The Maker of Goblins

In The New Negro: An Interpretation, published in 1925, philosopher Alain Locke wrote of the need for African American visual artists to raise “the Negro subject from the level of trivial or sentimental genre to that of serious type study . . . and furnish the fullest and most revealing portrayal of Negro life.” Citing the work of William Scott, among others, Locke hailed the “advent of a representatively racial school of expression, and an important new contribution, therefore, to the whole body of American art.”

Scott’s training—at the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as the Académie Julian and Académie Colarossi in Paris—was rooted in the academic tradition and resulted in his inclusion at the Paris Salon and at London’s Royal Academy. When World War I necessitated a return to the United States, Scott opened a studio in Chicago, remained true to his representational style, and resolutely depicted African Americans not as subservient menial laborers or stereotypes, but as fully realized and wholly unique persons of dignity.

In 1927, forty-one artists applied for the Harmon Foundation’s second round of Distinguished Achievement awards in the fine arts. The jurors selected Laura Wheeler Waring as the gold prize winner and John Hardrick as the bronze prize recipient. They also made the unprecedented—and unrepeated—decision to recognize William Scott with a “special gold medal” that extended commendation, but not the usual $400 honorarium. The panel justified their action by saying that Scott had already achieved a lofty professional status that “needed no encouragement,” an explanation that contradicted the foundation’s stated mission to help “the American Negro to a sounder and more satisfactory economic position in art.” In response, Scott made his displeasure clear, arguing that his art garnered little income and that “the honorarium would have been most welcome.”