1927, Archibald J. Motley, Town of Hope -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the museum label: Town of Hope is a painterly evocation of the era's Great Migration, in which six million African Americans fled the rural South for better lives in northern cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Detroit. The otherworldly spectral green palette, the seemingly vengeful clouds, and the carefully placed trio of birds--a sign of the holy trinity--suggest that the exodus is divinely mandated. The walking figures' white farming shirts with wide collars symbolize the agricultural lives they are leaving, while their leaning stances suggest an arduous and weary journey ahead. Chicago-based painter Archibald Motley gained prominence as an artist of the Harlem Renaissance--a celebration of African American art, literature, and music in the decades between the World Wars--and extended this movement's reach beyond New York City.
1927, Archibald J. Motley, Town of Hope -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the museum label: Town of Hope is a painterly evocation of the era's Great Migration, in which six million African Americans fled the rural South for better lives in northern cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Detroit. The otherworldly spectral green palette, the seemingly vengeful clouds, and the carefully placed trio of birds--a sign of the holy trinity--suggest that the exodus is divinely mandated. The walking figures' white farming shirts with wide collars symbolize the agricultural lives they are leaving, while their leaning stances suggest an arduous and weary journey ahead. Chicago-based painter Archibald Motley gained prominence as an artist of the Harlem Renaissance--a celebration of African American art, literature, and music in the decades between the World Wars--and extended this movement's reach beyond New York City.