by Cieslafdn | Sep 27, 2013 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
On Tuesday, during the United Nations General Assembly, First Lady Michelle Obama held a luncheon for the spouses of heads of state at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Obama talked about the great artists that had lived and worked in Harlem during the twentieth century, mentioning several Rosenwald fellows including Langston Hughes, Aaron Douglas and Zora Neale Hurston. The event brought spouses of world leaders together with area artists, art students and high school students.
Read more at The New York Times.
by Cieslafdn | Sep 19, 2013 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
EXPO CHICAGO, which brings together over 125 leading international galleries at Chicago’s Navy Pier, will feature the work of Rosenwald artists such as Richmond Barthe, Jacob Lawrence, Augusta Savage and Charles White. The exposition is only this weekend (September 19-21) so make sure to stop by if you are in the area!
Read more at:
http://www.expochicago.com/
http://www.michaelrosenfeldart.com/
by Cieslafdn | Sep 3, 2013 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
Ernest Everett Just was a great scientist, but his story is equally interesting today for what it reveals about the unique pressures faced by one of the earliest African Americans biologists in a field that was not very open to him. In 1983, Kenneth R. Manning published an excellent biography of Just called Black Apollo of Science, which ably brings out the tensions produced by Just’s excellence in his field in spite of the difficulties he faced.
Ernest Everett Just, date unknown
Photo credit: The Marine Biological Laboratory Archives
For us, the most interesting facet about Just’s story as Manning tells it is his special relationship with Julius Rosenwald and the Rosenwald Fund. In the late 1910s, Just was a well-liked instructor at Howard University, but he wanted more time to pursue independent research. It was with this in mind that he met with Julius Rosenwald in early 1920. Just’s work had attracted several ‘mentors’, one of which was Abraham Flexner of the Rockefeller Foundation. Because the Rockefeller Foundation wasn’t able to support Just, Flexner set up a meeting with Julius Rosenwald. It was unusual for the Rosenwald Fund to give a grant to an already established researcher; for example, Dr. Charles Drew received his Rosenwald grant while still in medical school at McGill. However, Flexner eloquently argued on Just’s behalf that “service would be rendered to humanity through giving a fitting opportunity and support to a really able scientist of the Negro race.” Rosenwald agreed, electing to give Just an independent research grant of $1,500 a year (to which he added $500/year to support Just’s summer research at Woods Hole, Massachusetts).
Just relaxing at Woods Hole
Photo credit: The Marine Biological Laboratory Archives
The only problem with this arrangement was that Howard’s administration didn’t want Just to give up his full time teaching position, which didn’t pay well. They didn’t see his research as increasing his value to the university. But once again Flexner came to his aid. Howard University agreed to let Just cut back his course load to allow time for research in exchange for Flexner securing a large donation for the university through the Rockefeller Foundation.
Although Flexner was a strong supporter of Ernest Just, Manning describes him as holding casually racist attitudes: he was interested in alleviating the plight of African Americans but his support was marked by paternalism and he was shortsighted about the possibility for African American achievement in the sciences. Rosenwald’s work has been criticized on these grounds as well, and an example from Manning’s book paints him this way. When deliberating over whether to extend a permanent endowment to Just’s work, Rosenwald asked Just and his mentor Ralph Lillie whether Just’s attitude towards other blacks was one of “helpful association or aloofness.” This extra hurdle is not one that he or other philanthropists would have felt necessary to require with white grant beneficiaries, who would have been judged on the merits of their work.
Abraham Flexner
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
Nevertheless, Just seems to have had a special affection for Rosenwald. Just’s bond with Rosenwald was best demonstrated by his request to list his official title as “Julius Rosenwald Fellow in Biology.” This was an unusual request, Manning notes, as Rosenwald rarely allowed his name to be used in connection with his philanthropic work. The request was granted. Manning also writes that Just often sent letters to Rosenwald with personal details about his life and upbringing and the professional problems he faced getting hired because of race. Just consistently shared his successes (being asked to speak at national and international conferences, being cited in major publications, his own work on fertilization being lauded) with Rosenwald and this strategy of personal appeals lead to Rosenwald renewing the grant several times, to 7 years in total. In his letter to Rosenwald at the end of the 7-year grant period, Just described their relationship as “an almost holy alliance–a thing of spirit which I shall always remember” (qtd. in Manning, 155).
Julius Rosenwald in 1917
Photo credit: Harris & Ewing Collection, Library of Congress
In fact, Rosenwald’s support wasn’t over. He soon came back and supported Just with a more modest 3 year grant, which Just used to support the work of his student, Roger Arliner Young (a notable marine biologist in her own right). Later, Just appealed to Edwin Embree, who ran the Rosenwald Fund after Julius Rosenwald’s death, for support for Howard’s biology department. Just successfully convinced Embree, who was typically against endowments, to make a large donation to the department. Embree followed through even when planned-upon support from the General Education Board was not forthcoming.
Manning describes Just as driven and often overworked, which eventually took a toll on him. Whether his benefactors (like Flexner, Rosenwald and Embree) intended to be overbearing in the administration of their support or not, Just felt pressure to excel because of the trust placed in him. Not only did he have to produce quality research (as his Rosenwald grants were administered by the National Research Council) he felt he constantly had to promote his work in order to maintain the fellowships he needed to stay afloat. Just’s career as a biologist was marked by this tension – trying to do great research while pleasing his benefactors and providing much needed instruction for his students at Howard.
By Michael Rose
by Cieslafdn | Jun 18, 2013 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
Earlier this year, we covered an exhibition by the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York here on our blog because it featured the early work of some Rosenwald fellows. Their current exhibition, “Abstract Expressionism, In Context: Seymour Lipton,” shows Lipton’s sculptures in the context of his contemporaries, including two Rosenwald fellows: Charles Alston and Hale Woodruff.
Both Alston and Woodruff received consecutive Rosenwald fellowships in the early 1940s; Alston in 1940 and 1941 and Woodruff in 1943 and 1944. The Rosenfeld Gallery has once again graciously posted high quality images of the works in the exhibition on their website, so make sure to check out this oil painting by Alston, painted during his second Rosenwald fellowship, and this untitled watercolor by Woodruff from the year after his second Rosenwald grant.
“Abstract Expressionism, In Context” will be on display at the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery until August 2nd.
by Cieslafdn | Jun 17, 2013 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
’42 Rosenwald fellow Gordon Parks has had his photography featured in the New York Times online “Lens” section a couple times recently, following the surprising discovery of over 70 color transparencies by the Gordon Parks Foundation showing the daily life of African Americans in mid-1950s Alabama. These photographs comrpise a set that he called the “Segregation Series.” Some of them were published in LIFE Magazine but the complete set of originals was thought to be lost until now.
The latest Lens blog post tells about Joanne Wilson, who was the subject of an iconic photo by Parks that showed her standing in front of the prominently marked “Colored Entrance” to an Alabama movie theater with her niece. In contrast to the more commonly seen photographs highlighting Jim Crow injustices, which were typically black and white and showed overt oppression, this beautifully colored image shows the “prosaic” side of life under segregation. Ms. Wilson was recently honored at the Gordon Parks Foundation Awards Dinner.
Another of Parks’ subjects in the “Segregation Series,” Allie Lee and Willie Causey, were strongly censured and even threatened by their white neighbors for expressing pro-integration sentiments in the LIFE article. Both ended up losing their livelihoods and were forced to move away from their hometown. A followup article in LIFE Magazine, viewable here thanks to Google Books, tells about the intense antagonism in the small community towards the Causeys. It’s worth a read; it paints an extraordinary picture of the dynamics of rural Alabama life during Jim Crow.
Maren Stange on the set
Photo credit: The Ciesla Foundation, June 7, 2013
We caught up with Maren Stange (an expert on social documentary photography and the author of Bare Witness: Photographs by Gordon Parks) last Friday (June 7th) in New York to film an interview about Parks’ career. Stange described Parks’ early days in Chicago (during the 1930s) where he caught the eye of the Rosenwald Fund with a provocative exhibition at the South Side Community Art Center that juxtaposed portraits of Chicago high society (both black and white) with gritty photographs of the stark conditions in what was known as the “Black Belt” in Chicago. Parks used the resulting grant from the Rosenwald Fund to go to work as a documentary photographer for Roy Stryker at the Farm Security Administration in Washington D.C., where he quickly began work on his iconic “Story of Mrs. Ella Watson,” a government charwoman that Parks photographed at her daily activities over the course of a month. Stange summed up Parks’ style and drew a very clear line between his early social realism, his masterful portrait-making (including great photos of Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes and his early Chicago patron, Marva Louis), his in-depth stories for LIFE magazine (like the “Segregation Series”) and his later fashion photography (which was the subject of a great Lens post by Deborah Willis back in November).
An image from Gordon Parks’ Ella Watson series
Photo credit: U.S. Farm Security Administration via Library of Congress
(You can view the full series at LOC’s Prints and Photographs Online Catalog)
By Michael Rose
by Cieslafdn | May 30, 2013 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
As part of the D.C. JCC’s “Locally Grown” art festival, a production called “The Hampton Years,” about black artists and featuring portrayals of two Rosenwald fellows, had its premiere last night and will play throughout the month of June. There are perfomances on weekday and weekend evenings and matinees on weekends. Tickets are $10 – for more on the Locally Grown festival, click here.
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