News Art Blog

When the Philadelphia Museum of Art purchased Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting The Annunciation in 1899, they became the first American museum to acquire a work by an African-American artist. That purchase announced a new era of recognition of African-American art and artists just as much as the painting itself announced a new style of art moving away from stereotypical “black” scenes towards a freedom of aesthetic choice. Persons of color could express themselves in any way, even abstraction, but faced the new problem of remaining true to themselves at the same time. The new exhibition Represent: 200 Years of African American Art and accompanying catalogue show how these artists faced the challenges posed to them by art and society and provide all of us with a fascinating guide to facing African-American history—tragic, tenacious, transcendent—through its art. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Facing African-American History Through African-American Art."

“Ain't got no rest in my slumbers/ Ain't got no feelings to bruise/ Ain't got no telephone numbers/ I ain't got nothing but the blues,” goes Jazz composer Duke Ellington’s 1945 song “Ain’t Got Nothing But the Blues.” Jazz wins credit as the only original American art form (and rightfully so), but before Jazz there was the Blues. The Blues began as an African-American phenomenon (and rightfully so, since for so long they had “nothing but”), but the idea of the Blues eventually spread to the human condition itself, adopted by every race and every means of expression, not just music. Blues for Smoke, which runs through April 28, 2013 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, illustrates how the visual arts got the Blues through the 90 works of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video, and installation art. As smoky and ill-defined as the idea of the Blues can be, Blues for Smokepictures Blues as a fleeing feeling, a lasting philosophy, and nearly everything in between. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Can the Visual Arts Have the Blues?"


[Many thanks to the Whitney Museum of American Art for the image above and other press materials related to the exhibition Blues for Smoke, which runs through April 28, 2013.]