Clark Atlanta Museum art featured in Met Museum’s ‘Harlem Renaissance’ show

Credit: Courtesy of Clark University Art Museum

Credit: Courtesy of Clark University Art Museum

In addition to William H. Johnson’s 1943 painting, which is the signature media image for the show, Clark Atlanta loaned “Woman with Kerchief” (1939); a ceramic sculpture by William Artis; “Mr. and Mrs. Barton” (1942), a painting by John N. Robinson Jr.; “Friends” (1942), a lithograph by Margaret Taylor Goss; and “Pickets” (1946), a serigraph by Roy DeCarava, which happens to be the final piece in the show.

“Harlem Renaissance” celebrates the movement, born in New York in the 1920s, and seeks to establish its centrality in the development of international modern art.

But the loans have a story to tell as well. Some 40 percent of the 160 works in the exhibition have been borrowed from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), including Fisk University Galleries, Hampton University Museum and Howard University Gallery of Art, as well as Clark Atlanta Museum.

From their inception, the HBCUs collected and preserved works by Black artists that the rest of the art world ignored. Clark Atlanta University played a special role in that effort. In 1942, Professor Hale Aspacio Woodruff, whose epic mural series, “The Art of the Negro,” graces the atrium of Trevor Arnett Hall in the museum’s antechamber, established the Atlanta University Art Annual competition. Alain Locke, one of the leading thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance, gave the inaugural address.

Credit: Sheila Pree

Credit: Sheila Pree

By the time the program ended in 1970, the Annual had exhibited works by 900 artists and purchased 291 of their works. In fact, except for “Woman in Blue,” a gift from the William E. Harmon Foundation, all the CAUAM pieces on loan were acquired as Atlanta Annual purchase awards.

For Clark Atlanta Museum, participation is bringing many benefits. The Met, for instance, funded the conservation of the Johnson painting and the Artis sculpture. More far-reaching are the increased visibility, respect, pride and opportunities that come with partnering with one of the world’s greatest museums.

CAU Museum Director Danille Taylor, among those who attended the opening festivities in late February, was able to meet with alumni, collectors and other potential friends of the museum on a scale not previously possible. She plans to continue to take advantage of the partnership.

“I want to leverage this visibility to raise the museum’s profile,” she says. “I realize that our strength is our collection . . . They can’t do these shows without us [the HCBUs].”

Credit: Photo courtesy of Clark Atlanta University Art Museum

Credit: Photo courtesy of Clark Atlanta University Art Museum

Case in point: The museum is loaning works to the Brooklyn Museum for “Elizabeth Catlett: A Revolutionary Black Artist and All That It Implies,” which opens next September and will travel to the National Gallery of Art in Washington and The Art Institute of Chicago.

Taylor will return to the Met in April to participate in a panel discussion, and she is bringing her young staff with her. “I want them to see the art in this venue, hear the conversations and build their pride as well.”

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Catherine Fox, an award-winning art critic, co-founded ArtsATL and served as its executive director and executive editor for five years. Fox was the art critic for The Atlanta Journal Constitution from 1981 to 2009.

Credit: ArtsATL

Credit: ArtsATL

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