Art In My View: WHERE ARE THEY?

I have great fondness for the art of genealogy as well as for the visual arts. This has led me to think about the many people of earlier eras that I have ties to. If one looks at my Google profile photo you will see a rather typical white gal smiling back. But not so fast. Today's genealogy includes DNA, not just facts and figures. Although Western Europe does dominate my DNA, just two generations back in one of my blood lines Native American and African American DNA shines through.

Those two cultures in the 18th and 19th centuries lived with unspeakable cruelties. I think about those souls a lot.

With the recent MLK Day I was looking at the memorial sculpture in Washington D.C. and smiled at the way his figure emerges from the stone, as if an addition to the Mt. Rushmore sculptures.

Thinking about art, and remembering that February is Black History Month, I wondered about any African American artists that might be in my immediate locale. I did a fairly good search but could not find any! So I took a broader look and found many interesting artists, both past and present.

Edmonia Lewis (1845-1911) was a sculptor born in New York. She had both African American and Ojibwa heritage. In 1865 she went to Rome to study and spent most of her life there. Here is Hiawatha, done in 1868.

Henry Osawa Tanner (1859-1937) was born in Pennsylvania and studied in Philadelphia. He went to Paris in 1891 and lived the rest of his life there. Here is his painting Banjo Player.