course

2. Module 6
Art Shows Us
We Matter

3. THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE
During the early 20th century, Harlem was the
destination for migrants from around the
country. In 1915 and 1916, natural disasters in
the south put black workers and sharecroppers
out of work.
During and after World War I, immigration to the
United States fell. African Americans also
migrated north during World War I to fill the
demand for industrial labor. Harlem became an
African-American neighborhood in the early
1900s.
African Americans also sought relief from the
institutionalized racism to which they were
subjected in the south.
Portrait of Langston Hughes
(one of the most important
writers of the Harlem
Renaissance), 1943, Library of
Congress.

4. Many in the Harlem Renaissance were part of the
early 20th century Great Migration out of the
South. Others were people of African descent from
the Caribbean who came to the United States in
search of a better life.
The Harlem renaissance was a period of rich
cross-disciplinary artistic and cultural activity
among African Americans between the end of
World War I (1918) and mid 1930s.
Artists associated with the movement asserted
pride in black identity, an interest in the rapidly
changing modern world, and the experiencing of
freedom of expression through the arts for the
first time.
Lois Mailou Jones’ paintings are bold and
abstract, with influences of African design.
Artist Lois Mailou Jones. Les
Fétiches, oil on canvas 1938.
Smithsonian American Art
Museum, Washington, D.C.

5. The Harlem Renaissance is best known for its
literary and performing arts participants, but
sculptors, painters, and printmakers formed a
black avant-garde in the visual arts.
Aaron Douglas was the most celebrated Harlem
Renaissance artist. He was often called “the
Father of Black American Art”. He created
paintings and murals, as well as book
illustration.
Aaron Douglas had a distinctive style that
featured flat silhouettes of human figures, muted
colors, and symbolic images.
Aaron Douglas, Charleston, 1928, gouache, 37 x
24 cm. North Carolina Museum of Art.

6. Aaron Douglas’ art incudes elements of African
American history, religion, myth, and social
issues. HE was the first African American artist
that created works affirming of black identity
and experience.
Sculptor Augusta Savage is well known for
portraits of everyday African Americans. She
would later be pivotal to enlisting black artists
into the Federal Art Project, a division of the
Work Progress Administration (WPA).
In 1934, the artist opened the Savage Studio of
Arts and Crafts, in Harlem. The school offered
painting, drawing, and sculpture classes to
black artists. African American painter Jacob
Lawrence was one of her students who would
later became very successful. Augusta Savage (1892 – 1962)

7. At the begining of 20th century, black artists,
didn’t have access to art schools, galleries and
museums.
Artist Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877-1968),
notable for celebrating Afrocentric themes, was
at the fore of the Harlem Renaissance. She was
a poet, painter, theater designer, and sculptor of
the black American experience.
Warrick's career in art began after one of her
high-school projects was included in the 1893
World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The
same artwork won her a scholarship to the
Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial
Art (now The University of the Arts College of
Art and Design) in 1894.
Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877-
1968).

8. In 1899, Warrick traveled to Paris, France,
where she studied sculpture and anatomy at
the Académie Colarossi and drawing at the
École des Beaux-Arts.
In Paris she had achieved a reputation as a
well-known sculptor, before returning to the
United States. While working in Paris she
became a protégé of Auguste Rodin.
Encouraged by writer and sociologist W.E.B.
Du Bois, Warwick explored African American
themes in her work. Reflecting the African-
American experience in art was revolutionary
at the time.
Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller. Lazy
Bones, 1930. Plaster.

9. Jacob Armstead Lawrence is well known for the
portrayal of African-American historical subjects and
contemporary life. He was also one of the first
nationally recognized African American artists.
Lawrence’s parents migrated to Atlantic City, New
Jersey, from the rural south. They divorced in 1924.
His mother put him and his two younger siblings into
foster care in Philadelphia. When he was 13, he and
his siblings moved to New York City to live with their
mother in Harlem. There his mother enrolled him in
classes at an arts and crafts settlement house.
He later attended classes at the Harlem Art Workshop,
taught by the noted artist Charles Alston who urged
him to attend the Harlem Community Art Center, led
by the sculptor Augusta Savage.
Jacob Armstead
Lawrence. (1917 –2000)

10. Savage secured a scholarship to the American Artists
School for Jacob Lawrence and a paid position with
the Works Progress Administration, established during
the Great Depression.
From the beginning of his career he creating series of
paintings that told a story an approach that made
remained his trademark. His first series were
biographical accounts of key African American figures.
Lawrence completed a 60-panel set of narrative
paintings entitled The Migration Series, in 1940–41.
The series portrayed the Great Migration from the rural
South to the urban North after World War I. The series
was exhibited at the Downtown Gallery in Greenwich
Village, which made him the first African American
artist represented by a New York gallery.
Jacob Lawrence, The
Builders (Family). 1974.
Silkscreen on paper,
34 x 25 3/4 in.

11. James VanDerZee (1886–1983) is
one of the most renowned
photographers of the Harlem
Renaissance.
During the 1920s and 1930s, his
photography, in which he
captured daily life, documented a
wide spectrum of life in Harlem,
while recording a growing middle
class.
VanDerZee’s images occupy an
important place in the history of
photography, Black visual culture,
and Harlem.
James VanDerZee (1886–1983) Street Scene
with Runners, 1930 Gelatin silver print 5 × 7
in. The Studio Museum in Harlem

12. The Cotton Club, located very close to
the Savoy Ballroom, was one of the most
the most famous nightclubs in New York
City in the 1920's and 30's.
The Club was renowned for the
musicians who started and continued
their jazz careers there.
The club's radio broadcasts were heard
live nationwide in the 1930's. They
featured Billy Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald,
and many others.
At the end of the prohibition, the club
lost some of its appeal and closed this
location on February 16, 1936.
The Cotton Club at 142 Street and
Lenox Avenue, in Harlem was one of
the most successful nightlife venues
of Harlem Renaissance. Here it is seen
in 1927. Hulton Archive. Getty Images.

13. Jazz musician and composer Duke Elington
frequently performed at the Cotton Club,
along with singer, band leader Cab Colloway.
Getty Images.
The cotton Club open at a new location at
Broadway and 48th Street, where it
continued to present its glamorous
programs but at higher prices. It closed for
good on June 10, 1940.
The original site of the Cotton Club was
demolished in 1958 along with the Savoy
Ballroom for the construction of Bethune
Towers/Delano Village.

14. For the first half of the twentieth century,
jazz was the favorite dance music in the
United States.
From its earliest days, jazz was
improvisational, allowing artists to discard
the rigidity of standard dance or other
forms of popular music, and letting their
creativity flow freely.
Jazz evolved from New Orleans style
music, now called Dixieland, to swing
music, which featured improvisation
combined with arranged composition.
In the 1920’s, and his Hot Five made
more than 60 records, which are
now regarded as the most important
and influential recordings in jazz
history. Getty Images.

15. Clayton Bates began
dancing when he was
5,then he lost a leg in
cotton seed mill
accident at age 12.
Bates became known
as “Peg Leg” and was
a featured tapper at
such top clubs as the
Cotton Cub, Connie’s
Inn, and Club
Zanzibar.
Clayton Bates
(1907 – 1998)
Getty Images.

16. Zora Neale Hurston (1891 – 1960)
Zora Neale Hurston, anthropologist and
folklorist whose novels, short stories and
plays, often depicted African American life in
the South.
Her writings, including Their Eyes Were
Watching God and Sweat, captured the spirit
of Harlem Renaissance.
In addition to being a writer, Hurston was
dedicated to educating others about the arts.
Hurston’s work was not widely known during
her life. After her death, the appreciation of
her work increased, and she ranks among
the best writers of the 20th century.

17. W.E.B. Du Bois was an influential African American
rights activist during the early 20th century. He co-
founded the NAACP in 1909. He is well known for
writing 'The Souls of Black Folk.‘
Du Bois became the first African American to earn a
Ph.D. from Harvard University. He was the best-
known spokesperson for African American rights.
Du Bois became known nationally when he opposed
Booker T. Washington's "Atlanta Compromise,"
which asserted that vocational education for Black
people was more valuable to them than social
advantages like higher education or political
office. Du Bois became a spokesperson for full and
equal rights in every aspects of a person's life.
William Edward Burghardt
Du Bois (1868–1963)

18. The Harlem Renaissance was a golden age for African American
artists, writers and musicians. It gave these artists pride in and control
over how the Black experience was represented in American culture
and set the stage for the civil rights movement.
Some of the most celebrated names in American music regularly
performed in Harlem—Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith,
Fats Waller and Cab Calloway, often accompanied by elaborate floor
shows. Tap dancers like John Bubbles and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson
were also popular.
The end of Harlem’s creative boom began with the stock market crash
of 1929 and The Great Depression.

19. Allan Rohan Crite, School’s Out, 1936, oil
on canvas.Smithsonian Museum of
American Art
INDEPENDENTS
Allan Rohan Crite (1910 –2007) was
a Boston-based African American
artist. Crite’s early paintings sought
to show viewers the daily life of
Boston’s African-American
community.
In these paintings Crite used
somber tones and orderly
compositions to reflect the stability
in the lives of ordinary citizens. In
contrast to the Harlem
Renaissance, Crite’s early artworks
shows the daily life of ordinary
middle class regular folks.

20. We would not
be connected
so deeply
without
the existence
of art.

21. AMERICAN REGIONALISM
American artists of the mid-18th C always kept
close ties with Europe, and continued to look
to it for inspiration, as they continued their
quest for a national identity. The West, which
was becoming more accessible, fueled their
imagination.
George Caleb Bingham, the first significant
American painter from the Midwest, created
an art that focused on what was distinctively
American.
Bingham is considered by some to be the first
regionalist painter, as he had a great
influnece on regionalism.
George Caleb Bingham, Self
Portrait, 1834–35. Oil on canvas.
Saint Louis Art Museum.

22. Bingham’s early paintings are an idealized
record of frontier life, capturing the
romantic appeal of the Western expansion.
Bingham’s later paintings depicting scenes
of taverns, political meetings and stump
speeches, mark a shift on the perception of
the American Frontier.
Born in Augusta County, Va., Bingham
moved with his family to Franklin, Mo., in
1819 after his father lost most of the family
property. In 1923, his father died of malaria.
Unable to earn a sufficient living, his mother
moved in with family members in Saline
County.
George Caleb Bingham, Mississippi
Boatman. 1850. Oil on canvas. 24.1 x 17.1 in.
National Galelry of Art, Washington, DC.

23. The second of seven children, Bingham
displayed talent at an early age. His
interest in painting began during his
cabinetmaker apprenticeship. He began
painting portraits of his friends and family.
As he gained confidence, he traveled to
nearby towns as an itinerant portrait
painter, broadening his horizons and
meeting people who supported him
financially and who influenced his views.
Mostly self-taught, by 1833, Bingham
became an accomplished portraitist.
George Caleb Bingham, Lewis Turner ,
1850, Oil on canvas,
24 x 19 inches. Saint Louis University. Gift
of Timothy and Jeanne Drone.

24. His early style (1834 through 1840), is
characterized by superior craftsmanship
and strong character analysis. From the
1840s to the 1870s, Bingham’s portraits
displayed a softer and more direct
likeness.
This is apparent in his two portraits of
Lewis Turner, and Martha Ann Payne
Turner, both painted in 1850. During his
lifetime, he painted approximately 500
portraits of mostly well-known people in
Missouri.
George Caleb Bingham, Martha Ann Payne
Turner , 1850, Oil on canvas,
24 x 19 inches. Saint Louis University. Gift
of Timothy and Jeanne Drone.

25. Bingham’s formal training consisted of
three months of study at the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
The artist’s return to Missouri in 1838
marks the beginning of his mature
series of paintings. In the 1850s
Bingham began his Election series of
paintings: Stump Speaking which
depicts two politicians campaigning in a
rural town, and Martial Law.
While depicting political life on the
frontier, these paintings showcase his
talent for creating complex
compositions. To reach a wider
audience, Bingham produced many
prints based on his paintings.
George Caleb Bingham, Stump
Speaking, 1853-54. Oil on Canvas. 42
1/2 x 58 in. Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift
of Bank of America.

26. In 1856, Bingham traveled to
Germany to study with the masters
of Düsseldorf School. This
influence was apparent in his later
simplified compositions. In his
paintings depicting river scenes, he
reduced the number of figures,
organized them along vertical and
horizontal lines, and created more
static compositions.
His new style became significantly
atmospheric, sentimental, and
more painterly, but lost the
directness he employed his in
earlier artworks. In the end, his art
gained a deeper sense of space
and atmosphere.
George Caleb Bingham, Fur Traders
Descending the Missouri, 1845. Oil on
canvas. 29 x 36 1/2 in

27. Bingham was also politically active. In
1862, he served as the Missouri state
treasurer and in 1872, he was appointed
adjutant general of Missouri. His political
views are apparent in a series of complex
paintings. Art and political life became
indistinguishable for the artist. His
paintings which reflected his views that
people everywhere mattered, were meant
to appeal across regional lines.
Bingham’s name is synonymous with art
depicting life on the American Frontier
during the second half of the 19th century.
The narrative in his art is based on his
direct experience of living in Missouri, (a
western state at the time).
George Caleb Bingham, Order No. 11,
1868. Oil on Canvas. 56.25 x 79.5 in.
The painting is a protest against the
treatment of Missourians by federal
troops evacuating and looting four
counties.

28. Regionalist painters of the 1930s, such as
Thomas Hart Benton, claimed Bingham as an
influence. During the early 30s, American
artists began to consider their surroundings a
source of inspiration. In Kansas they looked at
farmers, in Iowa at fields, and in Missouri at
people’s lives.
In 1933, art dealer Maynard Walker organized
an exhibition of 35 American paintings,
including works by Thomas Hart Benton, John
Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood. Time Magazine
featured Benton on its December 24, 1934
cover. Benton was the first artist to be on the
cover of Time Magazine.
Thomas Hart Benton, Self Portrait , 1925.
Time Magazine Cover, Dec. 24, 1934

29. Thomas Hart Benton. Flood Disaster. Oil
and tempera on canvas. 25.5 x 36.5 in.
In 1934, TIME magazine named the art
created by artists in the exhibition
organized by Maynard, Regional art.
The article recognized Benton’s
influence as a leader in the movement.
To reflect American themes and values
in his art, Benton traveled throughout
the United States for inspiration. On
these trips, the artist made numerous
sketches.
Back in his studio, he made clay
models based on his sketches before
starting his paintings we are familiar
with. Benton chose a realistic and
figurative approach.

30. Thomas Hart Benton. Ozark Autumn. Oil
and tempera on board. 20.75 x 32 in.
Painted in 1949, Ozark Autumn depicts
a group of farmers harvesting corn by
hand. Benton focuses on the
backbreaking labor. The tractor and
combine are symbols of modernization
and industrial progress.
Benton employs a dynamic spiraling
composition in Ozark Autumn, through
his use of sinuous line. This pulls each
individual element into a unifying
scheme of visual rhythm.
Ozark Autumn is one of Benton’s
signature Regionalist style paintings
depicting the landscape and the
workers of his native Midwest.

31. Grant Wood. Self
portrait, 1932.
Grant DeVolson Wood (1891–1942) painted in a highly
detailed and precise style. He made four trips to
Europe to study between 1920 and 1928. He was
influenced mostly Jan van Eyck whose influence is
apparent in the rigid precision of his paintings.
After he returned from Europe he settled in Iowa, and
painted increasingly mid-western scenes, which he
celebrated in works such as American Gothic which
became one of America’s most famous paintings.
Wood intended American Gothic to be a positive image
of reassurance at a time of great hardships. The
composition is static, based on verticals and
horizontals, which create a sense of calm. The man
and woman appear stoic and strong.

32. Grant Wood, American Gothic,1930
Oil on masonite. 20 × 39.9 in.
Chicago Art Institute.
American Gothic earned Grant Wood a
three-hundred-dollar prize and instant
fame after he entered it in the juried
annual open exhibition at the Art Institute
of Chicago.
The painting was inspired by a little wood
farmhouse that had a window made in the
Carpenter Gothic style. Wood saw it while
visiting the small town of Eldon in Iowa.
Wood used his sister and his dentist as
models for the farmer and his daughter.
After 1928, Wood developed a stylized,
hard-edged realism.

33. Grant Wood. StoneCity, Iowa., 1930. Oil
on wood. 77 x 101.5 cm. Joslyn Art
Museum, Omaha, NE
In its early days Stone City was a
quarry town. The mass production of
Portland cement in 1905 had an
adverse effect on the economy of the
Stone City. During the next half
century, nature reclaimed most of the
quarries.
Stone City is an idealized scene of life
in harmony with nature. The land,
Wood seems to suggest, has gone
back to a natural state. Stone City
became the site of a summer artist's
colony which he ran from 1932 to 1933.
Wood painted Stone City, Iowa in the
same year he painted American Gothic.

34. John Steuart Curry,
Self-portrait, 1937. Oil on
canvas.
John Steuart Curry was a major regionalist painter
of the 1930s alongside Grant Wood and Thomas
Hart Benton.
The artist employed an illustrative realism,
depicting events of the Great Depression, and of
American history, as seen in his mural titled The
Tragic Prelude which is in Topeka at the Kansas
State Capitol.
Curry began his career in 1918 as a magazines
illustrator and later traveled to Europe.
He participated in the WPA program created by
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration,
producing posters encouraging the war effort in the
late 1930s.

35. John Steuart Curry, Tragic Prelude, north wall.
John Brown in front of fighting Union and
Confederate soldiers. 1938-40. Oil and egg
tempera. 11'4" x 31‘. Kansas State Capitol,
Topeka, Kansas
The mural Tragic Prelude was
painted by Kansan John Steuart
Curry for the Kansas State Capitol
building in Topeka, Kansas.
The mural on north wall it depicts
abolitionist Kansan John Brown
with a Bible in one hand, and a
rifle in the other. The paining
depicts the period of 1854–1860,
the prelude to the Civil War. John
Brown was instrumental in
preventing Kansas from being
made a slave state.
This painting is Curry's most
famous work

36. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Jones
quit school at the age of 15, and ran
away to California.
Unable to support himself, he
returned to St. Louis, and worked as
a house painter with his father. This
turn of events proved to be pivotal
for his later career as an artist.
A self-taught painter and printmaker,
Jones began exhibiting in St. Louis
in the late 1920s. His paintings of this
period are Regionalist rural scenes
that depict wheat fields and wheat
farming.
Joe Jones, Thrashing No.1, 1935; oil on
canvas, 25 x 30 in., Worcester Art
Museum, Worcester, Mass.

37. The first art award he won in 1931 helped
him garner the attention of patrons whose
financial support made it possible for him to
travel to the artists’ colony in Provincetown,
Massachusetts. After returning to St. Louis,
he found that his supporters had become
alienated by his political leanings.
Jones left St. Louis for New York in 1935 to
pursue his career in art. While forging his
path in the art world, he identified his own
struggles with those of rural and urban
America. In 1936, Jones returned to St.
Genevieve and headed the summer art
school at the Colony.
Joe Jones, Missouri Wheat Farmers, 1934.
Oil on Canvas.

38. In 1934, Jones joined the Works Progress
Administration (WPA), a New Deal program that
employed struggling artists. Between 1934 and
1942, government officials commissioned more
than 1,200 murals through the Procurement
Division of the U.S.
Treasury Department’s Public Works of Art
(PWA). Jones was awarded five major federal
contracts which consisted of murals for the
post offices at Magnolia, Arkansas, Treshing
(1938); Anthony, Kansas, Turning a Corner
(1939); Charleston, Missouri, The Harvest
(1939); Seneca, Kansas, Men and Wheat (1940);
and Dexter, Missouri, Husking Corn (1941).
Joe Jones, Corn Field, 1941.
Oil on Canvas. 30 x 40 in

39. The painting, Desolate Hills, completed c.
1930, depicts the plight of millions of families
who lost their farms and their way of life. The
drought, which began in 1931, exacerbated
the effects of The Great Depression. The
remnants of the dry, fallen tree in the
foreground resemble a human begging for
help. The dry branches seem like hands with
fingers spread in desperation. The broken
wires in the farm fence appear to be twisted in
pain, and add to the desolation that forced the
inhabitants to leave. The bare hills in the
background further emphasize the dry
conditions. The only sign of life and hope is
depicted in the areas of faint green grass that
survived. The dark, ominous sky painted in
orange-red, mixed with white and dark blue,
seems to bear signs of despair instead of rain.
Joe Jones, Desolate Hills, c.
1930. Oil on Canvas. 30 x 40 in.
Saint Louis University High
School. Gift of Jean and Timothy
Drone.

40. In 1937, Jones received the
prestigious Guggenheim
Foundation Fellowship.
The same year, his art was
included in exhibitions at the
Carnegie Institute.
During World War II, Jones
worked as a war artist for
Life Magazine.
Joe Jones, Wooded Landscape,
1931, Oil on canvas. 37 1/4 x 72 1/4 in. Saint Louis
Art Museum. Gift of Jean Rauh Block and Elsie
Rauh Scherck in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Aaron S.
Rauh

41. The workers in Street
Scene are demolishing a
St. Louis building as
evening falls. In the
midst of the Great
Depression, modest
houses and shops
around Market Street
were replaced with wider
streets and parks. The
tower of the new Civil
Courts Building in the
background, built in
1930, shows the
transformation of the
city.
Joe Jones, Street Scene, 1933, oil on canvas,
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the
U.S. Department of Labor.

42. John Rogers Cox, Wheat Field
Landscape, c. late 1940s,
Oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inches.
John Rogers Cox was born in 1915 in Terre
Haute, Indiana, into a prominent banking family.
He went on to study business but she switched
to art and in 1938 he graduated from
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine.
After spending few years in York City, Cox
returned to Terre Haute, Indiana where in 1941
he became the first Director at the Swope Art
Museum.
After two years Cox left the museum and
enlisted in the Army, which he left two years
later. In 1948 he decided to move to Chicago
where he taught at the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago until 1965.

43. Cox painted Gray and Gold shortly after
the United States joined the Second World
War. The ominous clouds reflecting the
concerns of the country at the time.
In the foreground, the intersection of the
two dirt roads as well as a telephone pole
with political campaign posters attached to
it, suggest that this was a time of major
decisions about fighting the spread of
fascism in Europe and Asia.
This painting won the Popular Prize at the
Carnegie Institute. The painting was
included in the traveling exhibition Artists
for Victory, organized to help in the war
effort. It was purchased by the Cleveland
Museum of Art from the exhibition
John Rogers Cox, Gray and Gold,
1942. Oil on canvas
36 x 59 3/4 in.
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

44. John Rogers Cox, Wheat Field, ca. 1943.
Oil on Masonite, 16 × 20 in.
The John and Susan Horseman
Collection of American Art, St. Louis,
Missouri.
Cox is considered one of the great
American Magic Realist painters. His
artworks from this period reflect the
artist’s interest in the details of his
world.
The Wheat Field depicts abundance
which is apparent in the undulating
wheat field. The house close to the
horizon line is the same house he
included in several of his paintings.
The sky is dark suggesting it is night
and not impending threat. Cox’s art
continues to be very popular although
he created a small number of artworks.
American Regionalism was very well
received at all levels of society.

45. The arts
build communities
around
shared experiences.

46. THE VIETNAM VETERANS
MEMORIAL
It is a U.S. national memorial in
Washington, D.C., honoring service
members of the U.S. armed forces who
fought and died in the Vietnam War
The memorial is located in Constitution
Gardens, adjacent to the National Mall
and just northeast of the Lincoln
Memorial.
The Memorial Wall is made up of two
246-foot-9-inch long black granite walls,
polished to a high finish, and etched
with the names of the servicemen being
honored.

47. Frederick Hart. The Three Soldiers
memorial, 1984. Bronze. National Park
Service. Washington, D.C.
The reactions to Maya Lin's design for
the Memorial wall were very strong.
Several Congressmen complained, and
Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt
refused to issue a building permit.
Frederick Hart , the most highly ranked
sculptor in the competition, was
commissioned to create a sculpture in a
more traditional approach.
Hart portrayed the major ethnic groups
that served in Vietnam. The three men
are identifiable as European American
(center), African American (right), and
Latino American (left).

48. Glena Goodacre, Vietnam Women's
Memorial, 1993. Bronze. National Park
Service. Washington, D.C.
The Vietnam Women's Memorial is a
memorial dedicated to the women of
the United States who served in the
Vietnam War.
The sculptural group depicts three
uniformed women caring for a
wounded soldier. The artwork relfects
the important role women played in the
war as nurses, air traffic controllers,
communication specialists, and etc.
The sculpture is part of the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial and it is located in
the National Mall in Washington D.C.,
south of The Wall and north of the
Reflecting Pool

49. The arts
make
us
human.

50. THE AMERICAN QUILT
Quilting as a craft was brought to
America by the early Puritans. In
the early days in America, quilts
were made to provide warmth at
night and to cover doors and
windows to keep people warm in
the cold winters.
They were not decorative as
women had little time to make
them beautiful, but they were
always associated with warmth.
Quilts are at the center of American
culture since the mid-nineteenth
century.
Harriet Powers, The Bible Quilt, 1885-1886.
fabric, cotton (overall material), 75 in x 89 in.
National Museum of American History.

51. Quilts started as functional objects but
soon after, they became tools for women's
empowerment, for pressing social and
political issues, for sharing the American
experience, for offering new perspectives
on civil rights, activism, and gender
equality.
Today, quilts continue to be a vital
resource for exploring some of the most
pressing issues we are facing.
The Portrait of a Textile Worker quilt is
made of clothing labels to point to the
plight of workers in the clothing industry
in undeveloped countries.
Terese Agnew, Portrait of a Textile
Worker (2002) clothing labels, thread,
fabric backing. 94 1/2 x 109 3.4 in.
Image Credit: Museum of Arts and
Design, New York.

52. Abolition Quilt (ca. 1850). Historic New
England.
During the Civil War-era women didn’t
have the right or vote, and lacked
political and social equality. They used
quilt art to express their sentiments
through symbolic messaging.
In the early 1800s, women became active
in the growing abolition movement. They
increasingly involved themselves in
abolitionist organizations in the 1830s.
Women supported the anti-slavery
cause by organizing large fundraising
fairs. In 1836, at a Massachusetts fair
organizers sold an Abolition quilt, the
earliest known fundraising quilt.

53. More recent examples include quilts created to
document and memorialize the AIDS crisis, the
Vietnam War, and systemic racism in the US.
The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, often
abbreviated to AIDS Memorial Quilt or AIDS
Quilt, was conceived in November of 1985 by
long-time San Francisco gay rights activist
Cleve Jones.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt, is a memorial to
celebrate the lives of people who have died of
AIDS-related causes. The entire Project weighs
an estimated 54 tons, it is the largest piece of
community folk art in the world as of 2020.
1996 The AIDS Memorial Quilt in Washington,
D.C. As seen from atop the of the Washington
Memorial 45,000 panels covering 15 city blocks.

54. Jones organized a candle light march
every year since the assassination of
San Francisco Supervisor Harvey
Milk and Mayor George Moscone, in
1978.
In 1985, while he was planning the
annual march in memory of Milk and
Mascone, Jones learned that over
1,000 people died of AIDS in San
Francisco.
Jones asked the marchers to write
on placards the names of friends and
loved ones who had died of AIDS. At
the end of the march, Jones and
others taped these placards to the
walls of the San Francisco Federal
Building. The wall looked like a quilt.
Activists, volunteers, quilt contributors,
and March participants gather on the
National Mall for the inaugural display of
the AIDS Memorial Quilt. (Photograph
courtesy of The NAMES Project.)

55. This is when Jones and friends
made plans for a larger AIDS
memorial. A little more than a year
later, a small group gathered in a
San Francisco storefront to
document the lives they feared
would be forgotten.
Their goal was to create a
memorial for those who had died
of AIDS, and to educate people
about the devastating impact of
the disease. This meeting of
devoted friends and families
served as the foundation of the
NAMES Project AIDS Memorial
Quilt

56. Cleve created the first panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt in
memory of his friend Marvin Feldman. In June of 1987,
Jones teamed up with Mike Smith, Gert McMullin and
several others to formally organize the NAMES Project
Foundation.
Public response to the Quilt was immediate. People in the
U.S. cities most affected by AIDS — Atlanta, New York,
Los Angeles and San Francisco — sent panels to the San
Francisco workshop. Generous donors rapidly supplied
sewing machines, equipment and other materials, and
many volunteered tirelessly.
Recognizing that AIDS impacts people all over the world, a woman works on a
quilt in memory of South African AIDS victim Thembi Ngumane. Ngumane, who
was an ambassador for Nelson Mandela's 46664 concert in 2007, started the AIDS
Diary Project, in which she recorded her struggle with the disease for over a full
year. She died in June of 2009.

57. The picture depicts the last time the
quilt was displayed in its entirety in one
place, in Washington, D.C. in 2012.
Today, the Quilt contains more than
49,000 panels with more than 94,000
names.
It spans more than 1.3 million square
feet and can no longer be displayed in
its entirety in one place.
Instead, portions of the quilt are
displayed in various schools,
universities, community centers,
galleries, and places of worship.

58. On June 23, 2012, 41-year-old Roddy
Williams unfolds a patch dedicated
to his friend Andrew Lowry in
Washington, D.C.
The 3-foot by 6-foot patch was cut to
the dimensions of a grave site and
includes fabric from Lowry's
favorite disco shirt.
3' x 6' panels made typically of fabric are
created in recognition of a person who died
from AIDS-related complications. The
panels are made by individuals alone or in
a workshop. Construction choices are left
to the quilter.
Panels are submitted to the National AIDS
Memorial, along with a panel-maker
identification form and a documentation
letter.
The information about the panel is
recorded in a database. Panels are backed
in canvas and sewn together in blocks of
eight. The blocks are numbered and
photographed.
The numbers help with identification and
location in storage, on the website, and
when the quilt is displayed

59. People engage
with arts
because
the arts
make them feel
they matter.