Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, the first nationally touring retrospective of the work of Aaron Douglas (1899-1979), the foremost visual artist of the Harlem Renaissance. A native of Topeka, Kansas, Douglas captured the spirit of his time and established a new black aesthetic and utopian vision. Working from a politicized concept of personal identity, he combined angular cubist rhythms and seductive art-deco dynamism with traditional African and African American imagery to develop a radically new visual vocabulary that evoked both current realities and hopes for a better future. In paintings, murals, and illustrations for books and progressive journals, his ideas and their artistic form produced the most powerful visual legacy of the Harlem Renaissance; curated by Susan Earle, curator of European and American art and coordinated by Stephanie Knappe, doctoral candidate in art history; Spencer Museum of Art, On tour, 2008 Lawrence
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