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Harlem’s Golden Age

In the 1920s, a revolution in creativity transformed a small neighborhood in New York City

February 2014

Palmer Hayden (1890-1973), Jeunesse, 1927. Watercolor on paper, 14x17in. Courtesy of the Hayden Family Revocable Art Trust.

What techniques does Palmer Hayden use to show the couple’s movement and energy?

On a walk around the New York City neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s, you’d see kids playing on the sidewalk, neighbors chatting in front of apartment buildings, and busy people rushing off to work. But you wouldn’t see the hidden world of writers click-clacking on their typewriters, painters swirling color across their canvases, or jazz singers practicing their new tunes. You might notice that Harlem was different from any other place. But you might not know that in this very neighborhood, an explosion of creativity was taking place.

Creative Community

This coming together of writing, music, and art in a Northern city started out in the rural South. Before 1900, about 90 percent of African-Americans lived in the South. But discrimination and lack of jobs drove many of them north in search of a better life. Between 1900 and 1960 about 5 million black Americans moved north in what is known as the Great Migration.

Many of these travelers settled in Harlem. They had brought few belongings, but they did carry with them African folk music and other traditions, passed down through generations. Southern traditions collided with Northern ones, and brought forth exciting new ideas.

Writers were the first to express these ideas. The famous poet Langston Hughes, among others, wrote of the black experience in America. These writers used words to call for social change.

All that Jazz!

Aaron Douglas (1898-1979), Aspects of Negro Life: Song of the Towers, 1934. Oil on canvas, 274.3x274.3cm. The New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division. ©Heirs of Aaron Douglas/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

What visual relationship does Aaron Douglas create between the saxophone and Lady Liberty’s torch?

The party really started when the musicians tuned in. Musicians like Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith brought together music from the past and present for a completely new sound called jazz.

Jazz music inspired the artists. Palmer Hayden depicts a dancing couple in his Jeunesse, which means “youth” in French, at the top of this page. He stylizes the figures, reducing them to their most basic shapes. Their elongated limbs exaggerate their movements. Hayden captures the mood so well that we can almost hear the music.

The central figure in Aaron Douglas’s Song of the Towers, above, raises a saxophone above his head. The instrument becomes the focal point. Light radiates from the saxophone, positioned just in front of the Statue of Liberty’s torch, as if jazz is the new symbol of freedom.

Loïs Mailou Jones (American, 1905-1998), Ascent of Ethiopia, 1932. Oil on canvas, 23.5x17.25in. (59.69x43.82cm). Milwaukee Art Museum Purchase, African American Art Acquisition Fund, matching funds from Suzanne and Richard Pieper, with additional support from Arthur and Dorothy Nelle Sanders M1993.191. Photograph: John Glembin. ©Loïs Mailou Jones Pierre-Noel Trust.

What symbols does Loïs Mailou Jones use to stand for art, music, and drama?

Connecting History

Music and history come together in Loïs Mailou Jones’s Ascent of Ethiopia, at right. An Egyptian pharaoh dominates the foreground. He faces the great pyramids, representing African achievements of the past. In the background are symbols for art, music, and drama, which represent African-American achievements of the present. The simple silhouettes of figures ascend, or climb, on a diagonal line, connecting past and present. The North Star, shown at the upper left, guides them away from slavery toward a brighter future.

This period of innovation in African- American art, music, poetry, and literature came to be known as the Harlem Renaissance. It lasted from 1919 to 1929, but the ideas developed during this time are still used by artists today.

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