Euro American Artists in America

At this time, European art – both old and new – flooded into America, inspiring many wealthy Americans to build collections of European works. The Armory Show of 1913 introduced many Americans to contemporary developments in art.

These artists did not abandon their European roots; rather they created new cultural forms by merging American and European cultural forms together.

Ira Aldridge

Born into antebellum New York City, Ira Aldridge studied at an African Free School before discovering theatre on examination days. By 17, Aldridge had already taken his talent professionally despite its potential risks due to racism within America during that era; white audiences often disapproved of black performers’ demands for cultural equality.

Aldridge rose quickly despite these difficulties, becoming one of the most celebrated Shakespearean actors of his day and frequently performing in Continental Europe – sometimes donning white makeup to appear white). He often performed before royalty; was knighted in Germany; and banned from Russia due to his portrayal of Macbeth. Unfortunately he died while touring Lodz, Poland due to lung disease; many of his works remain part of UK collections or abroad.

Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson was an iconic artist and political figure who championed Pan-Africanism, sang for Loyalist soldiers during Spain’s civil war, joined anti-Nazi demonstrations, protested segregation domestically and abroad and supported Soviet Russia despite opposition from McCarthyism; because of this support he lost his passport for years afterward preventing travel for work purposes.

Erich Gruber first made an impactful mark on Broadway with roles in Eugene O’Neill’s All God’s Chillun Got Wings and The Emperor Jones by Eugene O’Neill; later touring melodrama Voodoo and London production of Show Boat were highlights in his career. As well, his concert singing became highly sought after, his version of Othello being one of the longest running Shakespeare plays on Broadway; other successful projects for Gruber included Sanders of the River and Show Boat musical movies.

Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker made waves during an era when segregation was still commonplace. A star of Paris theatre scene, she became famous for her banana skirt dance routines that symbolized black girl magic and represented one-woman resistance against injustice.

At the outbreak of World War II, her career took an unexpected turn: Baker joined the French Resistance as an underground courier. She met and socialized with members of German military units before collecting information on their strategies to pass back to Deuxieme Bureau; additionally she entertained troops across Africa and the Middle East. Baker also used her energy towards her estate Les Milandes located in southwestern France which she called her “rainbow tribe”, in order to show brotherhood; both she and her husband adopted 12 children together.

Beauford Delaney

Over the past ten years, Delaney has garnered renewed critical interest. Exhibitions at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York and Knoxville Museum of Art as well as Monique Wells’ foundation (Les Amis de Beauford Delaney) have helped increase his profile.

Delaney must not fall into the easy categorization of “Negro art.” His paintings are far richer, reflecting a host of social experiences as well as spiritual highs and paranoiac lows that inform them.

He was an integral member of both Harlem art scene and Greenwich Village bohemia, mixing with notable personalities like Henry Miller, Georgia O’Keeffe, Darthea Speyer (gallery owner), yet managed to keep these different parts of his life distinct from one another.

Bob Thompson

Bob Thompson rose to critical acclaim during segregation-era Louisville, Kentucky by producing paintings characterized by figurative complexity and intense colors by the early 1960s. Though later exposed to Allan Kaprow’s Happenings and Greenwich Village jazz culture, his preference remained firm for traditional European art forms.

Dody Muller advised him to create a visual vocabulary which consisted of using mysterious, silhouetted forms–often almost featureless–to create modern allegories. Reworking compositional structures of Old Masters such as Piero della Francesca, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Jacopo Tintoretto and Francisco Goya through brilliant acts of formal distortion or elimination and then recontextualizing them through sumptuous colors was his specialty.

This exhibition charts Thompson’s brief but prolific transatlantic career, and explores his inventive use of formal creativity when dealing with universal themes such as collectivity, witnessing, struggle and justice.