David Driskell lecture, "Palmer Hayden and the Harlem Scene," at the University of Iowa, August 1970

Speaker 1: The following is the fourth in a series of five lectures by David Driskell, delivered at the 1970 Institute of Afro-American Culture, held on the campus of the University of Iowa. The Institute, held August 9th through the 21st, focused on the culture of Black America, commonly referred to as the Harlem Renaissance. In this recording, David Driskell, Professor of Art at Fisk University, speaks on Palmer Hayden and the Harlem scene. David Driskell: Since we got started so late, we'd better just hit on the salient points of the rest of the contributors, and move along as fast as we can. I think the most important things to be exposed are these painters. And then you will know about them, and then you can go and look up them on your own. So if you will pardon me, I'm not going to go into a formal presentation this morning. And just hit upon the general biographical sketch from the lives of Palmer Hayden, Loïs Mailou Jones, Pierre-Noel, and Ellis Wilson. I will read just a note or two from a monogram that I did on Palmer Hayden instead of reading the lecture material. David Driskell: Now, I also have a bibliography, which I will ask the staff to prepare. I shouldn't be letting it out now because I haven't had a chance to check it properly. And this is just what we've complaining about, the lack of scholarship and all of that. And if you don't have anything, you better take this. My students have been putting it together, and I haven't had a chance to go through it. They didn't even have the things on it that I did. So last night, I hastily added about five or 10 monograms that I've done on Afro-American authors, that will be included in this. And most of the monograms that I have done are still available at Fisk. They're handled through our Division of Cultural Research, and I think they all are about 50 cents apiece or something like that. David Driskell: In addition to this, I had told someone yesterday that we do have a considerable number of the portfolios that were done by the Harmon Foundation on Richmond Barthé. And you will recall that he was the principal sculptor of the Renaissance. And I don't recall as to how many reproductions are in that portfolio. It's about, in size, about 10 by 14, and they're all in black and white, but they're excellent photographic reproductions. And I think that the portfolio, I think there may be 12 to 20 reproductions in it, and I think the cost is $3. Then there's another one which was published by the Harmon Foundation. It was turned over to us, called The Outstanding Americans of Negro Origin, or something like that. And it's just the portrait. You can get that type of thing now freely. It isn't up to date, so for those who don't have anything, it might be sufficient, but you can get these portfolios from other sources now. I mentioned Shorewood Publishers the other day. And I've mentioned the slide sources of Sandaks and [Prothmans] and a few others here and there, by Educational Dimensions, Incorporated. David Driskell: Palmer Hayden, his real name was Peyton Cole Hedgeman, but nobody knows him by that name. He's known as Palmer C. Hayden today. He was born January 15, 1890. He is 80 years old. We had him down at Fisk in February, and the monogram that I'm referring to is this one that we did on him at Fisk, and it's maybe 16 or 17 pages. I'm sorry, I was supposed to have brought some of these along to leave out here and I didn't, rushing and what have you. And he's a very vibrant person. You could look him up in the phone book if you're in New York, said he'd be happy to have you come visit him. You have to walk up five flights of steps, which he does every day. And it's possibly one of those things that keeps him so lively and young. You'd think that he's a man of 50 when you see him. David Driskell: He's had a very interesting and colorful life. He was born in Widewater, Virginia. Not Tidewater, but Widewater, Virginia. He was educated in the public schools of the state of Virginia. And he never attended college, of what we might call formal college. He served in the Army of the first World War in Europe and he later went to the Philippines, and so you can see he had a wide scope of travel behind him. David Driskell: 1925, when the Renaissance was underway, he left Harlem and went up to New England, painted for quite a while in the state of Maine. He returned, of course, to New York the same year, and was a beginning participant in what we now refer to as the Harlem Renaissance. He went to France in 1927, where he studied in Paris, under private tutorship and at the School of Fine Arts there. And he had a couple of one-man shows in Paris while he was there. David Driskell: Well, he returned to the states two or three years later, and of course was acclaimed very much like Johnson and Douglas, an important contributor by way of visual arts to the Harlem Renaissance. And he then started working with the Harmon Foundation. And he was helping with the crating and the shipping of the exhibitions and what have you. And of course, he was one of the important winners of the Harmon Award upon his return in 1928. And he won also the Mrs. John D. Rockefeller's prize for painting in 1933 again, at these exhibitions. And you know they stopped around 1934. David Driskell: His work was including in the Harmon traveling shows between the period 1934/1935, and Alain Locke wrote about him when he ... Negro Art Past and Present, and of course he was mentioned in Negro Art and several other works that Locke wrote. And he was referred specifically to Fetiche et Fleurs, this particular still life which Hayden painted and which he incorporated the mask of an African tribe with flowers and what have you. And he said that this was one of the most important paintings, easel paintings, this is Locke who said, "This is one of the most important easel paintings of the Renaissance." Of course, several writers, including Jimmy Porter took issue with Locke about saying something like that. Simply because it had an African symbol, it didn't really get to the essence or meaning. David Driskell: Now, one of the most important series, it was interesting that artists did series of paintings during this period. And one of the most important works or series that Palmer Hayden did was the John Henry series, and we're going to look at that this morning. This series of works has been commented upon, and has been reproduced in several magazines, part of it in Life Magazine in 1946. And the series was first known as the Ballad of John Henry, and later it was simply called the John Henry Series. This was the highlight of the exhibition we had at Fisk University in February. In addition to that, we had some of the more genre paintings that he did, and those pertain to folklore. David Driskell: But I would say that Palmer Hayden must be regarded as the folklorist of the Harlem Renaissance, because he was the one who told the tales of our tall heroes. John Henry. And then he took the little man and idealized him. The janitor became a very important person, and he reflected himself through the janitor. One of his famous paintings is called The Janitor Who Paints, and he shows something of his own character in that composition. David Driskell: Hayden was criticized for being concerned with the kind of a caricature image of the Black man. Just as Johnson was, and just as Archibald [inaudible] was, but he did not let this bother him. He said, his interpretation, the idea of the thick lips, the very large noses and what have you, that these were symbols of beauty and were not things to be laughed at. As was being done by some middle class Blacks at that time. David Driskell: With reference to his John Henry series, he says the following, and I quote, "The song of John Henry, the steel-driving man, I first heard when I was a boy in my early teens at home in Virginia. At that age, whenever I heard the Ballad Song by older songs or men at work, it appealed to me chiefly because it told in sober words in tune the life and tragic death of a powerful and popular working man who belonged to my section of the country and to my own race." And he's actually going out to do a study of this document that there was a John Henry in that section of the country. And we used a photograph from the Big Bend Tunnel. It's a commemorative plaque, the kind that you see throughout the country, which shows something about the fact of what became a legend. David Driskell: "As I grew older, I came to realize the deepest significance of the story and the literary value of the ballad. To the Negros in our country at the time of the building of the Big Bend Tunnel, their physical strength and ability and willingness to use it, was their chief asset in the struggle for economic survival. Hence to them, John Henry became a symbol of greatness and so popular a folk hero, that during his day after several generations following, many negro babies in the southern states were christened for him, John Henry." And this happened, I know, even up at the time when I was a kid in North Carolina and Georgia. It was always John Henry so and so and so, John Henry this. You very seldom hear that name anymore. David Driskell: This epic also, through the personality of John Henry, dramatizes the beginning of the movement of the negro from the agricultural into the industrial labor force. And the practical use of machinery in place of hand labor in the development of industrial America. John Henry was not made of the whole cloth, nor was he the negro counterpart of the mythical Paul Bunyan. But he did live and work in Big Bend Tunnel in West Virginia," end quote. David Driskell: He's had recent showings in a number of places, New York City, and more recently a rediscovering of his work in many university centers, like the City University of New York, the University of Pittsburgh. And of course I mentioned the fact that his work was recently shown at Fisk. And I would predict that there will be a great interest in him in the future. And this, certainly to my estimation, is a very good topic for a dissertation as it is across the board. You can find the music, the literary aspect of it, and certainly the visual account that Hayden has done. And I think someone undertaking this would be doing a masterful job, certainly if they include him. David Driskell: Possibly we can make this tape available at a later time. I don't have permission to let you copy it, unfortunately, because it has been done for a record by a publisher. And as I pointed out the other day, this gets to be a rather sticky matter. One has to be very careful. They can very easily trace the fact that I was at Iowa, and this is how it got out. And then you won't be seeing me for a good while. They'll lock me up. David Driskell: Now, let's look at some of the work of John Henry. You've seen a few slides, but let's go over those, and then go ... Or rather for Palmer Hayden. And then we'll go over those, and go into some additional ones. Now, this is his Folk Song, which dates back to the 1920s, or he calls it Folk Song or No Easy Rider. He always takes what might be referred to as a homely setting, the typical, the ordinary, and not the so-called lush generous attitude about living. And it is the commonplace, the ordinary man, who enjoys himself. He shows, literally, certain aspects of family life in this regard, in joviality of the Blacks in the city. David Driskell: You saw this one the other day, and I explained just a little about the symbolism of this. And he goes into great detail, talking about the biblical connotations, the Baptism and so forth. But there was something that he was also aware of, that this wasn't just the concept, the spectator aspect of this. And I wasn't aware of this until I actually went to Africa, to Yoruba territory, that there was, in certain Dahomean religions, specifically the Yoruba people, a concept of baptism which did not pertain to Christianity. And it was long established in that religion before any Christians got there. Where they went through a process of cleansing of the soul, by dipping one in the muddy water. Not this fresh flowing water, but a kind of muddy water. David Driskell: And there's some African religious practices that center around this. And there's some writers who contend that all of those of us who are Baptists are not drawn to it simply because it's the religious thing, but it's because it's a part of our heritage from Africa. And so, one season, there's the spectator influence. And this is literally what happened. I remember having been baptized as a Baptist in North Carolina, by my own father, who was a Baptist minister. And the excitement of all the good old white folks who came and sat on the banks that morning and watched us being dipped. David Driskell: And this is very typical of what happens in the southland. Obviously, some of the sisters would get happy, and you'd have to hold them down in the water to keep them from passing on downstream or something. And this was always the great excitement of the white community. They wondered what was going on, the chance that these people were taking. Well, you had enough talk about the concept of what Black religion's all about, the Black minister and what have you. And these people had a symbolism in their work, which was a natural part of them. He puts the snake here deliberately. The water moccasin is common of course in the South, yes. But, even though you're out there being baptized and what have you, there's always evil lurking around. And he of course equates that with some people up here, who are lurking around, trying to see what is going on. So one has to be careful at all times. David Driskell: And I recall, the idea of going to Sunday school one Sunday morning, and had to walk about five miles to get there, every Sunday, religiously. Got up, rain or shine, going across the creek, waiting to cross, taking off our shoes and what have you, putting them on full of sand, moving on. And getting to the church to find out there was a snake stretched across the altar, a black snake. And as I recall, the excitement was also like a special moment in that church, because that snake was there. And it was something very significant, and someone made a prophecy about that church immediately afterward. And of course, it came true. David Driskell: There are things like that, that are overlooked in all of this concept of what the Black church and the Black experience is about, and I hope that someday, somebody will examine it beyond the concept of what Mr. Washington and a few other people have done. Because I think here, you have a very important of the lingering, of the continual flow of ideas, which are, to a great extent, African in origin, and have not been exploited. David Driskell: Well, so much for that. Let's go on to the next slide. This one you saw the other day, When Tricky Sam Shot Father Lamb. In addition to the title, the excitement, the literal interpretation of what might happen in the midst of all this excitement. And he says, this actually took place in a particular town, but he witnessed this kind of scene. David Driskell: Above and beyond all of this, there was a certain amount of curiosity, a certain amount of involvement to find out what was going on in the community when something happened. And this was a way of knowing and keeping up. It wasn't just gossip along, but ideas were passed along because this was always a good time for somebody to tell his story and his version of what happened. And you would always get almost a legendary theme coming out of something like this. And A Midsummer Night in Harlem, which you saw previously. David Driskell: And I might mention that there is another artist. I didn't bring any slides of his work. There are two other artists who should be included in this listing, and they are Allan Rohan Crite from Boston, and James Porter, who was born in Baltimore, was from Washington, DC. But, unfortunately, I didn't have more than two of professor Porter's slides on hand, and they were not of this particular era. They were of another era. David Driskell: So you see, what still, what continues to be the crowded conditions of life in the ghetto and any major city and is expressed through Harlem here, and the kinds of scenes that he actually saw. And one could document this particular place in New York City, in Harlem. It still exists. And the interesting thing about the paintings of this period, is that they are not this modern concept. Somebody was asking about the abstraction, the abstract concept. And abstraction certainly had come to American art by this time. But the Black artists were concerned with a certain kind of documentation, which also was, let's say semipolitical in nature because the message got across. David Driskell: This is called New Shoes or Red Slippers, and you can see the delight and joy of this young lady being dressed up. The same kind of attitude that we get in Johnson's work. The idealization of the ordinary, the beautiful characteristics of the ordinary. David Driskell: And here is The Janitor Who Paints. And I said that this was, in a sense, a recapturing or reflection on aspects of his own life. This is not a self-portrait, but it goes into the detail of how the artist reacts, even though he's a lowly person. He has to come in at night and do his thing, but he does it in the presence of his entire family, kitten, cat included. Interesting, he has one painting called Wise Old Cat, which is a very interesting study of the cat. And he does animals so beautifully, a cuddling quality, especially with cat. And occasionally, one sees the dog. And you'll see the dog in the John Henry series. David Driskell: Berry pickers and those who have lived in certain parts of the South know that berries were a very vital part of our survival. And I still enjoy the symbol of going out to pick berries. I don't like to have to do it for a living, but it was a very important time. Now you see the dog, the hound, or what might be referred to as Rover. And the name Rover became a very important symbol because Rover, in literature and music and in art, in the visual arts, was a symbol of the servant/master relationship. That is the, Rover was very ... What's the word I want to use? He was loyal to his master. Here Rover, here. This comes back over and over again. When nobody else loves him, when the masters put him down, when he has even no friendship at home, Rover is always there to greet him. David Driskell: Now, the beginning of the John Henry series, when John Henry was a baby sitting on his mother's knee, and that is what this particular one is all about. If you know the ballad, it's not necessary to go into all of that. And you see the symbolism of it. You see what later will become the fate of John Henry, the steel-driving man. Am I in your view? You have the concept of the birth of John Henry, and the symbols relating to his life, of course his attention, devotion to his mother. And at a very early age, he's pointing off to the railroad, which is like an episode in the background. Very much like the kind of thing that you get in some of the early Renaissance paintings, where you have almost a serial concept, the works of Masaccio, someone like that, where you have three sections. Something going on here, something going on there. David Driskell: And so the painting, the visual work, breaks the time barrier. It becomes a statement beyond its presence. And the symbol is always attempting to do that individual work, to move it beyond the now, into the then, into the past. And so these symbols, the frontier concept that one sees, the log cabin, the raccoon hide, associated with raw pioneering American life. And then of course, all of the things that you see in connection with the railroad, the tunnel, already built in his mind, a vision of that. The chicken for survival, and so forth and so on, all of these elements. You know how important the chicken was. And still is, to those who travel. This concept of showing this very importantly. David Driskell: And, the sunflower, which is always a symbol of hope, because it is the plant that's so easy to grow, and we see everybody growing it, and it follows the sun, becomes a symbol of fertility. And specifically in the work of Walter Williams, he uses it over and over and over again, as a major symbol. A symbol of hope, as well. "Beyond all of the darkness, the sun will eventually shine." "He laid down his hammer and cried." David Driskell: Could we go back to that first one just a minute? That one, yes. There is also another similarity here, that is characteristic of the work of Renaissance artists. And I'm not trying to make this tie, just for the sake of doing it. But I think Hayden, even though he is sometimes referred to as a primitive, was aware of the sophisticated paintings of the European masters. And is the same kind of attitude that one sees with Christ on the lap of the mother. And it's almost that teaching device of a parable I speak of to you, when the hand of the child is always pointing at a very early age, in early Christian art, and down to the Renaissance. You see this kind of thing, where the Christ child points, and he's always instructing or teaching with a point of the hand, a point of the finger. A very important symbol of course, in Christian art. David Driskell: "Now, he lay down his hammer and cried." All of these works measure something about 30 by 40, and they are oils, and there are 12 of them in all. And I need not go into all of the details and explain. You see the symbols, strength as far as the hammer, and the logs of which he's sitting come to rails. And the labor force in the background and always of course the mountains of West Virginia, to indicate the location. David Driskell: "The dress she wore was blue," from that particular stanza. The first thing some of the students asked me was, "Why did he integrate this picture?" Well, I don't think he was so much concerned about the idea of integration, but in certain parts of the country, you find the mingling of these people at certain levels. And of course, at his age at the time he recalls a great deal of this. He's not, as he explained to them, he was not given what might be referred to as an integrationist picture. This was still John Henry. John Henry was the best in the land. And this is what he shows by his strength, proof of his strength. So everybody came out to see him, white, Black, red, indifferent. Speaker 3: [inaudible]. David Driskell: Pardon? Speaker 3: [inaudible]. David Driskell: This is a part of the fair attitude, where he's performing and so forth, where ... And he has all the symbols there, which I suppose would include the local queen, maybe the apple blossom queen or the tie-splitting queen or whatever she is. They had them all over. It's interesting. In these different communities, the potato blossom queen, the strawberry queen. And queen of queens and everything. David Driskell: Where'd You Get Them High top Shoes? Is the title of this one and you see, of course you see the music merrymaking attitude, where everybody's rejoicing over the glory of John Henry. David Driskell: Now, he was celebrating John Henry as a symbol beyond the concept of a limited local community, and to what he referred to as a full universal figure. And so it isn't just the local area for John Henry. "My hammer in the wind." "A Man Ain't Nothing But a Man." John Henry on the right, steam drill on the left. And this is where he, of course, shows his strength, that he can outdo all of these mechanical devices and what have you. And so, now this is also a superior attitude to glorify the strength of the Black man, and also says about what Dr. Davis was saying yesterday about the concept, you see, that you can glorify this and say, "Okay, I am closer to nature. I am closer to the animal form, if you want to, but I can do this and I can do that," and so forth and so on. And so you see this same thing comes back in some regards and some of the visual accounts. David Driskell: And then he died with his hammer in his hand. And I think you could guess all of these as you go along. I don't really have to recite the titles. And the awe and the surprise and everybody coming to see what actually happened. Speaker 3: [inaudible]. David Driskell: Pardon? Speaker 3: [inaudible]. David Driskell: Yes. Here, again, the almost cross-like structure appearing over and over again in many of the artists' works of that period. And we don't have number 10, Going Where Her Man Fell Dead, but we're going to number 11, There Lies That Steel-driving Man. And 12, simply John Henry. And this is of course the symbol of the resurrected strength of John Henry, which is the survival of his character that we now celebrate. David Driskell: Now, let's go on to the work of Lois Jones. She was referred to as Loïs Mailou Jones. She hails from Boston, Massachusetts. She was born 1905, studied at the Museum of Fine Arts school in Boston, and taught for a few years down at the Palmer Institute in North Carolina. And then joined the faculty at Howard around 1931, which at that time consisted of James V. Herring as chairman, James Porter as the historian, James Wells as the graphic artist. James Porter also taught painting. And Loïs came in design and painting. David Driskell: And that was the faculty of that early beginning of the Department of Art at Howard University, where the first all Black Professional Gallery of Art was established in the basement of Rankin Chapel. And it was from that, that we get the establishment of other galleries that were totally professional and Black-operated, specifically the Barnett Aden Gallery, which was operated by Alonzo J. Aden, who was the first curator of the Howard University Gallery in Washington. Alonzo Aden started his gallery in 1943. And of course, you can see by then, even the influence of the Renaissance was waning. David Driskell: I said that she was born in Boston and she was from one of the important New England families. And those of you who come from New England know that's very important. I've been living there for 10 years, and I can't quite understand that yet. But, it's quite something around New England. David Driskell: Now, she does not fit into the category what we referred to as the visualists who are concerned with a particular aspect of the period. She becomes an ex-patriate every year or so because she goes to Paris and comes back. Goes to Paris and comes back, you see. So, she is caught up with the Parisian scene, and her admirers, or rather she admires the work, as you can see of [Petrillo], of Cezanne, and many of the other post-Impressionists. And one sees that very readily. As well as the Impressionists. One sees that very readily in this conversation. David Driskell: But there were some very early works, which fit it into the flavor of the Renaissance, and she was one of the few women painters who was able to come into the movement on the tail end and have a lasting quality in her work. And she's still an important, vibrant painter, an important person. She still teaches at Howard University. David Driskell: This particular work, typical of the Paris scenes from a later period. It's in the '30s, the late '30s, around 1938, 1940 and so forth. But it shows her capture of what we call the Parisian spirit or Parisian life. Can we focus just a little? Yes. David Driskell: Another one, from the same kind of thing, the street scenes that you would see an artist like [Petrillo] and others doing, with a certain amount of fluency. Which of course, renders her a very, very competent painter. And some of the early works, however, went to the social theme. And she also did some murals, as well. There's one mural at Howard University that she did, which glorified the Black woman. This was a very early mural, in old Cook Hall. Perhaps some of you have been there. I haven't seen it but it's a very important work. Unfortunately, we don't have a slide of it. David Driskell: And some of her early works, which were bitter social documents, which really, here again, didn't come out on the surface. Her lynch victim, A Mob Victim, is what it's called, is a brutal visual account of what happened in the era when lynchings were very ordinary in the South. And then the character that she portrays in these paintings are very interesting. But these give us no account of that. So I just mention that as a matter of record. David Driskell: Another one from the Parisian Scene. This is one of her watercolors, and you can see how, and I always thought academically one who would handle watercolors certainly was an excellent painter. And this is some of what you see in her work. Very famous one, [inaudible]. There's one I think is reproduced in Cedric Dover's book, American Negro Art. David Driskell: Another one from the same period. She went down to Luxembourg in the same period. An Outdoor Café, the same period. Another one at the marketplace. David Driskell: And then, later on, she turns to Haiti, where a great deal of her inspiration comes from. And it was in the early '50s that she married the Haitian Vergniaud Pierre-Noel. Consequently, we get the names, Loïs Mailou Jones Pierre-Noel. These names are very interesting. I mentioned James Herring. When he was teaching classes in the early days, I guess was the only place where, what the subject called in the day Afro-American Art or Black Art, was being taught was Howard University. And James Herring taught the course prior to Jimmy Porter's teaching it. And they said when things got out of hand and Herring could not control things too well, he would always recite his name, and that would always turn people off. It was James Vernon Lee Joseph Augustus Herring. And that would always quiet things down. He's say, "This is James Vernon Lee Joseph Augustus Herring speaking." And everybody would quiet down. David Driskell: This is from her Haitian scene Port-au-Prince. And she did several of those, but she went beyond this later and became involved in voodoo concepts in painting. And so unfortunately I only have one of those, not a very good one to represent that. But you can see that she was a very competent painter when it came to landscape, portrait, still life, and things of that nature. David Driskell: Could we focus this just a little? And you get a watercolor showing a night view of Port-au-Prince. I think some of these are turned around the other way, but I think you still get the meaning of it, from the same period, Haiti. Yes. Now she gets a little more involved in the textural aspect of painting here, and certainly a little more difficult, more complicated method of painting. So she gets involved with technique in many cases, especially with the watercolor. David Driskell: In the marketplace in Haiti. Comes slightly abstract in rendering, but the subject matter of course, very conventional. The kind that it excited many American painters prior to her time, like Winslow Homer and others. David Driskell: And then this, a part of a series. It comes out of the voodoo paintings that she did. And interestingly enough, the voodoo paintings become very abstract. They've become a combination of collages and assemblages. David Driskell: But, those of you who follow this particular art would find that she has captured certain symbols which relate to the concept of voodoo. And she does it in an abstract manner, so as to show the fiery attitude, the emotional content of the practice. David Driskell: Now, let's look at some of the works of Ellis Wilson. And he and Lois Jones came into the Renaissance about the same time. They first exhibited in the Harmon shows in 1930, both of them. And so this puts them in at the tail end of the situation. This is Ellis Wilson at an earlier date. He's now about 71 years old. He comes from Mayfield, Kentucky, but he spent most of his adult life in New York and in the Caribbeans. And so many of his works reflect stylization of life in the Caribbeans. David Driskell: He is one of the artists, each year we do something like about three monograms on Black artists at Fisk University, having exhibitions, having these artists come talk with the students, what have you. And he's one of the artists that we've chosen for this particular school year. And so we'll be doing a brief publication on him, possibly in the spring. David Driskell: This one, I think you saw the other day called Field Hands, where he gives a graphic account of certain aspects of life in the South, specifically the tobacco farmers, the cotton and corn farmers and what have you. David Driskell: Here's Jeremiah. Here's Fisherwoman from the Caribbeans, and many of his subjects relate to Caribbean life. It was interesting that, this could very easily have been Senegal, Dakar, someplace like that where you see the women fishing. I was surprised to see that, for the small fish, they just go out with baskets when the high tide is in and just reach down and dip up the fish there and Dakar, and bring them on the sand and pile them up. And it becomes a communal type thing where everybody who wants fish just come and pick them up and go on back. And this goes on for a long period of time. Many, many women with the babies strapped on their backs, just with this basket with holes, just dipping up the fish as though they were bread from Heaven or something. David Driskell: And surely, which is in the collection at Fisk University, and this of course is an account which reflects life beyond the Renaissance, into World War II. Now here again, you see that kind of attitude about dance and rhythm that you found in other Black artists. And then some of the white artists got on the bandwagon and started doing the same thing. Specifically, in the work of Reginald Marsh, who, for a number of years, taught at the Art Students League. You get the same kind of attitude as to what you have here. David Driskell: And they were all, the white artists who did this were greatly inspired by the Black artists, Marsh and Stettheimer, who were all friends of Carl Van Vechten and those. But of course, there's no account of their being inspired by Black artists when you read their life histories, and what have you. David Driskell: And, the Magic Lantern composition, which is also in the collection at Fisk. And this is, especially the tourists who've been in that region of the world always come back, impressed the bands, the steel bands, especially. And this of course, a glowing account of the musical genius of the people in that region. And his Repairing Net. David Driskell: Now, perhaps you have some questions that you might like to raise about these three artists, so we have not gone into any great detail beyond a surface coverage. But to give you some exposure to them might be the most important thing to do at this time. Then you can see how they fit into the various disciplines and areas that you are interested in. Maybe we'd have a few questions and then we could break. Could we have the lights, please? Speaker 1: That was David Driskell, Professor of Art at Fisk University with Palmer Hayden and the Harlem Scene. A lecture delivered at the 1970 Institute of Afro-American Culture, held on the campus of the University of Iowa, August 9th through the 21st. This is the fourth in a series of five lectures by Professor Driskell on The Heart of the Harlem Renaissance, and was recorded by the broadcasting service of the University of Iowa.