BIB_ID
431319
Accession number
MA 23385
Creator
Wilson, Jr., Edward N., 1925-1996.
Display Date
Durham, North Carolina, 1955 November 26.
Credit line
Purchased for The Dannie and Hettie Heineman Collection as the gift of the Heineman Foundation, 2018.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 27.9 x 21.7 cm + envelope
Notes
Envelope with North Carolina College at Durham letterhead, stamp, and postmarks: "Miss Esther Krasny / Box 995 / The Women's College of U.N.C. / Greensboro, N.C."
On the letterhead of the Art Department of North Carolina College at Durham.
Esther Krasny was a student at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina. In the fall of 1955, she wrote to a number of artists, educators, and art historians, asking for their opinions on "the influence of the Negro artist on painting today." Three of the responses she received, from Hale Woodruff, Edward N. Wilson, Jr., and Thomas Munro, are in the Morgan's collection. The letters are housed and cataloged separately as MA 22733, MA 23385, and MA 23386.
On the letterhead of the Art Department of North Carolina College at Durham.
Esther Krasny was a student at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina. In the fall of 1955, she wrote to a number of artists, educators, and art historians, asking for their opinions on "the influence of the Negro artist on painting today." Three of the responses she received, from Hale Woodruff, Edward N. Wilson, Jr., and Thomas Munro, are in the Morgan's collection. The letters are housed and cataloged separately as MA 22733, MA 23385, and MA 23386.
Provenance
Purchased from Swann Auction Galleries, Sale 2470, March 22, 2018.
Summary
Stating his opinions on "the influence of the Negro artist on painting today;" making a distinction between "the American Negro artist" and "the African Negro artist" in terms of their influence on modern painting; discussing the artists Pablo Picasso, Giorgio De Chirico, "Calla" (possibly a reference to Carlo Carrà), Leonardo Cremonini, and Renato Guttuso, and the artistic movements Cubism, Futurism, and Surrealism; describing how Picasso's study of African sculpture led to his development of Cubism, and the influence this has had on subsequent generations; writing that "all artists of excellence in the west have borrowed forms from past and present cultural epochs" and listing as examples "Henry Moore and some Central American Primitive sculpture, [James McNeill] Whistler and oriental painting;" writing "With respect to the contemporary American Negro artist, he is in (in some instances) the middle of the mainstream of contemporary American art;" describing the achievements of the artists Charles Alston, Richmond Barthé, Jacob Lawrence, and John Rhoden; mentioning that one of his own sculptures was recently accepted for the 18th Annual North Carolina Artists Exhibition, which "marks the first time that a work by a Negro artist has ever been accepted in the show;" suggesting that she read Alfred Barr's Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art and Herbert Read's Art Now; adding in a postscript a quotation from a lecture on African sculpture by William Zorach.
Catalog link
Department