The History of African-American Art

“Lost in a vast world of great distances and rocky terrain with no signs to lead you home. These three figures look hopelessly yet whimsically for a familiar path leading to their African home.” Dick Kappel’s Which Way Home, metal sculptures.

There was a point in history when the African artisans were enlightening the world. They were teaching the Greeks and Romans and building an art history to pass on to the generations to come. However, these great builders, sculptors, and creators were taken from their homeland and forced to be slaves in America. Their wonderful artifacts and works were stolen, destroyed, or lost upon their journey, leaving an open space in African history. Africa had been losing its cultural heritage to looters and dealers. As a result, African traditional and sacred objects have vanished completely from the continent, ending up in museums, universities, or private collections outside the continent. (National Geographic, www.nationalgeographic.com)

Generations to come had no recollection of their lost past only giving them the strength to build a new history. African-Americans have been struggling for over 100 years to rebuild and prove their artistic abilities that were lost during slavery. They are continuously fighting back to build a new future, one with history, culture, and power for their new world.

Lost but not hopeless, African-Americans have been able to prove their artistic ability after the end of slavery. This was a time when the world seemed to be moving forward and opening doors for the great African-American artists that we know of today. The hardship and pain many slaves had to endure influenced much of the early work of African-American artists.

“What does the Negro want? His answer is very simple. He wants only what all other Americans want. He wants opportunity to make real what the Declaration of Independence and Constitution and the Bill of Rights say, what the Four Freedoms establish. While he knows these ideals are open to no man completely, he wants only his equal change to obtain them.” Mary McLeod Bethune (Madyun, P.p.29).