Harlem Renaissance Artist Aaron Douglas & Writer James Weldon Johnson

A Topeka native, Aaron Douglas (1899–1979) is one of Kansas' most important artists. He became a leading painter of the Harlem Renaissance as Black art and culture flourished in New York during the 1920s. Douglas' signature style combines African and African American stories with modernist geometry to create artworks that explore the African American experience.

Art historian and public scholar Dr. Renée Ater will provide a deeper look at Douglas' 1935 painting "Noah’s Ark," which was on view at the Wichita Art Museum in the 2022 exhibition "American Art Deco: Designing for the People, 1918–1939." Douglas illustrated poetry by James Weldon Johnson in 1927. This Winter 2022 Howard E. Wooden Lecture considers Aaron Douglas' painting "Noah's Ark" in the context of Johnson's "God's Trombones," his 1927 book of poems based on folk sermons. After creating the illustrations for Johnson, Douglas returned to the imagery from "God's Trombones" in several of his most important oil paintings, including "Noah's Ark." Exploring the collaboration between Douglas and Johnson, Ater argues that the artist and the author created a vibrant Christian iconography from a uniquely Black perspective.

Dr. Ater is Provost Visiting Associate Professor at Brown University and Associate Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has published widely on African American artists including Aaron Douglas, Meta Warrick Fuller, and Keith Morrison. Her current research focuses on the
intersection of race, monument building, and national identity.

The Howard E. Wooden Lecture series is generously sponsored by the Friends of the Wichita Art Museum.

Originally recorded the evening of Thursday, February 24, 2022, in the S. Jim and Darla Farha Great Hall at the Wichita Art Museum in Wichita, Kansas. Due to travel delays, Ater participated via Zoom while attendees had the option to watch the presentation via Zoom or in the Farha Great Hall.

Pictured: Carl Van Vechten, "Aaron Douglas" (detail), 1933. Gelatin silver print, 10 x 8 inches. Fisk University Galleries, Nashville, Tennessee. Image courtesy Carl Van Vechten Papers Relating to African American Arts and Letters, James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. © Van Vechten Trust