Aaron Douglas was an American painter, illustrator and visual arts educator. He was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance.
Background
Aaron Douglas was born on May 26, 1899 in Topeka, Kansas, United States, to Aaron Douglas, Sr, a baker from Tennessee, and Elizabeth Douglas, a homemaker and amateur artist from Alabama. His passion for art derived from admiring his mother's drawings.
Education
Aaron Douglas attended Topeka High School and graduated in 1917.
After high school, Douglas moved to Detroit, Michigan. During this time, he attended free classes at the Detroit Museum of Art before attending college at the University of Nebraska in 1918. When World War I commenced, Douglas attempted to join the Student Army Training Corps (SATC) at the University of Nebraska, but was dismissed.
He then transferred for a short time to the University of Minnesota, where he volunteered for the SATC and attained the rank of corporal. After the signing of the armistice, he returned to the University of Nebraska, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1922.
In 1931, Douglas moved for one year to Paris, France, where he received training in sculpture and painting at the Académie Scandinave.
In 1937, he went to the American South and visited primarily Black universities, including Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Then he attended Columbia University Teacher’s College in New York City and received his Master of Arts degree in 1944.
During his study at Topeka High School, Douglas worked for Skinner's Nursery and Union Pacific material yard. After high school, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, and held various jobs, including working as a plasterer and molding sand from automobile radiators for Cadillac. While attending college, Douglas worked as a busboy to finance his education.
After graduating, Douglas worked as a waiter for the Union Pacific Railroad until 1923, when he secured a job teaching visual arts at Lincoln High School in Kansas City, Missouri, staying there until 1925.
In 1925, Douglas intended to pass through Harlem, New York, on his way to Paris to advance his art career. He was convinced to stay in Harlem and develop his art during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, influenced by the writings of Alain Locke about the importance of Harlem for aspiring African Americans.
While in Harlem, Douglas worked with W. E. B. Du Bois, then-editor at "The Crisis", a monthly journal of the NAACP, and became art editor himself briefly in 1927. Douglas also illustrated for Charles S. Johnson, then-editor at "Opportunity", the official publication of the National Urban League. Douglas' illustrations also featured in the periodicals "Vanity Fair" and "Theatre Arts Monthly". In 1927, Douglas was asked to create the first of his murals at Club Ebony, which highlighted Harlem nightlife.
In 1928, Douglas participated in the Harmon Foundation's exhibition organized by the College Art Association, entitled "Contemporary Negro Art". In the summer of 1930, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he worked on a series of murals for the Fisk University Library. While in Nashville, he was commissioned by the Sherman Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, to paint a mural series. In addition, he was commissioned by Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina, to create a mural with Harriet Tubman as its primary figure. He then moved in 1931 for one year to Paris, France, where he received training in sculpture and painting at the Académie Scandinave.
Douglas returned to Harlem in the mid-1930s to work on his mural painting techniques. In 1934, he was commissioned by New York’s 135th Street YMCA to paint a mural on their building, as well as by the Public Works Administration to paint his most acclaimed mural cycle "Aspects of Negro Life" for the Countee Cullen Branch of New York Public Library.
In 1940, he worked at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. During his tenure as a professor in the Art Department, he was the founding director of the Carl Van Vechten Gallery of Fine Arts. He used his experiences as an artist in the Harlem Renaissance to inspire his students to expand on the movements of African-American art. Douglas retired from teaching in the Art Department at Fisk University in 1966.
Aaron Douglas died on February 2, 1979 at the age of 79 in Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
Quotations:
"We can go to African life and get a certain amount of form and color, understanding and using this knowledge in development of an expression that interprets our life."
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Walter J. Leonard: "Aaron Douglas was one of the most accomplished of the interpreters of our institutions and cultural values. He captured the strength and quickness of the young; he translated the memories of the old; and he projected the determination of the inspired and courageous."