African American Artists Paintings & Artwork

Featured African American Artists

Jacob Lawrence was born in 1917 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and died in 2000. He painted a number of series of paintings focused on African American history, including his Toussaint l'Ouverture Series documenting the Haitian Revolution and his Migration Series documenting the northward migration of southern blacks in the 1930s. In the 1970s, he settled in Seattle, Washington, where he taught as a professor at the University of Washington. [More...]

Romare Bearden was born in 1911 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and died in 1988. When he was a child, his family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then to Harlem in New York City. Bearden went to New York University, where he received an educational degree, but initially worked as a cartoonist for Collier's, Saturday Evening Post, and other publications. He studied art at the Art Students League in New York City, studying under George Grosz, in 1936-7. Many of his paintings use collage and photo montage.[More...]

Frank Morrison was born in Massachusetts, but grew up in New Jersey. While performing as a break dancer on a European tour by the the Sugar Hill Gang's dance entourage, he visited the Louvre in Paris and decided to become a painter. [More...]