Exhibition Project Proposal

Exhibition Project Proposal

ARTH 302: African American Art
Exhibition Project Proposal

Due Jan. 28
Your name: India Able
Which project option are you doing – A, B, or C-level?
Look at TJC (The Johnson Collection) Checklist pdf to see the artworks available for you to
write about for this project. You can learn more about the artworks here, listed by artist’s last
name. If you are struggling to decide which works to choose, email me to ask for help!
List your first six choices of artworks to include in our exhibition that you would like to write
about. List them in order of your preference – I will try to give everyone their top choices.

1. Bo Bartlett: A Good Summer
2. James McMillan: Mother and Child
3. Neal, Robert: (Fisherman’s House at River’s Edge)
4. Rembert, Winfred: Schoolhouse (The Wood Boy)
5. Scott, William: The Maker of Goblins
6. Sims, Bernice: Tent Revival
   Tell me about why these works interest you – this information will allow me to help each
   student develop a theme. What is most compelling to you about these artworks – are there
   particular mediums, subjects, styles, and/or social and historical issues that you are most
   interested in researching related to these works?
   Each of these artworks were chosen because they all look like pieces of artwork I want to know
   more about and dig deeper into the real meaning of the artwork.
   Some things to consider as you choose works:
   You will not only be writing about these works individually for the exhibition, you will also be writing
   about them in a larger research paper that develops a thematic issue related to these works. You
   should choose artworks that are connected somehow—by subject matter, medium, historical
   context, art movement or style. For example, if you are interested in writing about Black self-
   taught “folk” artists, choose 2-3 works that would fit within that theme. Your thematic framework
   for this can also be creative or unconventional, you don’t have to categorize things as I have
   below, but I made this list to help you think about possible themes.
   Themes and Artists
   Here is a list of some of the major subjects and themes, and corresponding artists on the checklist
   that you might consider choosing based on your interests. There are many ways to categorize
   these artworks – by movement (Harlem Renaissance, social realism), by subject matter
   (landscape, women, the city), by visual and material strategies (abstraction, sculpture), or by other
   thematic concerns around civil rights and the lives of Black people in the 20th century. You’ll notice
   that many artists can be listed across multiple themes, or produced works that could be included
   in multiple categories.
   ARTH 302: African American Art
   Dr. Lex Lancaster
   Folk art / self-taught or visionary artists: Beverly Buchanan, Ulysses Davis, Thorton Dial, Sam
   Doyle, William Edmondson, Minnie Evans, William Hawkins, Clementine Hunter, Gertrude
   Morgan, Elijah Pierce, Winfred Rembert, Bernice Sims, Mose Tolliver, Bill Traylor
   Black feminist perspectives: Emma Amos, Lois Mailou Jones (you could approach many of
   these works from a feminist perspective, even if the work does not transparently reflect that –
   these two artists are just particularly identified with Black feminism)
   Major art movements:
   Social realism: John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, John Howard, Robert Neal, Charles White
   Harlem Renaissance: Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, William H. Johnson, Malvin Gray
   Johnson, Augusta Savage, Dox Thrash, Hale Woodruff
   Visual and Material approaches:
   Abstraction, or non-representational: Charles Alston, Beauford Delaney, Sam Gilliam, Romare
   Bearden, Margaret Burroughs, Felrath Hines, Hayward Oubre, Mavis Pusey, Arthur Rose,
   Thomas Sills, Merton Simpson, Alma Thomas, Mildred Thompson
   Sculptors: William Artis, Barthe Richmond, Leslie Bolling, Selma Burke, Ulysses Davis, Hayward
   Oubre, Elijah Pierce, Augusta Savage, Mose Tolliver, Winston Wingo
   Printmakers: John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Margaret Burroughs, Aaron Douglas, Samella
   Lewis, Lois Mailou Jones, Gwendolyn Knight, Mavis Pusey, Dox Thrash, James Wells, Charles
   White, Hale Woodruff
   Collage: Romare Bearden, James Denmark
   Surrealist imagery: Minnie Evans, Gwendolyn Knight, Leo Twiggs
   Subject Matter:
   Depictions of everyday life: Ernie Barnes, Margaret Burroughs, Claude Clark, Clementine
   Hunter, Wadsworth Jarrell, James McMillan, Arthur Rose
   Portraiture: William Cooper, John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Aaron Douglas, Bernard Goss,
   Phillip Hampton, Edwin Harleston, Charles McGee, William Scott, William Tolliver, Charles White
   Landscapes, cityscapes, space: Benjamin Britt, Caliman Coxe, Joseph Delaney, Robert
   Duncanson, Rex Goreleigh, Palmer Harden, James Herring, William H Johnson, Gwendolyn
   Knight, Delilah Pierce, William Scott, Albert Wells, Hale Woodruff
   Still life painting: Samuel Brown, Clementine Hunter, William H Johnson, Haywood Rivers,
   Albert Wells
   African themes: Margaret Burroughs, Lois Mailou Jones, James Porter, Ellis Wilson
   Religious/Christian themes: Marie Calloway, Romare Bearden, Leo Twiggs, Purvis Young

Exhibition Project Proposal