Art is subjective, beautiful and inspiring. It is a free landscape to explore and expose creativity. For black artists, it has shown to have its boundaries. Unlike many of their white counterparts, they are often expected to paint artwork that displays the life and struggles of their own race on a social and political level. While art should not just be about race or socio-economic issues, black painters are often pigeonholed into certain categories that display their cultural identity. But do these themes accurately portray the art world of the black community? We have highlighted powerful black abstract artists that you may not know about, but definitely should. Staying true to their talents, passion and craft.
Frank Bowling
Frank Bowling was born in Guyana, South America in 1936. Moving to England in 1950 to pursue his education he received a scholarship to the Royal College of Arts in London in 1959. Bowling became a contributing editor for Arts Magazine where he also wrote a series of important essays. In his “Discussion of Black Art-11 Essay” published in Arts Magazine in 1970, he discussed the lack of representation of black painters in contemporary art stating, “Why have black artists, given their historical role in art, contributed so little to the mainstream of contemporary styles or better still, why have they contributed so little to the great body of Modernist works?”
FRANK BOWLING, Texas Louise, 1971, acrylic on canvas, 282 x 665 cm, 111 1/8 x 261 3/4 in. Image courtesy of the Artist and Hales Gallery, London. Copyright of the Artist.
Alma Thomas
Born in 1891, Alma Thomas grew up in racially segregated Georgia. Experiencing the terrors of racism, the family relocated to Washington D.C. in 1907. There, for the first time, she was exposed to formal art training at Armstrong Technical High School. She furthered her education receiving a B.S. in Fine Arts at Howard University and became the first black woman to receive a Master of Arts Degree in Art Education in 1935. Although she encountered many barriers as a black female artist, she believed these issues had no impact on her creative pursuits.
“Creative art is for all time and is therefore independent of time. It is of all ages, of every land, and if by this we mean the creative spirit in man which produces a picture or a statue is common to the whole civilized world, independent of age, race and nationality; the statement may stand unchallenged.” -Alma Thomas, 1970
Alma Thomas, Red Azaleas Singing & Dancing Rock and Roll Music, 1976, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Howardena Pindell
Howardena Pindell was born in Philadelphia in 1943. Raised in a middle-class family, her parents encouraged her interest towards art, enrolling her in Saturday art classes in third grade. She earned her B.F.A. degree in painting from Boston University's School of Fine and Applied Arts in 1965, and her M.F.A. degree from Yale University's School of Art and Architecture in 1967. Her art has often addressed issues of racism, slavery and violence by exploring color, texture, and structure. Throughout her career, she has written articles in various publications addressing the racism she has experienced in the art world.
Howardena Pindell: Untitled #19 (detail), 1977, mixed mediums on canvas, 94¾ by 74½ inches; courtesy Garth Greenan Gallery, New York.
Edward Clark
Edward Clark is a groundbreaking artist credited for being the first painter to work on a shapes canvas. He is also known for his “push-broom technique”, using a household broom to create sweeping color strokes across canvas. Born in the Storyville section of New Orleans in 1926, but raised in Chicago, Clark was educated at the Art Institute of Chicago on a GI Bill scholarship. He went on to study in Paris where he turned towards abstraction. Attempting to leave the discrimination he faced in the United States, life in Paris also offered relief from the expectation that black artists paint only in realist mode.
“Art is not subject to political games; its importance elevates it above any racial difference. All men of talent, of noble spirit, can make it.”
Ed Clark, “New Orleans Series #5” (2012)
Sam Gilliam
Sam Gilliam was born in 1933 in Toledo, Mississippi the seventh of eight children. His interest in art started early in life and by ten years old he was painting. Gilliam developed his own style working with unsupported canvases. The idea came to him while watching women hang clothes from the window of his art studio in the late 1960’s. During the 1970’s he was heavily criticized for his work being too Eurocentric and lacking Afrocentricity. He expressed his frustration in an interview with the L.A. Times stating, “The limitation imposed on me by being a black artist was almost killing. I kept thinking that if I were white I’d have had much more.”
Sam Gilliam “Mars at Angels”, 1978