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During the 1920s, the period of the so called "Negro Renaissance" black artists became increasingly interested in their African heritage. Much of this interest was stimulated by the late Dr. Alain Locke.  Dr. Locke, after graduating from Harvard, became one of the first black students honored as a Rhodes Scholar.  His critical writings on art and literature were widely read. Dr. Locke was one of the first scholars to advise Afro-American artists to look to African art for inspiration.


We shall look at some representative black artists who went to Africa, at least in their imaginations, to reinforce their own paintings and sculpture, and to depict the legends and the  actuality of the place of their forebears.  There are, of course, other artists of substance who are making the same attempt, as well as painters and sculptor's of real working in different contemporary. terms.


THE ARTISTS:

Hale Woodruff: A former professor at NYU is one of America's outstanding painters.

His murals at Talladega College are a dramatic pictorialization of the Amistad incident. The Amistad was a Spanish slave ship. While taking Prince Cinque and some of people from Havana to Camaguey to work in the sugar cane