Aaron Douglas
Into Bondage 1936
Oil on canvas, 153.4 x 153.7 cm
In the Collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art,Washington DC,USA
Museum Purchase and Partial Gift of Thurlow Evans Tibbs, Jr.
The Evans - Tibbs Collection

Aaron Douglas
(1898-1979)

Aaron Douglas was the Harlem Renaissance artist whose work best exemplified the 'New Negro' philosophy. He painted murals for public buildings and produced illustrations and cover designs for many black publications including The Crisis and Opportunity. In 1940 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he founded the Art Department at Fisk University and taught for twenty nine years.

"...Our problem is to conceive, develop, establish an art era. Not white art painting black...let's bare our arms and plunge them deep through laughter, through pain, through sorrow, through hope, through disappointment, into the very depths of the souls of our people and drag forth material crude, rough, neglected. Then let's sing it, dance it, write it, paint it. Let's do the impossible. Let's create something transcendentally material, mystically objective. Earthy. Spiritually earthy. Dynamic."
Aaron Douglas

Amy Helene Kirschke, 'The Evolution of Douglas's Artistic Language', Aaron Douglas, Art, Race & The Harlem Renaissance.