Aaron Douglas – Pioneer of African-American Modernism

Aaron Douglas has become known as the pioneer of African American Modernism. Learn more about this amazing artist with this free homeschool artist study.

“Let’s sing it, dance it, write it, paint it. Let’s do the impossible.” ~Aaron Douglas

Aaron Douglas was born in Topeka, Kansas, on May 26, 1899. His father, Aaron Sr., was a baker, while his mother, Elizabeth, was a homemaker. She was also an amateur artist, and it was her art that inspired the young Aaron to become an artist himself.

After Aaron Douglas childhood, he graduated from high school in 1917, after which he moved to Detroit, Michigan. There he held several jobs while also attending free classes at the Detroit Museum of Art. A year later, he was able to attend the University of Nebraska, during which he worked as a busboy to pay for his tuition.

At the beginning of the first World War, Douglas tried to join the Student Army Training Corps (SATC), but was declined. Instead, he transferred to the University of Minnesota and was able to volunteer for the SATC there, where he achieved the rank of corporal. When the war ended, Douglas returned to the University of Nebraska, and in 1922 he received a bachelor degree for Fine Arts.

***Aspects of Negro Life: An Idyll of the Deep South***

In 1923, Aaron moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he worked as a visual arts teacher at the Lincoln High School. It was during this time that he also began to write letters to a young woman, Alta Sawyer, who would eventually become his wife.

***Aspects of Negro Life: The Negro in African Setting***

Aaron Douglas moved to Harlem, New York in 1925, where he worked to develop his art, using themes based on African culture and its relation to African-Americans. He also worked as an illustrator for several journals, and in 1927 he began to receive commissions to paint various murals for clubs, colleges, and hotels.

In 1931, Aaron Douglas was able to spend a year in Paris to further his study of painting and sculpting at the Académie Scandinave. By the mid-1930’s, he moved back to Harlem and took on more commissions for murals, including his most famous series, Aspects of Negro Life, in which he brought to life the history of African-American society.

***Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction***

In 1937 and 1938, the Rosenwald Foundation paid for Douglas to travel through the Southern United States to teach in various universities, and parts of the Dominican Republic to depict the life and cultures there. By the 1940’s he had move to Nashville, Tennessee to work as a teacher at Fisk University, where he founded the Art Department.

Aaron Douglas died in 1979, but his artistic legacy still lives on today. Aaron Douglas art style had a huge impact on the world and is known as the pioneer of the African-American modernist movement.