Harlem Renaissance

also: New Negro movement

movement c. 1918-1935 United States

The Harlem Renaissance was the extraordinary flowering of African American art, literature, and music centered on the Harlem neighborhood of New York from the end of the First World War to the mid-1930s. Fueled by the Great Migration and by Alain Locke's anthology The New Negro (1925), its writers, musicians, and artists replaced inherited stereotypes with images of Black life made by Black creators. Journals like The Crisis and Opportunity sponsored prizes and commissioned cover art; painters and sculptors such as Aaron Douglas, Augusta Savage, and Archibald Motley fused African motifs and modernist form to portray jazz-age city life and African American history. The movement brought Black art to a national audience for the first time. It faded with the Great Depression, but its assertion of Black identity and modern style prepared the ground for later African American art.

Three African American women in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance, ca. 1925
Three African American women in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance, ca. 1925CC BY-SA 4.0 (credit: Public Domain) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Stylized flat silhouettes drawing on African masks and Egyptian motifs
  • Jazz-age scenes of Black urban life: clubs, dance halls, and street processions
  • Bold, saturated color with rhythmic, syncopated composition
  • Portraiture that asserts Black dignity, beauty, and identity
  • Murals and public art narrating African American history
  • Modernist simplification fused with imagery of the African diaspora

Key figures

  • Alain Locke (1885-1954) — Howard University philosopher whose anthology The New Negro (1925) defined the movement
  • Aaron Douglas (1899-1979) — The movement's signature painter, known for silhouette murals of Black history
  • Augusta Savage (1892-1962) — Sculptor and teacher who ran a vital Harlem studio for young Black artists
  • Archibald Motley (1891-1981) — Painter of vibrant jazz-age Black nightlife and street life
  • Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877-1968) — Sculptor of expressive, African-inspired figures such as Ethiopia Awakening

Example works

  • Aspects of Negro Life — Aaron Douglas (1934)
  • Black Belt — Archibald Motley (1934)
  • Ethiopia Awakening — Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1921)

Sources

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