspective on Afram culture, visual and social communication.

• R November 6: SELF TAUGHT ARTISTS
  Naïves (Primitives?) self taught artists. Urban and Rural approaches William Edmonson/Horace Pippin/Clementine Hunter/Sister Gertrude Morgan.

• T November 11: OPEN SESSION AND REVIEW
  Review of the middle period 1865-1945

• R November 13: QUIZ #2 (AFRICAN-AMERICAN ART)
  

• T November 18: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL AWARENESS 1940-1960:
  PATTEN BOOK: Chapter 4
  Charles Alston, Charles White, Hale Woodruff. The W.P.A. and its¹ Legacy. Influences of the Mexican Muralists: Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueros and Jose Clemente Orozco. Influence of Mexican printmakers on Charles White, Charles Alston, Hale Woodruff, John Wilson, Elizabeth Catlett, Lois Jones and John Biggers. Mural Art as a contributor to Cultural and Social Awareness.

• R November 20: CIVIL RIGHTS
  The civil rights era and the continued influence of the church as cultural center. Imagery by African-American artists continue to visually illustrate social conditions. Martin Luther King and Civil Rights. Roy deCarava and Gordon Parks as photographers.

• T November 25 POLITICAL AND CULTURAL AWARENESS 1960-1970¹s THE BLACK ART MOVEMENT.
  Art work directly related to the movement of liberation and equality. protest art. African art influences. The use of the American flag as a protest symbol. Africobra and its' doctrine of formula art. Art created by African American Artists of a new generation and the emergence of Post modern art.

• DECEMBER 2-----------TERM PAPER IS DUE!-------------DECEMBER 2
  

• T December 2 THE CONTEMPORARY DIASPORA 1980-1994-THE MAINSTREAM
  Is there a mainstream? Mainstream now. Contemporary directions in African American Art: The Time Arts: Performances/Environments/Installations/Video/multimedia/computers/sound.

• R December 4 THE CONTEMPORARY DIASPORA 1980-1994-THE MAINSTREAM (CONTINUED)
  Is there a mainstream? Mainstream now. Contemporary directions in African American Art: The Time Arts: Performances/Environments/Installations/Video/multimedia/computers/sound.

• T December 9 CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART
  Locations of so much confiscated art. Private collectors. The influence of African art on world cultures. Museum locations and contemporary directions of modern African Art.

• R December 11: OVERFLOW/FLEX DAY
  

• FINAL EXAMINATION TO BE ANNOUNCED

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  Required Texts:

  • African Art: Frank Willett
  • African American Art: Sharon F. Patton

  Recommended Texts:

  • Black Art And Culture In the 20th Century: Richard Powell
  • A Short Guide to Writing About Art: Sylvan Barnet
  • African-American Art and Artists: Henderson and Bearden