Artcyclopedia

Artists by Movement:
The Harlem Renaissance

early 1920's to 1930's


The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of African-American social thought that was expressed through the visual arts, as well as through music (Louis Armstrong, Eubie Blake, Fats Waller and Billie Holiday), literature (Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and W.E.B. DuBois), theater (Paul Robeson) and dance (Josephine Baker). Centered in the Harlem district of New York City, the New Negro Movement (as it was called at the time) had a profound influence across the United States and even around the world.

The intellectual and social freedom of the era attracted many Black Americans from the rural south to the industrial centers of the north - and especially to New York City.

Artists at the core of the Harlem Renaissance movement included William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones and the sculptor and printmaker Sargent Claude Johnson. Other prominent artists associated with the Harlem Renaissance included Jacob Lawrence, Archibald Motley and Romare Bearden.

Later artists influenced by the movement included Charles Sebree, Hale Woodruff, Beauford Delaney, John Biggers and Ernie Barnes (Barnes' Sugar Shack is the now-famous painting featured on the closing credits of the TV show Good Times).

Artists closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance are listed below. Or click here for a list of all African-American artists in our database.
        

 
 
Chronological Listing of Harlem Renaissance Artists
 
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Meta Warrick Fuller 1877-1968 African-American Sculptor
 
James Van Der Zee 1886-1983 African-American Photographer
 
Sargent Claude Johnson 1887-1967 African-American Sculptor
 
Palmer Hayden 1890-1973 African-American Painter
 
Archibald Motley 1891-1981 African-American Painter
 
Augusta Savage 1892-1962 African-American Sculptor
 
Dox Thrash 1893-1965 African-American Printmaker
 
Aaron Douglas 1899-1979 African-American Painter
 
Richmond Barthe 1901-1989 African-American Sculptor
 
William H. Johnson 1901-1970 African-American Painter
 
Lois Mailou Jones 1905-1998 African-American Painter
 
Charles Alston 1907-1977 African-American Painter/Sculptor
 
Allan Rohan Crite 1910-2007 African-American Painter
 
Romare Bearden 1911-1988 African-American Painter
 
Jacob Lawrence 1917-2000 African-American Painter
 

 
 
 




 
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