By Genette Nowak
The galleries dedicated to the artistic sensibilities of the twentieth century at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (the RISD Museum) now reveal a more complete story with the modern vision of Aaron Douglas (1899-1979), told through his oil painting, the cover image for this issue, Building More Stately Mansions (20×16 inches). There are many reasons to be excited about this paintingmost notably that it has never before been exhibited. The painting was completed in 1944 as a variation on a larger canvas of the same name that is a part of the permanent collection at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Building More Stately Mansions was originally purchased by a colleague of Douglas at Fisk and remained in the owners family until February of 2008 when it went up for auction at Swann Auction Galleries in New York City. It now hangs in the RISD Museums new Twentieth-Century Galleries amid a hundred years of art that uniquely colors American history.
Maureen OBrien, Curator of Painting and Sculpture, explained that the RISD Museum had been looking to enhance and add diversity to their Harlem Renaissance holdings by purchasing an oil painting. They already own the wood sculpture, Negro Head (1922), from RISD alumna Nancy Elizabeth Prophet (class of 1918) who was of African and Narragansett Indian descent and RISDs first graduate of color. Prophet struggled with racial discrimination and a personal ambivalence towards her own heritage. Her family was unsupportive of her artistic inclinations.
The museum also has three works on paper by Romare Bearden: Tidings (color photo offset lithograph, 1973), Man with Moustache and Pipe (graphite, 1940), and Ritual (collage, 1965). Bearden, a famed humanitarian, wove his broad intellect into his visual art and literature. Works like those of Prophet and Bearden help to narrate RISDs story of the Harlem Renaissance but, Maureen OBrien told Tribe, Very specifically, we didnt have a painting. The museum wasnt seeking an Aaron Douglas exclusively but upon learning of the auction of Building More Stately Mansions, they seized the opportunity and were able to beat the bushes, as OBrien put it, referring to the fierce bidding competition.
Building More Stately Mansions was heavily influenced by the external world in which Aaron Douglas came of age. In 1925 the Kansas-born Douglas moved to New York City during the emerging and hopeful cultural movement sometimes referred to as the New Negro Movement. In New York, he was able to immerse himself in the growing cultural movement now known as the Harlem Renaissance. Douglas became a thread in an intricate pattern made up of artists, writers and musicians, a cornucopia of progressive and proactive creativity. In the coming years he illustrated for magazines and books, painted canvases and murals and studied under the German-born American artist Winold Reiss who encouraged Douglas to unearth his African roots. The great irony of Douglas work is that he initially had no interest in retelling African culture. Through his natural growth and constant desire to become more educated, Douglas was able to blend his African ancestry with his knowledge, allowing him to develop his modernist style.
As seen in the painting, Douglas was inspired by the silhouettes and architecture of the city that blossomed around him. OBrien pointed out that the concentric bands move throughout the canvas to represent waves of consciousness and intellectual development. Douglas interest in history and human achievement are clearly present in the work. OBrien explained that this painting is not about music, it is not about poetry, it is about the continuity of humans. Building More Stately Mansions allows its audience to feel the experience, intellect and inspiration of its creator. The painting, according to the online publication Art Daily, symbolizes the labor of black men and women in the creation of architectural monuments, silhouetting their active figures against a utopian background.
Silhouettes hold various implements in hand and appear to be dancing into the future. As they rise from the bottom of the canvas they are contrasted in Douglas choice of colors: greens, corals and mauves. OBrien believes that this significant work planted a seed for a future that was tied to hopes and dreams. Building More Stately Mansions clearly demonstrates Douglas own vision of creativity.
Constantly on the hunt for information on art, Aaron Douglas was a Barnes Foundation Fellow and he studied at Académie Scandinave and Columbia University. At Fisk, Douglas served as an artist in residence and later became an assistant professor. His paintings, illustrations and murals celebrate African heritage, the history of his people and how they emerged and would continue to emerge. Douglas was able to fuse tradition and modernism to demonstrate adaptability symbolized in Building More Stately Mansions by his use of geometric repetition and bands of color.
Aaron Douglas work was not without its detractors. Historian and art critic James A. Porter (1902-1970) wrote, [Douglas] took literally the advice of racial apologists and, without a clear conception of African decoration, attempted to imitate in stilted fashion the surface patterns and geometric shapes of African sculpture. It emerges in flat and arid angularities and magnifications of forms which, though decorative, [resemble the] dismemberment of traditional [works of] art.
According to the Swanns website, Building More Stately Mansions was valued between $100,000 and $150,000, but was purchased by RISD for $600,000, a record for an Aaron Douglas work, and made possible by The Lippitt Fund. Frederick Lippitt, before his death in 2005, was a longtime friend of RISD and former Rhode Island House of Representatives minority leader. It is thanks to Lippitts legacy that RISD is able to welcome such a significant work of art into their collection.
Building More Stately Mansions can be viewed at the RISD Museums new Twentieth-Century Galleries that opened in June of 2011, part of a four-year reinstallation of the museums permanent collection. For information visit RISDMuseum.org.