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Overview
What is Harlem Renaissance?
c. 1920s – 1930sPeriod
Harlem, New YorkBegan in
12Key artists on this page
4Works with free images
4Museums to visit
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural movement of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics, and scholarship centered in Harlem, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after The New Negro, a 1925 anthology edited by philosopher Alain Locke, who is regarded as the "dean" of the Harlem Renaissance. The movement also included new African-American cultural expression across other urban areas in the Northeastern United States and the Midwestern United States. It was prompted by a renewed militancy in the general struggle for civil rights, combined with the Great Migration of African-American workers fleeing the racist conditions of the Jim Crow Deep South.From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Original Art Movements text
This is the text that appeared on this page on the original Art Movements site. It is kept for reference; some statements are simplified or out of date. Where it differs from the overview, characteristics and dates above, which are checked against Wikipedia and Wikidata, trust those instead.
From 1920 until about 1930 an unprecedented outburst of creative activity among African-Americans occurred in all fields of art. Beginning as a series of literary discussions in the lower Manhattan (Greenwich Village) and upper Manhattan (Harlem) sections of New York City, this African-American cultural movement became known as “The New Negro Movement” and later as the Harlem Renaissance. More than a literary movement and more than a social revolt against racism, the Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression. African-Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage and to become “The New Negro,” a term coined in 1925 by sociologist and critic Alain LeRoy Locke.
One of the factors contributing to the rise of the Harlem Renaissance was the great migration of African-Americans to northern cities (such as New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.) between 1919 and 1926. In his influential book The New Negro (1925), Locke described the northward migration of blacks as “something like a spiritual emancipation.” Black urban migration, combined with trends in American society as a whole toward experimentation during the 1920s, and the rise of radical black intellectuals — including Locke, Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and W. E. B. Du Bois, editor of The Crisis magazine — all contributed to the particular styles and unprecedented success of black artists during the Harlem Renaissance period.
I am the Black Woman by Elizabeth Catlett, 1947 · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
Period
c. 1920s – 1930s
Began in
Harlem, New York
Key artists
Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Elizabeth Catlett, Augusta Savage
Related
De Stijl, Bauhaus, Group of Seven
How to recognise it
Key characteristics of Harlem Renaissance
Celebration of African American life, history and identity
Interest in African art and heritage
Links between visual art, jazz, blues and literature
Modernist styles combined with African motifs
Challenge to racist stereotypes
Timeline
When was Harlem Renaissance?
Harlem Renaissance is usually dated c. 1920s – 1930s, beginning in Harlem, New York. Dates for art movements are approximate: artists joined and left, and styles overlapped.
A flowering of African American art, music and literature centred on Harlem, New York.
When was Harlem Renaissance?
Harlem Renaissance: c. 1920s – 1930s. It began in Harlem, New York. Dates for art movements are approximate.
What are the main characteristics of Harlem Renaissance?
Celebration of African American life, history and identity; Interest in African art and heritage; Links between visual art, jazz, blues and literature; Modernist styles combined with African motifs; Challenge to racist stereotypes.
Who are the most famous Harlem Renaissance artists?
Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Elizabeth Catlett, Augusta Savage, Loïs Mailou Jones.
What are some famous Harlem Renaissance works?
I am the Black Woman by Elizabeth Catlett; Gamin by Augusta Savage; Magic in Medicine by Charles Alston; Bust of Martin Luther King Jr. by Charles Alston.
Where can I see Harlem Renaissance art?
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, United States), Cleveland Museum of Art (United States), Harlem Hospital Center (New York, United States), Oval Office (Washington, D.C., United States) hold works shown on this page.
