“The Harlem Renaissance should be central to how we think about the modernist period. It should be essential to the way we define and articulate not just African-American identity but American identity.” The Met curator Denise Murrell recently shared with me the animating idea behind her new blockbuster exhibition, The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, which brings together an amazingly diverse grouping of some 160 pieces to reveal the true breadth and depth of the work made by Black artists from the 1920s through the 40s. The show’s lofty aspiration is to redefine how we understand the Harlem Renaissance and the modernist art movement.
Murrell’s exhibition is the first major survey of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City since Studio Museum’s Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America in 1987, and it is both welcome and overdue. It casts an extremely wide net, giving a rare, comprehensive look at how Black creators portrayed the texture of Black life in early 20th-century America. From cityscapes to portraiture to jazz-age nightlife, community elders and activism, the show gives Black Americans the agency long denied to them to tell their own stories.
Beyond this premise, The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism also aims to make the case that many of its artists should be in the center of the modernist movement. “In the same way that we talk about Edward Hopper or Georgia O’Keefe, we should be talking about at least some of the artists of the Harlem Renaissance,” said Murrell. Thus, one section of the show demonstrates how prominent white European modernist standard-bearers like Matisse drew inspiration from Harlem aesthetics. The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism also offers a weighty look at the cross-fertilization that tied Black artists more closely to modernism than has generally been recognized, including a section chronicling the work of the Black artist Archibald J Motley Jr in Paris.
Murrell’s show is impressive for its comprehensive nature, bringing in a truly authoritative range of styles and subjects. It demonstrates that Black artists were true innovators, using all of the tools of the modernist art movement to explore the values and aesthetics of their community, and to assert their place in the fabric of American and European society. “It was about breaking down this idea that to be American was to be white, to be European was to be white, and to show the multicultural aspect of both of these populations in the 1920s through the 1940s,” Murrell said.
In order to put together The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, Murrell spent years viewing the collections of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), as well as private and institutional collections from all over the US and Europe. This was often groundbreaking work, as these institutions and collectors tended to be far outside the orbit of a major New York art museum. “Almost all of the museums I visited for the project were not traditional Met museums,” said Murrell. “Almost all of the HBCUs told me I was the first person from the Met they had ever met.” Through her extensive travels, Murrell unearthed many gems that had been long hidden in the archives. “It was essentially an archival excavation effort,” she said.
Murrell said she made some surprising discoveries as she explored these art collections. While visiting Clark Atlanta University, she was amazed to come upon William Henry Johnson’s Woman in Blue, a work that she had only seen previously as a study. “We’re pulling out things in the storeroom and there’s this large, beautiful oil painting,” she said. “I immediately recognized it as the final version of the study I had seen at the Smithsonian.” The work, a gorgeous, modernist take on a world-weary woman done primarily in hues of gold and blue, has since become the exhibition’s signature image. It joins other powerful works by Johnson, including the equally distinctive Man in a Vest, the spirited Street Life, Harlem, and the storytelling Mom and Dad, among many other standout pieces of Johnson’s.
Another major find for Murrell was artist and writer Bert Hurley’s novella Loose Nuts: A Rhapsody in Brown. A little-known Kentucky railroad worker, Hurley penned and illustrated the comic mystery novella that celebrates the many forms that Black life took in Louisville in the 1930s. Hurley’s virtuosic illustrations range across forms, from pen and ink to charcoal, sketches and watercolors – and everything in between. The book becomes something of an encyclopedia for African-American life of the era. “Louisville was a destination of the Great Migration, and he wrote about everyday life there,” said Murrell. “I became obsessed with this book – the language, the phrasing. It really cements the idea of this new Black majority taking hold in cities across the country.”
One section of The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism lays out the relationships between African-American art and European modernism by showing paintings from well-known artists such as Picasso, Matisse and Munch, demonstrating the cross-pollination with the Europeans. “We know Matisse spent time in Harlem,” said Murrell. “He has a very astute collection of jazz recordings. It’s not like these groups were unaware of each other.”
The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism also very much captures the sense of debate and contention among Black artists as to what they, as a group, stood for. The feeling of viewing the multitudes of contrasting styles and viewpoints is that of a community very much exploring and having deep and passionate conversations about itself. “There were discussions and debates within the Black community about what art would best represent themselves,” said Murrell. “The movement did inspire a change in attitudes within the community about its own culture.” Murrell also noted that the way these artists lived and worked was very much a model to inspire others in the community.
As much as The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism does to unearth a staggering array of important Black art, there is still so much more to be seen. Murrell stated as much when she indicated her hopes of continuing to work with lending institutions for subsequent exhibitions. “There’s definitely so much depth here. I do hope that we will have an ongoing collaboration with the HBCUs to jointly do more shows and additional research.” Given the delights, insights and new narratives that this show has brought to the Met, it is not hard to see the value in producing more exhibitions along these lines. “It’s really something that I think would be important,” said Murrell. “The broader art world should engage with these collections.”
The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism is now on show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art until 28 July
