In this hyper-realistic world, it's sometimes reassuring to see great 2-d, flattened work, for instance the work of Aaron Douglas, portrait and silhouette master of the Harlem Renaissance. Luckily The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas (Lawrence) hasn't forgotten the early 20th century artist, who as it happens hails from down the road in Topeka, Kansas. Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist is scheduled to open at the Spencer in September and will constitute the first major touring retrospective of Douglas's work.
For those of us not blessed enough to grow up anywhere near the Schomburg Center or Fisk University where Douglas's massive murals adorn the walls, it's a rare opportunity to peep the master of the geometric iconographic style of the man once referred to as the Father of Modern African American art. Aaron Douglas may be the only individual to have his work featured in both The Crisis, the NAACP's official magazine (back when that meant something), and Vanity Fair. So he was on the grind in Harlem (back when that meant something) while Henry O. Tanner, our beloved Banjo lesson artist was off in the cuts in Europe refusing the call to form a black art school for emerging African American artists.
The pinnacle of the talented tenth, Douglas's work needs to be viewed by today's artists, if for nothing else than to spy where some say African American modernism began.
Aaron Douglas opens at the Spencer on September 8 and runs through December 2.
