Hale Woodruff

Hale Aspacio Woodruff
Hale Aspacio Woodruff
	Hale Woodruff in studio
Born	August 26, 1900; Cairo, Illinois
Died	September 6, 1980 (aged 80); New York, New York
Nationality	American
Known for	Painting, Murals
Notable work	Amistad Mutiny murals (1938–1942)
Spouse	Theresa Ada Baker

Hale Aspacio Woodruff (August 26, 1900 – September 6, 1980) was an American artist known for his murals, paintings, and prints.

Early life, family and education

Woodruff was born in Cairo, Illinois, on August 26, 1900.^[1] He grew up in a black family in Nashville, Tennessee,^[2] where he attended the local segregated schools. He studied at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, Art Institute of Chicago, and the Harvard Fogg Art Museum.

Woodruff won an award from the Harmon Foundation in 1926,^[3] which enabled him to spend four "crucial years studying in Paris from 1927–31."^[4] He studied at the Académie Scandinave [sv] and the Académie Moderne.^[5] He learned in the city's museums as well, while getting to know other expatriates, including Henry Ossawa Tanner, the leading African-American artist. Woodruff met leading figures of the French avant-garde and began collecting African art, which was a source of inspiration for many other modernists, including Pablo Picasso.^[6]

He returned to the U.S. in 1931 and married Theresa Ada Baker that year. They had one son, Roy.^[7]

Art career

Woodruff reluctantly returned to the U.S. due to financial strains from the Great Depression. He worked as an art teacher to support himself.^[8] In 1931 he began teaching art at Atlanta University, a historically black college, eventually developing a department of which he was chair and the core of the University's art collection.^[9] He taught classes at the university's Laboratory High School, as well as for students at Morehouse and Spelman, a related college for black women. He founded the annual competition, Atlanta University Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture, and Prints by Negro Artists, which featured many African-American artists. This was conducted from 1942 to 1970.^[10]

In 1936 Woodruff went to Mexico to study as an apprentice under the famed muralist Diego Rivera, learning his fresco technique and becoming interested in portrayal of figures.^[4] He returned to Atlanta and continued teaching. He began traveling to Talladega College in Alabama to teach and work on a commission for a series of murals.

After his return to the United States in 1936, Woodruff applied his understanding of Post-Impressionism and Cubism to painting and printmaking for social advocacy. Woodruff was inspired by the racism and poverty African Americans in the South faced during the Great Depression.^[11]

*Mutiny on the Amistad* by Hale Woodruff, 1938

In the spring of 1938, Woodruff was commissioned to work on a series of murals for the lobby of the Savery Library at Talledega College in Alabama.^[12]

The first of these murals, which consisted of three panels on the west wall of the lobby, commemorates a revolt by Mende slaves which took place on the Spanish slave ship La Amistad. The first panel, entitled The Mutiny Aboard the Amistad, 1839, depicts the melee as the slaves seize control of the ship. The second panel, The Amistad Slaves on Trial at New Haven, Connecticut, 1840, shows the ensuing United Supreme Court Case, United States v. The Amistad. In the third panel, The Return to Africa, 1842, we see the former slaves' later repatriation to Mendiland.^[13]

The murals are an example of Woodruff's mastery of composition. For example, in the first panel:

The power of the combat is accentuated by the figure groups which give the composition its balance and visual stability. The circular motion of the bodies increases the drama of the struggle...The figures are designed in an overlay fashion so that they are seen as one complete unit moving from the left bringing the eye around to the escaping sailor, who reappears in the second panel as the accuser.^[13]

An image of the ship is embedded in a design in the lobby floor of the library. College tradition prohibits walking "on" the ship, despite its central location. The library has another series of three Woodruff murals exploring events related to the black college's role in African-American history, including freedmen enrolling after the American Civil War and the construction of campus buildings.

Woodruff painted two other surviving murals, though these were not frescoes but oil on canvas of monumental size. The Negro in California History--Settlement and Development (1949), was one of two panels commissioned by the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company in Los Angeles; the other panel was created by Charles Alston. Woodruff also completed six panels around 1950-1951 called Art of the Negro, now at the Clark Atlanta University Art Galleries.^[14]

In 1942, even with World War II raging, Woodruff initiated the Atlanta University Art Annuals, an exhibit and competition that was conducted until 1970. These 29 national art exhibitions were a key venue for black artists.^[14]

In 1946, Woodruff joined the faculty at New York University in Manhattan. He taught there for more than 20 years before retiring in 1968. Malkia Roberts was among his many New York students.^[15]

During the 1950s Woodruff had three solo exhibition at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery.^[16]

Woodruff died in New York City on September 6, 1980.^[1]

Exhibition history

Source:^[19]

Solo exhibitions

1976

Ancestral Memory

the Studio Museum in Harlem

Group exhibitions

Source:^[19]

1985

Hidden Heritage, Bellevue Art Museum and Art Association of America

1976

Two Centuries of Black Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

1971

Newark Museum

1967

New York University
San Diego Art Museum
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
City College of New York

1958

New Bertha Schaffer Gallery, New York

1955

University of North Carolina

1951

Atlanta University

Legacy

In 2012 the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia organized an exhibition of Woodruff's murals created for Talladega College. The exhibition of six of the restored murals toured the United States including the African American Museum (Dallas), the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Chicago Cultural Center, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the New Orleans Museum of Art.^[20]^[21]

References

^ ^a ^b "Hale Woodruff". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved March 14, 2020.
^ Tonya, Bolden (2004). Wake up our souls : a celebration of Black American artists. New York: H.N. Abrams. ISBN 0810945274. OCLC 53020236.
^ African-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art
^ ^a ^b Smith, Roberta, "In Electric Moments, History Transfigured - Hale Woodruff’s Talladega Murals, in 'Rising Up,' at N.Y.U.", The New York Times, August 13, 2013.
^ "New Oils by Hale Woodruff at Bertha Schaefer's". Bertha Schaeffer Gallery. October 25 – November 13, 1954.
^ Hale Woodruff: Rising Up, High Art Museum
^ "Five Decades of Greatness in Art, Hale Woodruff". African American Registry. Retrieved January 15, 2022.
^ Fraser, Gerald (May 6, 1979). "Hale Woodruff Looks Back on Lifetime of Painting". The New York Times.
^ "Clark Atlanta Art Museum, History of the Collection".
^ Amaki, Amalia (c. 2007). Hale Woodruff, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, and the Academy. Atlanta: Spelman College Museum of Fine Art Seattle: University of Washington Press. pp. 13–14.
^ "Hale Woodruff | Going Home | The Met". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved February 14, 2020.
^ McDaniel, M. Akua (1995). "Reexamining Hale Woodruff's Talladega College and Atlanta University Murals". The International Review of African American Art. 12 (4): 4–17. ISSN 1045-0920 – via Art & Architecture Source.
^ ^a ^b Woodruff, Hale (1979). Hale Woodruff: 50 Year Of His Art. Studio Museum of Harlem. p. 67.
^ ^a ^b Dunkley, Tina. "Hale Woodruff 1900-1980", New Georgia Encyclopedia, December 6, 2013. Web. 28 May 2015. For images of and commentary on the "Art of the Negro" murals, see Clark Atlanta University Art Museum: The Murals.
^ "The Richard A. Long Collection of African-American Art – Sale 2359, Part I". Swann Galleries. October 9, 2014. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
^ "Hale Woodruff (1900 – 1980) Dragon". Invaluable. Retrieved March 14, 2020.
^ ^a ^b DR. LEO G. MAZOW; DR. BETH HARRIS. "Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player". Smart History, the Center for Public Art History.
^ ^a ^b Dr. Leo G. Mazow; Dr. Beth Harris. Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player. Smart History, the Center for Public Art History.
^ ^a ^b Wardlaw, Alvia (c. 1990). Black Art: Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African American Art (First (March 1, 1990) ed.). Harry N. Abrams Inc.
^ "Rising Up: Hale Woodruff's Murals at Talladega College". High Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 1 August 2020. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
^ Janovy, C.J. (December 19, 2015). "With Powerful Murals, Hale Woodruff Paved The Way For African-American Artists". Weekend Edition Saturday. National Public Radio. Retrieved March 14, 2020.

External links

"Amistad Murals", Talladega College

[Encyclopedia_Britannica-1] "Hale Woodruff". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved March 14, 2020.

[2] Tonya, Bolden (2004). Wake up our souls : a celebration of Black American artists. New York: H.N. Abrams. ISBN 0810945274. OCLC 53020236.

[3] African-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

[smith-4] Smith, Roberta, "In Electric Moments, History Transfigured - Hale Woodruff’s Talladega Murals, in 'Rising Up,' at N.Y.U.", The New York Times, August 13, 2013.

[5] "New Oils by Hale Woodruff at Bertha Schaefer's". Bertha Schaeffer Gallery. October 25 – November 13, 1954.

[6] Hale Woodruff: Rising Up, High Art Museum

[7] "Five Decades of Greatness in Art, Hale Woodruff". African American Registry. Retrieved January 15, 2022.

[8] Fraser, Gerald (May 6, 1979). "Hale Woodruff Looks Back on Lifetime of Painting". The New York Times.

[9] "Clark Atlanta Art Museum, History of the Collection".

[10] Amaki, Amalia (c. 2007). Hale Woodruff, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, and the Academy. Atlanta: Spelman College Museum of Fine Art Seattle: University of Washington Press. pp. 13–14.

[11] "Hale Woodruff | Going Home | The Met". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved February 14, 2020.

[12] McDaniel, M. Akua (1995). "Reexamining Hale Woodruff's Talladega College and Atlanta University Murals". The International Review of African American Art. 12 (4): 4–17. ISSN 1045-0920 – via Art & Architecture Source.

[:0-13] Woodruff, Hale (1979). Hale Woodruff: 50 Year Of His Art. Studio Museum of Harlem. p. 67.

[dunkley-14] Dunkley, Tina. "Hale Woodruff 1900-1980", New Georgia Encyclopedia, December 6, 2013. Web. 28 May 2015. For images of and commentary on the "Art of the Negro" murals, see Clark Atlanta University Art Museum: The Murals.

[15] "The Richard A. Long Collection of African-American Art – Sale 2359, Part I". Swann Galleries. October 9, 2014. Retrieved February 3, 2017.

[Invaluable-16] "Hale Woodruff (1900 – 1980) Dragon". Invaluable. Retrieved March 14, 2020.

[reframe-17] DR. LEO G. MAZOW; DR. BETH HARRIS. "Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player". Smart History, the Center for Public Art History.

[video-18] Dr. Leo G. Mazow; Dr. Beth Harris. Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player. Smart History, the Center for Public Art History.

[Wardlaw-19] Wardlaw, Alvia (c. 1990). Black Art: Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African American Art (First (March 1, 1990) ed.). Harry N. Abrams Inc.

[High_Museum_of_Art-20] "Rising Up: Hale Woodruff's Murals at Talladega College". High Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 1 August 2020. Retrieved 14 March 2020.

[NPR.org-21] Janovy, C.J. (December 19, 2015). "With Powerful Murals, Hale Woodruff Paved The Way For African-American Artists". Weekend Edition Saturday. National Public Radio. Retrieved March 14, 2020.

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Hale Woodruff

Early life, family and education

Art career

Exhibition history

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Legacy

References

Further reading

External links

This information is adapted from Wikipedia which is publicly available.

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