The Bathing Girl
Oil on canvas
36 1/8 x 30 1/4 inches
1932
Now on view: TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Art of the Athlete Fun Fact:
William Cooper painted The Bathing Girl over thirty years prior to swimming pools being desegregated across the country.
As exhibited in:
Elevation from Within: The Study of Art at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 2019–2024, TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 2019; 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
Although he lacked formal art training, artist-minister William Arthur Cooper used his paintings and his pastorate to alleviate racial biases he believed were caused by the perpetuation of hurtful stereotypes. Convinced of art’s potential to educate, the North Carolinian sought to depict truths about the black experience by painting portraits of African Americans in a way that conveyed the unique character of each subject.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in theology at National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race in 1914, Cooper was bi-vocational, selling insurance and ministering in various congregations; he also studied law and was admitted to the North Carolina bar. The 1930s proved to be the most critical of Cooper’s artistic career. Not only did he create a memorable portrait series, but he also began exhibiting his work and attracting national attention, all while serving as pastor of a Charlotte church.
In 1934, North Carolina’s newly formed Division of Cooperation in Education and Race Relations commissioned Cooper to paint one hundred portraits of African Americans in the state. Inspired by Jean-François Millet’s renderings of French farm laborers, these likenesses depicted a variety of black citizens: educators, clergymen, business leaders, musicians, and homemakers, including men, women, and children. Accompanied by biographical captions written by the artist, the series was published in 1936 as A Portrayal of Negro Life. Cooper organized North Carolina’s first African American art exhibition in conjunction with the book’s release and made a lecture tour of colleges across the state.
At a time when blackface dominated visual and theatrical representations of African Americans, Cooper’s portraits were considered radical. Cooper believed that popular caricatures of African Americans deprived young African Americans of same-race role models and perpetuated a false notion of racial difference that seemed to validate prejudice. In the preface to A Portrayal of Negro Life, Cooper made his intention clear: “my hope is that this little book may make its silent contribution to Race appreciation, Race development, Race adjustment and interracial good will.”