Museographs: Contemporary African-American Folk Art

Caron Caswell Lazar

Description

The tradition of African-American Folk Art is vast and diverse. With roots that extend overseas, these traditions now flourish and continue to bloom into the twenty-first century. In Contemporary African-American Folk Art, trace the development of such mediums as wood carving, pottery, quilt making and painting.

Learn the significance of slave Henry Gudgell, whose artistic mastery is still hailed as some of the best surviving examples of African-American wood carving.

See how random scraps of cloth from 'the big house' transform into geometric wonders such as 'The Wedding Ring' and 'The Triangle.' Just two of America's favorite quilt patterns, they are often still showcased today at Southern quilting bees.

Complete with informative text and seven vibrant prints, this issue includes biographical summaries of major contributors to the field of African-American Folk Art.

Sujets

• African American
• Art
• American

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 02 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456607029
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

MUSEOGRAPHS
Contemporary African-American Folk Art
 
 
by
Carôn Caswell Lazar
 


Copyright 2012 Carôn Caswell Lazar,
All rights reserved.
 
Published in eBook format by The Lazar Group, Incorporated
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0702-9
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
 
The Museographs monographs are publications of The Lazar Group, Incorporated
 
Contemporary African-American Folk Art, Copyright 1992 Carôn Caswell Lazar
All rights reserved
No reproductions of this newsletter, or its attending materials, in whole or in part or in any form may be made without written authorization of the copyright owner.
 
Museographs Titles:
 
Japanese Satsuma Pottery
Shaker Design
Mexican Painting of the 19 th & 20 th Centuries
American Indians I: The Sioux
Appalachian Handicrafts
American Indians II: The Cherokee
Cultural Crossroads: The Old City of Jerusalem
The Art of Islam: A Survey
Illuminated Manuscripts
Mexican Folk Art
American Indians III: Kanien’kehaka
Art, Myth, Legend and Story
The Art of the Celts
 
Contemporary African-America Folk Art
Historic Overview
The tradition of African-American folk art has its origins in early forms that are undeniably African.
 
By the beginning of the seventeenth century African slaves had already begun to fashion artworks soon after their arrival to this land. Later in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries these folk-art forms flourished and had grown to include woodcarving, grave decoration, quilting, ceramics, ironwork and basket weaving. The early African forms had become blended with European and white American forms over the last hundred years. Nevertheless, certain compositional devices and subjects remain as a link to ancient Africa.
 
Following are descriptions of historic folk mediums generally employed by African-American artists.
 
 
Woodcarving
Carved walking sticks, still produced regularly in Africa, are the most specific genre that can be traced back to an African heritage.
 
Perhaps the most important surviving example of an African-American carved walking stick is by a slave named Henry Gudgell of Missouri in the 1860’s. Records document that Gudgell was born in 1826 in Kentucky. His father was Anglo-American and his mother a slave. Around 1867 Henry and his mother moved to Missouri to a farm owned by Spence Gudgell. Henry Gudgell was known to have been a man of many talents and he acted as a blacksmith, wheelwright, coppersmith, silversmith, as well as being skilled in many other crafts. According to Dr. Regenia A. Perry, formerly of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, relatives of the original owner of the cane relate that it was carved for John Byran, a friend of Henry Gudgell’s master, who had incurred a knee injury during the Civil War. If those facts are true, the date of the cane is probably between 1865 and 1867. Today the cane is housed at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. It remains the only known example of Gudgell’s work in woodcarving.
 
The cane is 36 ¼” high with a slender, tapering shaft.