Museographs: Contemporary African-American Folk Art: The History Publication of World Culture

By Caron Caswell Lazar

The tradition of African-American Folk Art is vast and diverse. With roots that extend overseas, these traditions now flourish and continue to bloom into the twenty-first century. In Contemporary African-American Folk Art, trace the development of such mediums as wood carving, pottery, quilt making and painting.

Learn the significance of slave Henry Gudgell, whose artistic mastery is still hailed as some of the best surviving examples of African-American wood carving.

See how random scraps of cloth from 'the big house' transform into geometric wonders such as 'The Wedding Ring' and 'The Triangle.' Just two of America's favorite quilt patterns, they are often still showcased today at Southern quilting bees.

Complete with informative text and seven vibrant prints, this issue includes biographical summaries of major contributors to the field of African-American Folk Art.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Feb 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781456607029

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Contemporary African-America Folk Art

Historic Overview

The tradition of African-American folk art has its origins in early forms that are undeniably African.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century African slaves had already begun to fashion artworks soon after their arrival to this land. Later in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries these folk-art forms flourished and had grown to include woodcarving, grave decoration, quilting, ceramics, ironwork and basket weaving. The early African forms had become blended with European and white American forms over the last hundred years. Nevertheless, certain compositional devices and subjects remain as a link to ancient Africa.

Following are descriptions of historic folk mediums generally employed by African-American artists.

Woodcarving

Carved walking sticks, still produced regularly in Africa, are the most specific genre that can be traced back to an African heritage.

Perhaps the most important surviving example of an African-American carved walking stick is by a slave named Henry Gudgell of Missouri in the 1860’s. Records document that Gudgell was born in 1826 in Kentucky. His father was Anglo-American and his mother a slave. Around 1867 Henry and his mother moved to Missouri to a farm owned by Spence Gudgell. Henry Gudgell was known to have been a man of many talents and he acted as a blacksmith, wheelwright, coppersmith, silversmith, as well as being skilled in many other crafts. According to Dr. Regenia A. Perry, formerly of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, relatives of the original owner of the cane relate that it was carved for John Byran, a friend of Henry Gudgell’s master, who had incurred a knee injury during the