Black History Month: Showcasing African American Artists

Kevin Cole is a sculptor and painter whose works address African American history post-slavery, particularly the ongoing struggle for equal rights in the face of social injustice.

Cole began his career as an art teacher in 1985 at Camp Creek Middle School in College Park, Georgia. Later, he became an adjunct professor at Georgia State University's School of Art and Design, where he taught until 1998. Over the course of his teaching career, Cole earned more than 50 teaching awards.

Cole’s art features colorful shapes and patterns and often includes motifs and imagery of loops, knots, and tangles to represent the souls of those who overcome adversity in their everyday lives. This sculpture, titled Chasing Laughter, is a creative bending of metal to form an abstract work of art. 

“Understanding the artist and his creative thinking, this work is more than what meets the eye,” said Key. “Cole uses the shape of the necktie as symbolic of Sunday dress when men wore a necktie almost daily, not only for church. In this case, Cole stretches the importance and beauty of the necktie to represent a noose—reminding the viewer of the specter of lynching, but in a subtle way.” 

Sam Gilliam was an innovative painter in the “color field” style of abstract art that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Color field art is recognizable for its large areas of flat, solid color on canvas.

Gilliam is often associated with the Washington Color School, a group of Washington, D.C. artists that developed color field painting as a form of abstract expressionism. He typically worked on canvas, often adding sculptural 3D elements.

“When many Black artists were incorporating African American imagery into their works as a way to express themselves and address issues related to their culture,” said Key, “Sam Gilliam elected to create works that did not have cultural elements. He used color as his way of expression and identity.”

James Earl Reid was a local sculptor who created a number of important commissioned works. A graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park with a master’s degree in sculpture, Reid is known as a champion for Black artists’ freedom of expression.

Perhaps best known for his bronze statue of jazz singer Billie Holiday, which now stands in the Druid Hill area of Baltimore, Reid was known for using his art to teach about the plight of Black Americans. Reid also created the famous sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on permanent display at the Washington National Cathedral.

In 1985, Reid was at the center of a controversy that brought international attention to the issue of creative and intellectual property rights of artists. His sculpture titled Third World America: A Contemporary Nativity, was commissioned by the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV) for display by the National Park Service. When Reid and the CCNV both filed competing copyright claims, the case ended up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, who ruled in Reid's favor, with Justice Thurgood Marshall writing the majority opinion.

The sculpture titled La Danseur Noir, as Key comments, “reminds the viewer of the gracefulness of traditional ballet at a time when African American dancers were not welcome on stage with white dancers.”

A native of Washington, D.C., Schroeder Cherry is an award-winning artist whose work is inspired by the music, literature, folklore, and everyday events of African American life. His art has been on exhibit at some of the most prestigious museums in the country, including Studio Museum in Harlem, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in California.

Cherry's art includes mixed-media assemblage paintings on wood and often incorporates discarded objects, such as keys and locks, glass shards, metal, buttons, playing cards, etc.--all of which contribute to an open-ended narrative that invites viewers to bring their own themes and experiences to each piece.

Cherry is also an accomplished puppeteer who has performed in museums, cultural centers, libraries, and schools across the U.S. His puppetry is an extension of the visual art, with performances that include such titles as Underground Railroad, Not A Subway; Land of Primary Colors; Civil Rights Children's Crusade, and Can You Spell Harlem?.

In this piece, titled I Remember Remembering, Cherry depicts a well-dressed woman sitting on a beautiful sofa with a watermelon rug at her feet. While the watermelon was considered a negative association with African Americans, as Key explains, it represents "a moment in American history when people, especially African American people, were living well or 'high on the cotton' as they say."