Beautiful Shades of Brown
By Nancy Churnin
I have been to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and to the National Portrait Gallery, but sadly, I had never heard of Laura Wheeler Waring before reading this book. This is yet another example of children’s literature opening up new worlds to me, and I hope to you as well. I like to imagine kids reading this book, having their teachers include it as part of the curriculum when discussing 20th century art (and specifically the Harlem Renaissance), or just introducing budding artists to the idea of painting portraits. I like to think about a field trip to Washington DC and a visit to the National Portrait Gallery, and students standing in front of one of Waring’s portraits: “I recognize that! We learned about that in our art class.”
I wanted to see more details of some of Waring’s paintings. If you go to the website of the National Portrait Gallery, you can search their collection for Waring’s portraits. I’m particularly taken by her portraits of the singer Marian Anderson; the writer and activist, Alice Dunbar Nelson; and Jessie Redmon Fauset, another major writer and activist of the Harlem Renaissance.
The exhibition labels of many of Waring’s portraits include these words:
“The Harmon Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in New York City and active from (1922-1967) included this portrait in their exhibition “Portraits of Outstanding Americans of Negro Origins” which documented noteworthy African Americans’ contributions to the country. Modeling their goal of social equality, the Harmon sought portraits from an African-American artist, Laura Wheeler Waring and Euro-American artist, Betsy Graves Reyneau. The two painters followed the conventional codes of academic portraiture, seeking to convey their sitters’ extraordinary accomplishments. This painting, along with a variety of educational materials, toured nation-wide for ten years serving as a visual rebuttal to racism.”
That “visual rebuttal to racism” – and these portraits being seen across the country for ten years – is certainly evidence of the intersection of art and activism, which is foundational to this Good Trouble For Kids initiative.
Betsy Graves Reyneau has an interesting story herself, and you can find many of her portraits in the National Portrait Gallery as well, including these two of Thurgood Marshall and Paul Robeson:
Thurgood Marshall, first Black Supreme Court Justice.
Paul Robeson, actor, singer and activist, as Othello.
The Smithsonian provides more information on the Harmon Foundation. The foundation commissioned these portraits in 1943, and there were eventually close to 50 of them. Apparently, there were integrated viewings of these portraits during the 10-year-tour, and yet, as seen by these two newspaper articles, Laura Wheeler Waring’s name isn’t mentioned. As this blog from the Smithsonian indicates, more of Reyneau’s paintings are on view today than Waring’s.
Coincidentally to our featuring this book, the Smithsonian just recently hosted a Zoom lecture on “Women, Portraiture, and Power” entitled “Combating Racism: Betsy Graves Reyneau, Laura Wheeler Waring, and Representation of Black Achievement.” Regretfully, I did not find out about this until right after it occurred, while doing the research for this write-up. Waring, thus, is timely in this moment. The Smithsonian lecture includes an update to the label on the earlier exhibition:
“In 1943, the Harmon Foundation commissioned artists Betsy Graves Reyneau and Laura Wheeler Waring to make portraits of eminent Black Americans capable of highlighting Black achievement and fighting white prejudice. These forty-two paintings were first shown at the Smithsonian in 1944. Steven Nelson, dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art, will revisit the complexities of this exhibition, and explore the intersection of gender, philanthropy, Black history and African American art during and just after World War II. He will also consider the work within the broader context of Americanness during the early 1940s.”
What synchronicity that we are featuring this book on Waring in this moment, and that a reading of another of our featured books, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, is being shown on HBO!
I love Churnin’s take on shades of brown: “how much color brown could hold.” Brown is Beautiful may not be as familiar a trope as Black is Beautiful, but it is still a significant one. Consider for example, jazz musician Oliver Nelson’s album tribute to Martin Luther King (1969), Black Brown and Beautiful, with its exquisite nude on the album cover. Or consider this take on “Brown is beautiful” in an art review of the work of Iona Rozeal Brown, who happened to study under Keninde Wiley, who, along with Amy Sherald, were the first Black artists to receive commissions from the National Portrait Gallery. Wiley’s portrait of Barack Obama and Sherald’s portrait of Michelle Obama now hang in the same museum alongside those paintings of Laura Wheeler Waring. Good company!
Please visit Nancy Churnin’s website for Teacher Guides, Resources & Trailers and a Paint Your World Project. You can see an interview with Nancy Churnin here. I am grateful also to Ms. Churnin for forwarding me this recent UK article that concludes with this inspirational line: “Hopefully, Kamala Harris’ diversification of American politics will mean that the artworks, writings, and voices of black American women will finally gain the recognition that they deserve.”