Ellison’s Train Station 2/12/16 Atl 2- Communications Anita Lee

Observations *The art piece is shaped in a w *There are 3 paths *There are men in bright colored clothing *Painted based off of equal rights* There are 14 doors *Painted in a train station *There are 2 pillars in the front *There are 5 more pillars in the back *Inside the door are people * This piece has alot of gray tones.

Ellison’s Train Station When was this made? What is the meaning? Is it an autobiography? Why are there 3 paths? What is the size of the painting? What do the colors symbolize? Why is it shaped in a w? How did the artist feel? What made the artist decide to paint this? How much is the piece worth?

Artist’s Background Walter Ellison is best known for intimately scaled works that reveal the private lives and shared experiences of African Americans who moved to northern cities from the rural South during the Great Migration between World War I and II. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, Ellison— according to census and draft records—was a farm hand when he and his family came to Chicago in the early 1920s. He attended classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and at Hull House. We don’t know who Ellison studied with, but given the similarities in style and satiric approach, it is likely that Ellison was a follower of Adrian Troy, a painter and printmaker with outspoken leftist sympathies. Ellison was employed on the Illinois Art Project of the WPA and was a founding member of the South Side Community Art Center, with a number of younger black artists, including Margaret Burroughs, Eldzier Cortor, Gordon Parks,and Charles White. By the early 1940s, Ellison’s artistic career seems to have come to a halt; he died in Chicago in 1977.

Research Walter Ellison’s Train Station depicts white and black travelers departing from a central terminal, bound for different cities. The composition reflects the social values of the time, which prevented members of the two races from mixing. On the left, white passengers board trains for vacations in the South, while on the right, African American passengers head for trains going to northern cities such as Chicago and Detroit. In those cities, black travelers hoped to find better jobs and living conditions. The sign reading "colored" above the platform doorway on the right emphasizes the degrading conditions that African Americans in the South faced at the time. In the center section, black porters aid white passengers, yet black travelers are offered such no help. Walter Ellison's Train Station is one of the cleverest, smartest paintings in the Institute. There are three vanishing points that create a "W," which is the first initial in Walter Ellison's name. Walter Ellison is part of the Great Migration.

Conclusion The train station I think depicts the fork in the road of life. These types of challenges will happen and things will be complicate but knowing that it will lead to something greater should be a glimmer of hope.

References Barnwell, Andrea D. “Walter Ellison.” In Museum Studies 24, no. 2, African Americans in Art: Selections from the Art Institute of Chicago, pp. 193–94. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, Drake, St. Clair, and Horace R. Cayton. Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1945/1993 edition. Koehnline Museum of Art. Convergence: Jewish and African American Artists in Depression-era Chicago. Des Plaines, IL: Oakton Community College, Locke, Alain. The Negro in Art: A Pictorial Record of the Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art. Washington, DC: Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1940; and New York: Hacker Art Books, Schulman, Daniel. “Walter Ellison.” In Chicago Modern, 1893–1945: Pursuit of the New, edited by Elizabeth Kennedy, p Chicago: Terra Museum of American Art, 2004.