James Lesesne Wells

James Lesesne Wells was a printmaker, graphic artist and art teacher. He grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and in Florida, studied at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and at Columbia University in New York. Discovering African sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum of Art was as important as the inspiration he drew from the woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer and the German Expressionists. Through his work Wells became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance.