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Home / What Were Some Art That Went on in the Harlem Renaissance

What Were Some Art That Went on in the Harlem Renaissance

Materials

  • Figurer/Smart board/projector (for video)
  • Large chart newspaper
  • Markers
  • Pigment
  • Structure paper or poster board
  • Colored pencils
  • Markers
  • Crayons
  • Copies of:
    • Investigating Paintings/ Music/ Poetry Worksheet
    • Comparison ArtWorksheet

Lesson Overview

Artists of the Harlem Renaissance, including Jacob Lawrence, wanted to show the dazzler of Black people and counter the negative stereotypes and racist beliefs held by lodge.

In this lesson, students will:

  • Explore prominent artists and artworks of the Harlem Renaissance
  • Identify major themes portrayed by these artists
  • Create artwork based on themes of the Harlem Renaissance

Part one: An Creative Explosion

Introduce:

  • Watch this brusque video on the Harlem Renaissance from HISTORY.
  • As students are watching, they should take notes in response to the following questions:
    • What was the Harlem Renaissance?
    • What was the goal of the artists of the Harlem Renaissance?
    • What different kinds of art by African Americans wereprominentduring the Harlem Renaissance and who were some of the most famous artists of this fourth dimension?
      • If necessary, ascertain "prominent" for students: most famous or well known.
    • What bear on did the Great Depression take on the Harlem Renaissance?
    • What is thelegacyof the Harlem Renaissance?
      • If necessary, ascertain "legacy" for students: something that'due south been left backside for hereafter generations.
  • Subsequently watching the video, have students share their responses to the questions.

Part two: A Closer Look

Analyze:

  • In partners, students will examine three artistic works from the Harlem Renaissance toIdentifythe major themes oft portrayed by Harlem Renaissance artists. (Note: Select from this list the works best suited for your students. Consider their ability to handle difficult topics, reading levels, and prior noesis on race relations following the Civil State of war.)
    • I, Too by Langston Hughes
    • Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday (Delight annotation: this link contains graphic violent imagery in some of the annotations.)
    • The Libraryby Jacob Lawrence
    • Dreams by Langston Hughes
    • Panel no. 3 by Jacob Lawrence
    • The Harp by Augusta Roughshod
    • Panel no. 58 past Jacob Lawrence
  • Students volition use this Investigating Artguided questions exercise to analyze each piece of art. In that location is a separate set of questions for visual fine art, poems, and music. Employ the respective graphic organizer(south) based on the artistic works yous selected for your students.

Part iii: Themes of the Harlem Renaissance

CONNECT:

  • After analyzing each artistic piece of work, students volition compare the iii artistic pieces using this Comparing Fine artguided questions practise.
  • One time students have finished comparing the artworks, accept them develop a list of major themes of the Harlem Renaissance that they noticed. Common themes y'all may desire to address with your students include: the lasting influence of slavery, Blackness identity, the effects of institutional racism, the dilemmas of performing and writing for elite white audiences, and how to convey the experience of modern blackness life in the urban North. They tin can also use these themes for the Legacy of the Harlem Renaissance lesson.

EXPRESS:

  1. Have students select one of the themes from your class list about the major themes of the Harlem Renaissance.
  2. Students then write down a i-sentence statement in response to the question:What do I want to say nearly this theme?
    • For example: If a student selects "Black identity" as the theme on which they want to focus, their response to this question could exist "Black is beautiful."
  3. Edifice upon their responses, students create artworks to represent their statements responding to a major theme of the Harlem Renaissance:
    • Brainstorm ways to represent the statements. What will exist the most of import components to convey in the artwork?
    • Select a medium for representing the statement, such as verse, song lyrics, brusque story, visual art.
    • Create the artwork representing the statement.
  4. Create a classroom gallery:
    • Each student presents on the theme they selected and the statement they wanted to make with their fine art.
    • Students explore each other's artworks and reflect on how they all chose to correspond the themes.

The 306 Workshop Group in front of 306 West 141st Street Late 1930s

The 306 Workshop Group in forepart of 306 West 141st Street
Late 1930s
© 2006 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Seattle/Artists Rights Social club (ARS), New York

The 306 Workshop Group, also known as the Harlem Art Workshop was founded past artist Charles Alston. This group served to bring together Blackness artists such as Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Augusta Barbarous, and Langston Hughes, simply to proper noun a few. Located at 306 W 141st Street in Harlem, NY, the Harlem Art Workshop provided these artists with both a meeting and work space. Students acquire more than about some of the artists who were function of the 306 Workshop Group in this lesson.

The 306 Workshop Group in front end of 306 West 141st Street, Belatedly 1930s

Photograph of sculptor August Savage with her sculpture

Augusta Brutal with Sculpture
Courtesy Federal Art Projection, Photographic Division collection, 1935-1942
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Augusta Vicious was a prominent American sculptor during the Harlem Renaissance. She created sculptures of of import Black figures such as W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey. Like many of the other artists of the Harlem Renaissance, Savage wanted to highlight aspects of Black history and identity through her artwork. In this lesson, students study some of the themes that emerged from the art created by artists of the Harlem Renaissance.

Augusta Savage with Sculpture, 1935-1942

Photograph of Langston Hughes by Carl Van Vechten

Carl Van Vechten
Langston Hughes
© Van Vechten Trust, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Langston Hughes was a prolific American poet during the Harlem Renaissance. In addition to poesy, he also wrote novels, short stories, and plays. Often influenced past jazz, his poetry told stories of Black people and reflected all aspects of Black civilization, underscoring the beauty of it equally well as the suffering that Black people endured living in America. In this lesson, students study some of the themes that emerged from the art created by Harlem Renaissance artists.

Carl Van Vechten, Langston Hughes

Additional Context

Lesson Context

In the 1920s, Harlem became a coveted address. The neighborhood in New York Urban center was synonymous with an outpouring of production in the visual arts, music, literature, theater, and trip the light fantastic that some began referring to the creative era as the Harlem Renaissance.

Famous artists of the Harlem Renaissance included: sociologist and historian W.E.B. Du Bois, writers Claude McKay, Langton Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston, musician Duke Ellington, and entertainer Josephine Baker.These artists strived to limited their racial identity and pride.

Jacob Lawrence, an artist of the Harlem Renaissance, believed his paintings were "a portrait of myself, a portrait of my community." The community he grew up around included artist and mentor Charles Alston and leading philosopher Alain LeRoy Locke.

The people of Harlem and their rich heritage were constant sources of inspiration for Lawrence. The customs experience—its triumphs and tragedies, its dreams and disappointments, its pleasures and humility, collectively forged by the Nifty Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Low era—lives on in his paintings.

Key Terms

306 Workshop: A collective made upwards of artists, musicians, and writers who rented studio space at 306 West 141st Street in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance.

Harlem Renaissance: The largest concentration of African Americans who migrated during the Swell Migration moved to Harlem. From the 1910s to mid-1930s, the neighborhood of Harlem in New York City became a hub of African American culture, with an explosion of literature, music, theater, and the arts.

Institutional Racism: A form of racism (prejudice and discrimination based on race and the belief that your own race is superior) in social and political institutions. Specifically, institutional racism is reflected in discriminatory practices, policies, and behaviors within spheres such as economics, the criminal justice arrangement, education, employment, housing, wellness care, income, and political ability.

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Source: https://www.phillipscollection.org/lesson-plan/artists-harlem-renaissance