Dr. Samella Lewis:

Dr. Lewis was born on February 27, 1924, in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is considered to be a pioneering artist and art historian. She is renowned for her contributions and commitment to African American art and art history.

Dr. Lewis attended Dillard University, Hampton Institute, and completed her graduate studies at the Ohio State University. In 1951, she became the first African American woman to receive a doctorate in fine arts and art history.

Among her many accomplishments, in 1969, she founded the first African American-owned art publishing house, Contemporary Crafts, which allowed her to publish, "Black Artist on Art." She also helped found the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles and was a professor of art history at Scripps College in Claremont, California.

Dr. Lewis remains committed to her passion to educate the public about African American artist and art.


John Holyfield:

Mr. Holyfield was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia and raised by his grandmother. He realized his interest and natural talent for art at a very early age. After High School, he attended Howard University and The University of D.C. where he studied graphic design and fine arts. He has
established himself as one of the leading contemporary modern African-American artists today.

Mr. Holyfield has been inspired throughout his career by such artist as Ernie Barnes, Norman Rockwell, and Frederic Leighton, and his work bears their influence. For material and inspiration, he draws from his memories and stories from his grandmothers. His themes include family, music, spirituality, and his culture. The influence of his grandmothers is evident in his works by the repetition of women.

The elongated strokes of his brushes and fluid characters are easily recognizable as his work and is unique to him. At first glance, Mr. Holyfield's art has a calming effect and tends to transform the viewer to another place and time—a place and time of peace and tranquility.


Jonathan Green:

Simply stated, he paints what he knows best. His work depicts real people doing real things and demonstrates his love for a people and his culture.

It has been said that Jonathan Green is considered to be one of the most culturally significant African-American artists of our time. Noted art critics and reviewers alike consider him to be one of the most important painters of the Southern experience. His work is exhibited both nationally and internationally.

Mr. Green was born in 1955 in Rural Gardens Corner in Beaufort County, South Carolina. He served as an Air Force illustrator prior to beginning his formal study of art and drawing. He earned a BFA degree from the School Of The Art Institute of Chicago. In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree by the University of South Carolina.

Best known for depicting the people, their way of life, and the landscape of the "Low Country." Mr. Green is the only artist of Gullah descent traditionally schooled and trained who exhibits his art across the nation. Although his appeal and perspective are modern and cosmopolitan, he looks no further then the Gullah life in the "Low Country" of South Carolina for his inspiration. His work serves to document a way of life, a day-to-day existence, be it singing praise in church, kicking up their hills in dance halls, fishing, bringing home the harvest, or walking on the beach. His work is realistically human, plain, filled with elegance, and layered with rich color.

His accomplishments, awards and exhibitions are too many to mention. Let his art work speak for itself. The 1996 publication of "Gullah Images," The Art of Jonathan Green is now in its third printing and brought his work to a wider and diverse audience.


Louis Delsarte:

Mr. Delsarte was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1947 and has been a professional artist for over 25 years. He received a B.F.A from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and a M. F. A. the University of Arizona.

In addition to his achievements as an artist, Mr. Delsarte has been and continues to be a professor of fine art. He has instructed at Morehouse College, Morris Brown College, Spelman College, and College of New Rochelle to name a few.

Mr. Delsarte's work may be found in many private and public collections including but not limited to the Camille Hanks Cosby Museum at Spelman College in Atlanta GA, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is also an accomplished muralist and has been creating murals since 1967.

A United States postage stamp featuring a Delsarte painting was released in 2005. The stamp depicts the march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama taken from a Delsarte painting created in 2000. Mr. Delsarte considers himself a committed professor and fine artist.


Romare Bearden:

Romare Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1911, and died in 1988. Several years after his birth, his family settled in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. After high school, Mr. Bearden continued his formal education first at Lincoln University, and then he transferred to Boston University and completed his Bachelor of Science degree in education from New York University.

Although Mr. Bearden always had an interest in art and drawing, he started painting later then other artist of his generation. He served his country during World War II in the United States Army then returned to New York City.

From the mid 1930s through the 1960s, Mr. Bearden was a social worker off and on with the New York City Department of Social Services, while working on his art at night and on weekends. His success as an artist was recognized with his first solo exhibition in Harlem in 1940 and his first solo show in Washington, DC in 1944.

Just like many artist of that generation did, Mr. Bearden incorporated social and political commentary in his art. Thus began a prolific and successful career encompassing a broad range of interest. In addition to his exceptional artistic talent, Mr. Bearden had an interest in music, performing arts, history, and literature. He is also recognized as a celebrated humanist. Mr. Bearden so loved music that he founded the Bluebird Music Company and had many of his own songs recorded. He also designed costumes and sets for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and programs, sets, and designs for his wife Nanette Bearden's contemporary dance theater.

Mr. Bearden counted among his friends intellectuals and musicians such as James Baldwin, Stuart Davis, Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Alvin Ailey, and Jacob Lawrence.

Mr. Bearden is best known for his richly textured collages. His publications and awards are too numerous to mention. His work is included in many important collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Studio Museum in Harlem among others. Most recently in 2005, his paintings and collage work was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition and catalogue organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.


Jerry & Terry Lynn:

Jerry & Terry Lynn are identical twin brothers. What makes them unique is that both are formally trained artist that share the same canvas while painting the same images at the same time.

Born in Tennessee, the brothers are young contemporary upcoming artist. Their art is highly influenced by the blues and jazz of the region. Their work is consistently improving and the sky is the limit for these uniquely talented and versatile artist.


Hughie Lee-Smith:

Hughie Lee-Smith was born in Eustis, Florida in 1915. Born an Africa American man in the early part of the century, Lee-Smith brought a unique perspective to his art. He lived through the Depression, World War II, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Mr. Lee-Smith went to school in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from Cleveland Institute of Arts in 1938. He was only the second African American to do so. He attended East Technical High School. While a student there, he hyphenated his middle and last name to make it more distinctive. In 1934, he won a Scholastic Magazine Art competition scholarship to study for one year at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts. In 1935, he received a second scholarship from the Gilpin Players at The Karamu Theater in Cleveland to study at The Cleveland School of Art.

Mr. Lee-Smith served in the United States Navy from 1943 through 1945 and became one of it's "official" painters. His military service was during World War II. While in the military, he completed a series of paintings entitled "The History of the Negro in the United States Navy." After the war, he entered Wayne State University on the GI bill and graduated in 1953 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in art.

He had his first one-man show in 1945.

Mr. Lee-Smith was a painter intimately concerned with the loneliness of decaying urban life and he painted with the perception of the surrealist. His settings of aged dying neighborhoods are wastelands where old buildings stand isolated. He paints people in these wastelands with one, two, or three individuals. When the character is alone they are seemingly unaware of their surroundings or so depressed by them that they stand doubly alone. When the character has a companion or two each is seemingly unaware of the other's presence and each moves alone in their private world. The implicit meaning of his work is in the artist's encounter with the world and that perception is his signature style. His paintings represent the denial of pleasure implicit in the recurring scene of carnivals. Lee-Smith likes to use the circus as a metaphor for existence. However, after the carnival is over, the players become ordinary human beings who go unnoticed.
 

Ernie Barnes:

Ernie Barnes was born Ernest Eugene Barnes Jr., 1938, in Duram North Carolina. His mother was employed as a domestic for Frank Fuller, Jr., a wealthy southern attorney. Fuller is credited with exposing the young Ernie to the world of art.

The harsh segregated south of the 1940s stifled the ambitions of Ernie. He graduated from high school with many football scholarships and would have preferred to attend the more prestigious Duke University or the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. However, blacks were not yet permitted to attend those institutions. Consequently, he attended North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central University) in Durham North Carolina. The four years that Barnes spent at North Carolina College represented a watershed period in his development as an artist. While fulfilling his athletic scholarship commitment, he majored in art. When the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh finally opened its doors in 1956, it gave Mr. Barnes his first opportunity to view real works of art. Ironically, two decades after that first visit to the North Carolina Museum of Art, that institution would host two major solo exhibitions by Mr. Barnes, one in 1978 and another in 1979.

During his senior year at North Carolina College, letters from professional football teams began to arrive almost every week. Even so, Mr. Barnes had his sights set on a career as an artist.

Without a role model, or resources for encouragement in art, he instead entered the arena of professional football. He played professional football from 1960-1965. In 1965, he retired from professional football to devote his life to art. His break into art would come when he presented his first solo exhibition at Manhattan's prestigious Grand Central Art Galleries. The show was a major success.

Away from the easel, Barnes moved to Los Angeles and pursued opportunities in acting. He found success as an actor and the entertainment community simultaneously embraced him as an artist.

His athletic career made a special contribution to his sensibility and his art and he often combines physical with artistic expression. His artwork is characterized by elongated figures usually in motion.

He was named official artist of the 1984 summer Olympic games and was the recipient of the 1984 and 2004 Sports Artist of the Year. In 1995, Mr.Barnes completed his autobiography from Pads To Palette, which recounts his transformation from football to art.