Church Picnic by Faith Ringgold

African American visual artists fought a long battle to have the freedom to express themselves through their art. During their period of enslavement, society defined those African Americans working artistically with everyday materials not as artists but simply as silversmiths, cabinetmakers, iron workers, or potters.

Even in the tough economic times of the Great Depression, visual artists such as Selma Burke, Jacob Lawrence, and Romare Bearden thrived. President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal offered support through the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP). Unfortunately, the short-lived PWAP only provided employment for a small number of black visual artists, a number of whom the government hired to paint murals on public buildings.

Under the New Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA), visual artists rebounded. What is more, the nature of art changed. Federal support for art projects freed black artists from producing only that art that could be marketed to white patrons. Visual artists could now freely depict human and social conditions, while politics and social injustice became a theme of art. San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston, and Philadelphia became new meccas for black visual artists. The WPA also helped many visual artists become university professors of art and sponsored less restrictive art forms, such as mixed media, abstract art, cubism, and social realism.

In 1935, WPA artists formed the Harlem Artists Guild. The guild made it possible for artists to support one another in various ways, such as by sharing places of exhibition in churches and storefronts. Community fund-raising efforts also increased at this time because it now became popular to be associated with black visual art. The guild also served as a model for other community art support groups and art centers. These centers offered free studio space and classes in visual art forms, including painting, weaving, quilting, pottery making, and ...