SESSION ONE
Embedded Files
Spiral was a New York–based collective of African-American artists that came together in the 1960s to discuss their relationship to the civil rights movement and the shifting landscape of American art, culture and politics. The group included artists Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Romare Bearden, Calvin Douglass, Perry Ferguson, Reginald Gammon, Felrath Hines, Alvin Hollingsworth, Norman Lewis, Earl Miller, William Majors, Richard Mayhew, Merton D. Simpson, Hale Woodruff and James Yeargans.
STUDY QUESTIONS
How did this group of New York artists respond to the civil unrest, and particularly the March on Washington? What were the questions they asked of themselves? What were their differences? How would you describe this collective? Why did Spiral end relatively soon? Lack of money? Different aesthetics among the artists? Did individual backgrounds of the artists make a difference? How did SPIRAL affect the later work of individual artists such as Romare Bearden and Reginald Gammon? How might we remember SPIRAL some 58 years later? Would there be a SPIRAL - like collective today? What might it look like?
INTRODUCTION - LOOKING BACK TO EARLIER TIMES AND THEIR POSSIBLE EFFECTS ON ARTISTS IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA
The Great Migration (1910 - 1970)
"The Great Migration was one of the largest movements of people in United States history. Approximately six million Black people moved from the American South to Northern, Midwestern, and Western states roughly from the 1910s until the 1970s."(African American Heritage)
Jazz and "Black and Tan" Clubs
Some Background
From Wikipedia
"Black and Tan clubs were clubs in the United States in the early 20th century catering to the black and mixed-race (tan) population. They flourished in the speakeasy era and were often popular places of entertainment linked to the early jazz years. With time the definition simply came to mean black and white clientele.
Although aimed as a venue for black people (who had few places to go) the liberal attitudes of the establishments usually attracted all types and were the first "gay friendly" establishments. They were certainly welcomed by a large section of society. Within wider society they were generally viewed as socially and sexually immoral (or ammoral).[1] White customers may have been seen as intruders by other customers, but as paying clientele would usually be welcomed by the owners. The net result was a melting point for cultures. However, some clubs physically divided black and white inside and some did not allow the two to attend at the same hours.[2] "
Jazz and "Black and Tan" Clubs, cont.
The Black and Tan Club (1922 - 1966), BLACKPAST, December 3, 2007.
The Introduction :
"The Black and Tan Club was a leading jazz nightclub located in Seattle, Washington, operating from 1922 until 1966. The nightclub flourished and was known as the most famous nightclub in Seattle at the onset of World War II. It derived its name from the black, white, and Asian patrons who attended the club during its four decades of operation."
Jazz and "Black and Tan" Clubs, cont
'Documenting the Dynamic Black Community of 1940s Seattle' by Maurice Berger, March 27, 2018, NY Times.
Click on the image on the right to read and view more about the nightlife of the Black community of the 1940s in Seattle.
An excerpt:
"The radiant photograph shows Duke Ellington at the piano, his hands dancing across the keyboard. Behind him, a drummer lifts his arms joyously in the air. It is the type of club photo we have seen many times, often taken in famous venues like the Savoy Ballroom, Café Society or the Cotton Club.
Except this one was taken in Seattle, a city known more for grunge than great jazz.
See below three photos from the exhibition, " Seattle on the Spot: The Photographs of Al Smith,” an exhibition at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle, a city that played only a modest role in American jazz history."
1 Documenting the Dynamic Black Community of 1940s Seattle - The New York Times.pdf
A couple in a Seattle nightclub, circa 1944
An unidentified couple, circa 1944
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, a racially mixed all-women band, at the Black and Tan in 1944
Jazz and "Black and Tan" Clubs, cont.
"Shuffle Along" Changed Musical Theater 100 Years Ago, by Jeff Lunden, May 23, 2021, NPR. The first all-Black hit Broadway show, it was a landmark in African-American musical theater, credited with inspiring the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and the '30s)
Click on the image on the right to learn more about "Shuffle Along" (a 4 - Minute Listen)
The "NEW NEGRO" MOVEMENT
The Harlem Renaissance and the "New Negro" by Rashid Booker, Noir Guides.
"Using the concept of the "New Negro," artists of the Harlem Renaissance and beyond sought to bring black culture from the status of folk art to a position of sophistication and dignity."
"One of the most significant intellectual and artistic trends of twentieth-century American history, the Harlem Renaissance impacted art, literature, and music in a manner that forever altered the American cultural landscape.
The Harlem Renaissance was a movement in the 1920s through which African-American writers, artists, musicians, and thinkers sought to embrace black heritage and culture in American life.
This shift towards a more politically assertive and self-confident conception of identity and racial pride led to the establishment of the concept of the "New Negro," coined by Alain Locke.
While describing the "New Negro," Locke referred to a renewed intellectual curiosity in the study of black culture and history among the African-American population. This evaluation of identity required an honest representation of the African-American experience.'"
The " NEW NEGRO" MOVEMENT, cont.
Work by two artists active during the Harlem Renaissance, Aaron Douglas and Lois Mailou Jones. " This artistic and literary movement was part of the larger "New Negro" movement, during which national organizations were founded to promote civil rights, efforts were made to improve socioeconomic opportunities for African-Americans, and artists worked to define and depict African-American heritage and culture for themselves, offering a counter-narrative to stereotypical racist representations. "
Aaron Douglas (1899-1979)
Aaron Douglas, "Aspiration", 1936
Lois Mailou Jones (1905 - 1998)
"Portrait of Hudson", 1932
In this portrait, Jones sought to promote the image of the "New Negro" as the educated and artistically accomplished students she encountered while teaching at Howard. The artist presents the subject off center and situated above the viewer in a manner that highlights his features.
RESPONDING TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ("The March on Washington") and THE FOUNDING OF SPIRAL (1963)
ARTISTS OF NOTE : ROMARE BEADEN , REGINALD GAMMON
RESPONDING T0 THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT and THE FOUNDING OF SPIRAL
Happening at This Time:
'The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963
Four Black schoolgirls killed in Birmingham chuch bombing, September 5, 1963
The Founding of SPIRAL
THE FOUNDING OF SPIRAL
"The purpose of Spiral was to stimulate an on-going exchange of evolving ideas to address how the arts community could play a role in the civil rights movement. " ("Harlem on My Mind - 50 years later would Reggie be still protesting?", Black Art in America, June 21, 2019)
An Overview
(From "We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965 - 85, Brooklyn Museum, April 21, 2017 - September 17, 2017)
SPIRAL AND THE BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT
Active between 1963 and 1965, Spiral was a collective of black artists who came together as a creative and professional support network. Sharing a desire to participate in the fight for civil rights, they simultaneously debated the role of art as a significant catalyst for social change.
Led by the influential artists Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Charles Alston, and Hale Woodruff, the all-male Spiral group invited Emma Amos, then in her early twenties, to join as the only woman. As Amos later recalled, they “weren’t comfortable with women artists as colleagues.” She thought they likely saw her as less threatening than the “more established (and outspoken) women artists in the community, such as Camille Billops, Vivian Browne, and Faith Ringgold.”
By the mid-1960s, as the Civil Rights Movement gave way to the Black Power Movement, new political strategies and cultural agendas developed. A loose confederation of artists, writers, musicians, and dancers who celebrated black history and culture became known as the Black Arts Movement. Members focused on developing a more popular audience for their work, rather than seeking to influence elite cultural communities as had some earlier generations of black artists.
Emerging in New York City, the Black Arts Movement quickly spread to other urban centers, putting down strong roots in Chicago, where related groups, including AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), grew. Committed to a socially responsible and community-oriented art, they promoted black pride by developing an identifiable aesthetic inspired by African cultures.
Text from pamphlet written for Spiral’s only exhibition - 'A rare pamphlet from an historic Black art exhibition by the Spiral collective' by Gabriella Angeleti, The Art Newspaper, July 30, 2021.
Text from pamphlet written for Spiral’s only exhibition - 'A rare pamphlet from an historic Black art exhibition by the Spiral collective' by Gabriella Angeleti, The Art Newspaper, July 30, 2021.
"During the summer of 1963, at a time of crucial metamorphosis just before the now historic March on Washington, a group of Negro artists met to discuss their position in American society and to explore other common problems. One of those present, the distinguished painter Hale Woodruff, asked the question: “Why are we here?” He suggested, in answering his own question, that we, as Negroes, could not fail to be touched by the outrage of segregation, or fail to relate to the self-reliance, hope and courage of those persons who were marching in the interest of man’s dignity.
In examining ourselves, we soon realised we were also examining the present health of a wounded American society, as well as much of Western culture. Despite many varying viewpoints, the members of the group felt they had something definitive and positive to affirm. If possible, in these times, we hoped with our art to justify life. In time we came to depend upon one another, and perceived that talent and aptitude were not the only means needed for creativity, since creativity is an aspect of human behaviour, comprehensible only in terms of a dynamic social relationship.
As a symbol for the group we chose a spiral—a particular kind of spiral, the Archimedean one; because, from a starting point, it moves outward embracing all directions, yet constantly upward.
Now, after nearly two years of having been together, we have decided for our first public exhibition to use only black and white and eschew other colouration. This consideration, or limitation, was conceived from technical concerns; although deeper motivations may have been involved.
It will be apparent that the works do reflect varying feelings and approaches to art: several reveal that the artist’s eyes were fed by nature; another, the painter’s basically emotional response; works of Reginald Gammon and Merton Simpson are configured with violent images of conflict; in contrast, the graphics of Bill Majors are lyrical and richly textured; Hale Woodruff’s painting, despite a surface freedom, has deliberate exactitude and design.
Time, and judicious judgement, will determine the lasting merit of the work on exhibit. What is most important now, and what has great portent for the future, is that Negro artists, of divergent backgrounds and interests, have come together on terms of mutual respect. It is to their credit that they were able to fashion artworks lit by beauty and of such diversity."
'THE FOUNDING OF SPIRAL, cont.
Romare Bearden, Spiral Group and the March Toward Artistic Identity' by Victoria Valentine , Culture Type, August 28, 2013
The image on the right is a photo of Romare Bearden in his Long Island City Studio with a photography of his paternal great grandparents in the background, circa 1980
Click on and read this brief article for an overview of the start of SPIRAL.
THE FOUNDING OF SPIRAL, cont.
Works of Four Spiral members at the "First Group Showing" (May 14 - June 5, 1965)
"The purpose of Spiral was to stimulate an on-going exchange of evolving ideas to address how the arts community could play a role in the civil rights movement."
(from "Harlem on My Mind - 50 years later would Reggie be still protesting?", Black Art in America, June 21, 2019)
The Manifesto
“We, as Negroes, could not fail to be touched by the outrage of segregation, or fail to relate to the self-reliance, hope, and courage of those persons who were marching in the interest of man’s dignity. …If possible, in these times, we hoped with our art to justify life…to use the black and white and eschew other coloration.”
Reginald Gammon (1921-2005). "Freedom Now"
"Processional" (1964),Norman Lewis (1909 - 1979).
Romare Bearden (1911 - 1988), "The Conjur Woman" (1964).
Click on the image on the right to read about SPIRAL, especially 'The Stylistic and Political Diversity' and 'The Significance of The Spiral Group'.
An excerpt:
"After World War II, another group of artists was formed as the American society moved forward with the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Namely, under the name Spiral Group, fifteen artists gathered in 1963 to critically examine their position in the society, as the fact Black artists at a time were mostly excluded by art institutions governed by white people."
Romare Bearden - Spring Way, 1964. Photomontage, 27"x39". Part of the "Spiral: Perspectives on an African - American Art Collective" exhibition at Studio Museum Harlem, July 14 - October 23, 2011.
THE FOUNDING OF SPIRAL, cont
"Why Spiral?": Norman Lewis, Romare Bearden, and Others on the 'Contradictions Facing Them in Modern America in 1966" ARTnews, Dec. 12, 2015.
Click on the image on the right to read comments from a Roundtable Discussion by SPIRAL members in 1966.
An excerpt - comments from Norman Lewis:
"Our group should always point to a broader purpose and never be led down an alley of frustration. Political and social aspects should not be the primary concern; esthetic ideas should have preference. Is there a Negro Image?"
THE FOUNDING OF SPIRAL, cont
OPTIONAL READ "How the Spiral Group Amplified the Diversity of Black Artists in 1960s America", Artsy, Aug. 20, 2020.
Click on the right to read more about the Spiral Group,
An excerpt:
"The Spiral Group understood that answers could be found in the amplification of a multitude of voices from all walks of life. As a microcosm of Black America, the members of the group offered diverse perspectives that alternately reinforced, contradicted, and expanded the paradigms they proposed. The group adopted an inclusive ethos, embracing a wide array of formal approaches rather than advocating for a common style as artist collectives often do. They sought a visual equivalent to jazz music that would reveal the inherent Blackness of their work. In doing so, the Spiral Group would help encapsulate the extraordinary breadth of expression by Black artists in the mid-1960s."
Emma Amos. Untitled (painting made for Spiral Exhibition, 1965), ca. 1964
Romare Bearden. "Mysteries from Prevalence of Ritual", 1964. Etching, aquatint and photo engraving.
QUESTIONS EARLY SPIRAL GROUP DISCUSSED : What should the role of the black artist in the mainstream of art be? Do black artists have something culturally unique to offer? What does the black artist intend to say? (No agreement reached.)
Later, Bearden summed up the dilemma 'Should an artist's work attempt to express directly the issues in the civil rights struggle in the tradition of social protest painting? Or might artistic achievement in itself enhance the status of black people?
For those in mid or late career, artistic excellence had been the means to negotiate mainstream acceptance and gain opportunities to have their artwork shown, thereby gaining regard for them, and by extension, for African Americans. For civil rights era artists, protest was in and of itself a means for bettering the status of Black people.
ARTISTS OF NOTE : ROMARE BEARDEN, REGINALD GAMMON
The work of three other SPIRAL members can also be found on our website: "Walking" by Charles Alston, a founding member of Spiral, can be viewed in the title for HOME ; Norman Lewis, also a founding member of Spiral is an "Artist of Note" in Session Seven ('Abstract Artists and Their Work'); and lastly the work of Emma Amos , also an Artist of Note, is in Session Eight ('Recognizing Women Artists and their Work').
# 1. ARTIST OF NOTE - ROMARE BEARDEN (1911 - 1988) , born in Charlotte, NC.
Romare Bearden Documentary - Biography, YouTube, Feb. 13, 2021. (7 min.)
ROMARE BEARDEN, cont.
OPTIONAL Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey, YouTube, (15.41 min.)
ROMARE BEARDEN, cont.
Romare Bearden and Charles Alston discussing a painting,' U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
Sgt. Romare Bearden (right) discussing one of his paintings, 'Cotton Workers' with Pvt. Charles H. Alston, his first art teacher and cousin . Both Bearden and Alston were members of the 372nd Infantry Regiment stationed in New York City, February 1944,
ROMARE BEARDEN, cont.
The Bearden Foundation, COLLAGES
Click on this image to view six collages by Romare Bearden.
Here is the introduction:
"What gave these collages special power was their size. Originally they were no larger than 14 by 18 inches, but striving for monumentality, Bearden had them photographed and blown up to large black and white sheets, which he named ‘Projections.’ Their size was typically six by eight feet or four by five feet. . . Reviewers hailed them as ‘startling,’ ’emphatic,’ ‘moving,’ ‘memorable’ and ‘propagandistic in the best sense."
Three collages by Romare Bearden are shown below.
Mother and Child, 1971
The Sea Nymph, 1977
Guitar Music, 1986
ROMARE BEARDEN, cont.
Mary Schmidt Campbell on Romare Bearden's "Conjur Woman" (1964) Studio Museum, Harlem.
Click on the image on the right to read about this collage, "The "Conjur Woman' collage.
An excerpt:
"When Romare Bearden first publicly exhibited his collages—“Projections,” he called them—in October 1964, he launched a revolution in the representation of Black people. Conjur Woman was one of these “Projections.” His scenes of Black life in this series go beyond the literal, documentary images of Black people common in popular culture of the time. He constructed rituals and ceremonies of Black life that metaphorically allude to the paintings of European masters, ancient African art or Black folk traditions. Process is as important as product in these works. Starting with a surface the size of a sheet of typing paper and filling it with his memories of people and places from his youth in Charlotte, Pittsburgh and Harlem, Bearden constructed photomontages from bits and pieces of paper and photographs cut from popular magazines. He then photographically enlarged them to billboard-size Black-and-white images. The result in this case is a startling image in which the figure of a woman from Black folklore—who some believed was magical and whom Bearden pieced together from disparate photographic elements—stands alone in the woods with her power. Iconic, her authority is uncontested. As a Black woman, she has few precedents in the history of art."
Pictured below are three images of Bearden's Conjur Woman.
Conjur Woman, 1964
Conjur Woman, 1971
Conjur Woman, 1975
Another excerpt:
The revolution he launched with the “Projections”—to represent Black life in rich symbolic terms—remained, as in the collage Prelude to Farewell. His collages often contain motifs that appear and reappear in different guises. Some are present in Prelude to Farewell: a woman bathing, generational contrast, sensuous treatment of the Black nude, a train (which Bearden has said represents departures and arrivals), contrast between exterior and interior space, and an aura of constrained yearning and desire. Bearden successfully invented a new visual language for communicating and understanding the beauty and complexity of Black life that, in the words of one critic, is “like a personal dictionary whose self-definition is its own voice and its own authority.” '
Romare Bearden, 'Prelude to Farewell', 1981.
ROMARE BEARDEN, cont.
OPTIONAL READ 'Ten Radical Artists Who Shaped the Black Power Movement", AnOther (Art and Photography), July 11, 2017.
Romare Bearden, 'Pittsburg Memory" 1964
" One of the best rooms ( in the show) looks at collage, which Whitley describes as a “quiet room” and features Romare Bearden’s 'Pittsburgh Memory'. “We wanted to look at how collage can, and has, represented the American experience,” Whitley says. The painting was used for the cover of the album "And Then You Shoot Your Cousin ' (2014) by The Roots, proving its enduring cultural impact. " (AnOther, Ten Radical Artists Who Shaped the Black Power Movement by Grace Banks, July 11, 2017.)
Romare Bearden, 'Pittsburg Memory", 1964
# 2. ARTIST OF NOTE - REGINALD GAMMON (1921 - 2005), born in Philadelphia.
Reginald A. Gammon 1921 -2004 YouTube (13.49 min.)
REGINALD GAMMON, cont
Reginald Gammon, Biography (Excerpts)
In 1963, Gammon was invited to join Spiral, a group of African American artists that included Romare Bearden, Richard Mayhew, Hale Woodruff and Alvin Hollingsworth. Named for the Archimedean geometric construct, the purpose of Spiral was to stimulate an on-going exchange of evolving ideas. In 1965, Spiral held its only group exhibition at the Christopher Street Gallery in New York City. Called "Black and White" this show was a pointed statement about the civil rights movement. The exhibit pieces, all in various shades of black and white, included Gammon's Freedom Now and Bearden's Mysteries. The group disbanded shortly afterwards. In 1969, Gammon and Benny Andrews formed the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition. This highly political group of artists picketed the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of Modern Art to protest the exclusion of black artists and curators at both institutions.
About this time, Gammon landed a teaching job as an "art expert" with the New York public schools. Teaching in the Saturday Academy Program, Gammon set up an informal studio so that children from Harlem could work with resident artists. This opportunity opened other doors when his friend Hughie Lee-Smith recommended him for a visiting lectureship at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Quickly realizing the contributions Gammon could make to the University's "Arts and Ideas" program, Humanities faculty asked the Dean to extend the 10-day lectureship to a one-semester teaching contract. Beginning January 1, 1970, this four-month position ended 21 years later with his retirement in 1991 as Full Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts and Humanities.
Reginald Gammon at Western Michigan University, 1971
REGINALD GAMMON, cont
Reginald Gammon, "Freedom Now" (Gammon's work at the "Black and White" show in 1965
"Freedom Now" was Gammon’s contribution to Spiral sole group exhibition, “Black and White” in 1965. Four shades of color was used to paint the figures, creating racial ambiguity. His work was a part of the 1965 Black and White Exhibition where participating artists did not want their art to be defined by their race, but they wanted it to be used to identify with the struggles faced by African Americans at that time.'
Reginald Gammon, "Freedom Now" (Gammon's work at the Spiral "Black and White" show in 1965)
REGINALD GAMMON, cont
Reginald Gammon, An Artist for the People, Black Art in America, Sept. 5, 2018.
Click on the right to read more about Reginald Gammon.
An excerpt:
“I have always been a figure painter and will die a figure painter. I think all the abstraction, the landscapes, comes from the figure, really. I have caught hell for maintaining that view. I think the human physiognomy is as great a landscape as you can find or as great a still life as you can find.” Though his contemporaries had taken to modernism and were more interested in line and shape than with the human form or still lifes and landscapes, Gammon was sure enough a figurative painter until he died."
Below are several examples of Reginald Gammon's artwork.
The Dreamer was created in 1964 by Reginald Gammon and shows a romantic element in his rendering of Martin Luther King. King’s eyes were closed to focus on the vision that helped him to move past the harsh realities he faced during his fight for freedom.
"Holy family", Reginald Gammon 1965. "Holy Family" is an important representation of his work created during the height of the civil rights movement. This work makes you look into the faces of the people and feel how they were affected by racism in America.
Reginald Gammon"Harlem on My Mind" , 1969
Gammon’s "Freedom Now" (left )and Bearden’s "Mysteries" (right)
Gammon’s political slant is revealed in his art. The difference in the styles and message of 'Freedom Now" by Gammon and "Mysteries" by Bearden was evidence of two different mindsets. Gammon’s art showed a willingness to confront the issues head on. This would become evident later in his decision to leave Spiral and support Benny Andrews in forming Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC).
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