1. The Harlem Renaissance Art and Early Jazz
Take the A Train
The Harlem Renaissance
Art and Early Jazz

2. Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance occurred in Harlem, New York in the first part of the 20th century.
Black people were migrating north in hope of finding work and leaving the overt racism of the south
Black intellectuals wanted to control the new image of the Negro, to demonstrate culture and intelligence of black people, they chose the name Renaissance for their movement intentionally
The artists and musicians and writers of the Harlem Renaissance would influence the next century of American Culture.

3. Art at the time in Europe:
In Europe Pairs was the place to be for an artist
Cubism, Expressionism, Surrealism and Dada
were developing
American painters, including artists in Harlem, traveled to Paris
Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were among some of the artists who frequented Paris during this time period.
These artists were, in turn, being influenced by the art of Africa

4. Aaron Douglas: What symbols do you see in this painting?
Moving to the city, buying homes, top of the mountain
Music and culture
jobs
Hands reaching out to grab
Getting ahead on the wheel of life or moving up to better jobs
Aspects of Negro Life #62: Song of the Towers, 1934, oil on canvas

5. Crucifixion, 1927, oil on canvas

6. Jazz! What type of music are these people dancing to?
William H. Johnson,
Jitterbugs 2, 1941
Wood Cut Print

7. Why would most
White people of the
Time consider
This portrait of a
Black man
Unusual?
It shows a black man as cultured and wearing clothing associated with the affluent or wealthy.
William H. Johnson
Self Portrait, 1937

8. What symbols do you see in this painting?
Louis Mailou Jones,
Ascent of Ethiopia,
1932, Oil on Canvas

9. Louis Mailou Jones,
Portrait of Hudson,
1932, Oil on Canvas

10. Palmer Hayden, Beale Street Blues, 1930

12. Romare Bearden, Jazz Village, 1967
This image is made using a technique called
collage. What do you think collage means?
Romare Bearden, Jazz Village, 1967

13. Collage: a technique of composing a work of art by pasting on a single surface various materials not normally associated with one another, as newspaper clippings, parts of photographs, theater tickets, and fragments of an envelope.

14. Romare Bearden
Serenade, 1969