This exhibition explores how Aaron Douglas (1899-1979), one of the most important modernist artists of the Harlem Renaissance, gave visual form to the idea that Black American culture is a modern culture of diaspora. Douglas created figures that embody Pan-African ideas of Black achievement and creativity. He traced twentieth-century Black American culture and cultivated the self-image of Black Americans as a cosmopolitan cultural vanguard connected with Black people worldwide.
Through more than 40 paintings, prints, book and magazine illustrations, drawings, and other artworks, Modern Black Culture demonstrates how Douglas developed an immediately recognizable style and advanced the idea that modern Black American culture drew upon music, dance, visual art, and faith traditions developed in Black communities throughout the world. Sections of the exhibition focus on ways in which Douglas related Black Americans in the urban north with those living in the rural South, as well as with Haiti, Africa, and Egypt. Another section explores Douglas’ connections with North Carolina.
