Paul Dusenbury was a multi-talented visual artist, musician, teacher, and proponent of the synthesis of many art expressions. His explorations, infectious inspiration, and originality were well appreciated throughout the Seattle, Washington area where he taught and worked. He expressed caring relationships, and art that combined … Read MorePaul R. Dusenbury (1935-1998)
African-American artist Archibald J. Motley Jr. was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 7, 1891. At the age of two Motley was taken by his parents to Chicago when they decided to move north to seek better employment. The family finally settled in the … Read MoreArchibald J. Motley Jr. (1891-1981)
Artist Edward Bannister was a painter who concentrated on pastoral landscape scenes depicting the beauty and serenity of nature. He was the first African American artist to receive a national award. Bannister was born in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada in November of 1828. Little … Read MoreEdward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901)
Joshua Johnston, also known as Joshua Johnson, was a portraitist active in Baltimore, Maryland between 1790 and 1825, and the first African American to gain recognition as an artist. Primarily a painter of members of the slave-holding aristocracy, he was rediscovered by Baltimore genealogist and … Read MoreJoshua Johnston (ca. 1763-1832)
Artist and academic Jefferson Eugene Grigsby, Jr., was born on October 15, 1918 in Greensboro, North Carolina. His interest and enjoyment in art and creativity began in childhood and was later pursued through formal education. He earned a BA from Morehouse College in 1938 and … Read MoreJefferson Eugene Grigsby Jr. (1918 – )
Visual artist, storyteller and feminist activist, Faith Ringgold was born on October 8, 1930 in Harlem Hospital, New York City to Andrew Louis Jones, Sr. and Willie Edell Jones (Willi Posey), a fashion designer and dressmaker. An arts graduate from City College in New York … Read MoreFaith Ringgold (1930- )
William Henry Johnson was an African American expressionist painter. He was born on March 18, 1901 in Florence, South Carolina to mother Alice Smoot Johnson (known as “Mom Alice” or “Aunt Alice”) and father Henry Johnson. William H. Johnson was the oldest of five children: … Read MoreWilliam Henry Johnson (1901-1970)
Visual artist Lois Mailou Jones was born in 1905 in Boston, Massachusetts to Thomas Vreeland and Carolyn Dorinda Jones. Her father was a superintendent of a building and later became a lawyer, her mother was a cosmetologist. Early in life Jones displayed a passion for … Read MoreLois Mailou Jones (1905-1998)
Image Ownership: Public Domain Robert S. Duncanson was a landscape and portrait painter born in northern New York in 1817. His father was Scottish and his mother was a mulatto. While Robert was technically born free due to manumission laws, he still faced the enormous … Read MoreRobert S. Duncanson (1817-1872)
Painter and educator Laura Wheeler Waring was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1887. The fourth child of six born to Reverend Robert Foster and Mary Wheeler, Laura was unusual in some respects because she had the advantage of a superior education and middle and upper … Read MoreLaura Wheeler Waring (1887-1948)
