May Howard Jackson

May Howard Jackson
Born (1877-09-07)September 7, 1877
Philadelphia
Died 1931
Nationality African American
Known for Sculptor
Spouse(s) William Sherman Jackson
Awards Harmon Foundation, 1928

May Howard Jackson (1877–1931) was an African American sculptor.[1]

She was known as "one of the first black sculptors to ... deliberately use America's racial problems" as the theme of her art.[2]

Early Life and Career

She was a student at J. Liberty Tadd's art school in Philadelphia, PA and in 1895 became the first African-American receiving a scholarship to attend The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She married a school principal, and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1902. She became a sculptor of portraits, and taught at Howard University.[3] She did not travel to Europe to study and as a result isolated herself from her peers. This allowed her to create her own vision and infused her work with a unique style. Her portraits were at first ignored as not realistic in the cameo style popular at the time, but had the uncanny ability to un-nerve as they resembled the features of the multi-racial in American society following the race mixing results of slavery on the physiognomy of African-Americans. Fascinated with the subject her works like Head of a Negro Child 1916, Mulatto Mother and Her Child 1929, and Shell-Baby in Bronze 1929[4] took up this theme in her abstracts and defined her sculptures.

As a result, She found few galleries willing to offer her exhibition space and with segregation in force such topics were taboo in general, laws against miscegenation having been proposed in both federal and state legislatures after democrats took the white house in 1912. Despite the rebuffs, the sculptress accomplished enough to put herself firmly in the pantheon of great American sculptors. May Howard Jackson died in 1931.[5]

Review

The Crisis Vol12, No3 July 1916.[6]

Mrs May Howard Jackson, Veerhoff Gallery, Washington, DC. From the Washington Star, ‘’Of the three works reviewed, …touching upon the mysteries of heredity in a way which is exceedingly striking” Adding: “her work has always shown promise, but these pieces now on exhibition indicate exceptional gift, for they are not merely well modeled, but individual and significant.” [7]

Selected works

Exhibitions

References

  1. ↑ http://www.aaregistry.org/aareg_files/event_images/MayHowardJackson.gif
  2. ↑ Arna Alexander Bontemps and Jacqueline Fonvielle-Bontemps (eds.), eds. (2001). "African-American Women Artists: An Historical Perspective". Black feminist cultural criticism. Keyworks in cultural studies. Malden, Mass: Blackwell. pp. 133–137. ISBN 0631222391.
  3. 1 2 3 Rubinstein, Charlotte Streifer (1990). American women sculptors: a history of women working in three dimensions. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall. ISBN 0816187320.
  4. ↑ http://www.askart.com/artist_keywords/May_Howard_Jackson/101667/May_Howard_Jackson.aspx
  5. ↑ Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Darlene Clark Hine, Copyright 1993, Carlson Publishing Inc., Brooklyn, New York, - ISBN 0-926019-61-9
  6. ↑ http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b182-i213
  7. ↑ The Crisis -W.E.B.Dubois pg 115 https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/civil-rights/crisis/0700-crisis-v12n03-w069.pdf
  8. ↑ https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e3/88/13/e3881301f8d9b25b009405ac8215d67b.jpg
  9. ↑ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/231583605813021417/
  10. ↑ https://www.pinterest.com/artzodiac/al-zubra/
  11. ↑ http://www.askart.com/photos/SWN20130214_75847/4.jpg
  12. ↑ https://galleries.lafayette.edu/2015/10/13/in-the-line-of-duty-collecting-african-american-art-and-beyond/slave-boy-1899-mary-howard-jackson-21x21-5-bronze/

External links

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