African Princesses
Oil on masonite
30 x 21 1/8 inches
Circa 1950
As Exhibited in: Elevation from Within: The Study of Art at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 2019–2024, Richardson Family Art Museum, Wofford College, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 2021; Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, 2022, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, Florida, 2023, Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, 2024
A prominent contributor to the New Negro Movement in Harlem, Ellis Douglas Wilson is best known for paintings that presented African American subjects with objectivity and dignity, devoid of idealization, caricature, or mythical attributes. A colorist with a preference for simplified modern compositions, Wilson wrote in a 1939 Guggenheim fellowship application that he was “most interested in painting the Negro. Unfortunately, this type of painting hasn’t a large following at present. I am desirous of both making a name for myself in the Art World and to create paintings which will be a credit to my Race and my time.”
Wilson attributed his artistic inclinations to his father, an amateur painter who worked in what Wilson described as a primitive style. Growing up in Mayfield, Kentucky, young Ellis held a variety of odd jobs and constantly looked for creative outlets amid the mundane. While employed as the janitor for a local dress shop, for example, Wilson drew pictures on the store window using cleaning soap, an exercise that was subsequently encouraged by the shop owner as a promotional ploy. In 1916, Wilson enrolled at Frankfort’s Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute for Colored Persons. Frustrated that his studies there were limited to either agriculture or education, he left after two years, embarking on a decade-long residency in Chicago. There, Wilson earned a degree from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1923 and participated in the Chicago Art League.
Five years later, Wilson moved to New York and, like so many other artists of the time, had difficulty finding employment. The Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts Project brought steady income and opportunity; it also offered him the chance to build friendships with other African American artists. Wilson’s academic style gradually became more abstract. After several unsuccessful applications, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1944 and another in 1945. Wilson used these funds to travel throughout the American South and capture the “poise and simple dignity” of African Americans at work.
With prize monies won at the 1952 Terry National Art Exhibition, Wilson took the first of several trips to Haiti. Invigorated by African-Caribbean culture, Wilson abandoned his representational style in favor of an almost fauvist abstraction executed in heightened color. His subjects appear as black silhouetted forms devoid of facial features and clothed in basic geometric shapes absent of folds and other details, as evidenced in African Princesses. Having fallen into relative obscurity in the 1960s, Wilson’s art was popularized in the 1980s when his painting Funeral Procession (circa 1950) was used on the set of The Cosby Show.