African American Artists & the Harmon Foundation

African Americans & the Arts in the Federal Government

This series of blogs were written by Tina L. Ligon, Supervisory Archivist at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland

This year the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is celebrating the countless contributions of African Americans in the arts. The 109 year-old organization selects annual themes to showcase all aspects of Black life in America. This year’s theme, African Americans and the Arts, allows for the expression of African American creativity in the areas of visual arts, poetry & literature, film, music, and comedy. The National Archives and the Presidential Libraries hold photographs, sound recordings, moving images, and textual documents of Black artists interacting with the federal agencies in areas of activism, official visits, and acknowledgement of their achievements. Today’s blog highlights records from the Harmon Foundation.

The Harmon Foundation was created by real estate developer William E. Harmon in 1921, to support and collect the artwork of African Americans artists. It provided cash awards and spaces to exhibit art pieces during the height of the Harlem Renaissance. The Foundation provided awards and traveling exhibits in the areas of literature, music, fine arts, business, science, education, religion, and race that highlighted the contributions to the culture of Black America. The National Archives holds some of the Harmon Collection, which has several photographs and films featuring Black artists in the United States and in Africa. Some of the artists in the collection are Richmond Barthe’, Jacob Lawrence, Palmer Hayden, William E. Artis, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, and Augusta Savage.

The series Portraits of Outstanding Americans of Negro Origin Painted by Two Women Artists (NAID 559191) is a collection of photographs of oil paintings created by artists Betsy Graves Reyneau and Laura Wheeler Waring. Select African Americans who these women painted were Mary McLeod Bethune, Ralph Bunche, Charles R. Drew, W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary Church Terrell, Paul Robeson, A. Philip Randolph, Alain Locke, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Through funding from the Harmon Foundation, African American artists used their talent to instruct others. Black visual artists taught at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and at local primary schools. Painters and sculptors Jacob Lawrence, Josiah Robertson, Hale Woodruff, Elizabeth Prophet, Lois Jones, and Numa Rousseve shared their skills with Black students. Photographer Kenneth Space captured them at work in the series Kenneth Space Photographs of the Activities of Southern Black Americans (NAID 559211).

Space also captured their students receiving instruction or creating art at Howard University, Xavier University, and Atlanta University.

The Harmon Collection records can be found in the following series: Artworks by Negro Artists (NAID 558790), Photographs Relating to Contemporary African Artists and Art (NAID 558786), Photographs Relating to Filmstrips (NAID 94791), Works and Artists of Negro Origin in America (NAID 559189), Negro Art Exhibits, Workshops and Demonstrations (NAID 559164), and Photogravures of “Sculpture by Richmond Barthe’ (NAID 558787).