Arts

Joseph Delaney self portrait
Joseph Delaney, Self Portrait, 1933. Oil on canvas. McClung Historical Collection/Knox County Public Library. Full Record.

African American artists and writers joined the ranks of modernists who re-shaped American culture in the early twentieth century. By portraying contemporary life in words and pictures, they opened a window onto the sophisticated intellectual and social spheres of New York, Washington, and Chicago.

Aaron Douglas depicted African American accomplishment in a bold style of mural painting that caught the imagination of art patrons and educators. So, too, did the jazz-era prose and music lyrics of James Weldon Johnson, the novels of Zora Neale Hurston, and the astounding poetry of Langston Hughes.

 

Lesson Plan: Depictions of the William Blount Mansion: Photography versus Drawings

 

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