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East of Harlem - Reviews - African American artists in early 20th-century Paris, France - Book Review
Art Journal, Winter, 2002 by Jennifer Marshall
When she de-emphasizes Harlem, Leininger-Miller is true to the tenor of the time. Even during the 1920s and 1930s, many African Americans balked at cultural observers' exclusive focus on Harlem as the center of black art and politics. Indeed, at least some of the artists under study actively dissociated themselves from Harlem. Returning to New York in 1932 to publicize her work, Prophet complained in her diary that she had gone "from Paris to the sordid filth of Harlem" (60). Leininger-Miller's methodologically savvy switch from Harlem to France thus produces a study closer not only to the historical experiences of some of the era's black artists, but to the international consciousness of American black intellectuals, often more politically motivated by a "pan-African" than an "African American" identity. The ideology of the New Negro spoke to these concerns, and Leininger-Miller wisely resurrects this term, though she does not devote enough attention to a critique of its historical tensions and contradictions.
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In fact, what information Leininger-Miller gives her readers on the New Negro phenomenon tends to elucidate the movement's literary--rather than visual-arts--focus. The author reports briefly on the French black writer Rene Maran's publication of an essay by Locke on New Negro poetry in 1924, and Maran's subsequent attempts to publish the 1925 anthology. Although Leininger-Miller occasions this history within a discussion of a portrait of Maran by Smith, the connections between a literary movement that was gaining steam on the northeastern coast of the United States and six disparate American artists in Paris seem tenuous. Similarly, although Leininger-Miller describes relationships between individual artists and either Locke or W E. B. Du Bois, it is not dear how or even whether these relationships translate into an artistic and ideological community. More to the point in this discussion are the artists' dealings with two primary African American publications of the time, The Crisis (edited by Du Bois) and O pportunity, both of which practiced a cultural form of political uplift in the manner of the New Negro ideology. Many of the artists whom the author cites supplied illustrations for these two journals, which also acted as conduits for the critical (if usually celebratory) treatment of working black artists, including Prophet, Savage, Woodruff, and Smith. Nonetheless, as other passages from the book make clear, the relationships between artists and their supporters do not imply ideological kinships between them.
Leininger-Miller's book reads provocatively as a subtle inquiry into the role of patronage--both intellectual and financial--in the lives and works of black artists in the early part of the twentieth century New Negro intellectual support was principally manifested in Du Bois's many letters to benefactors on behalf of artists, Locke's discussions with Woodruff on the topic of African art, and The Crisis and Opportunity. Financial backing for artists emerged from a similarly complex web, carefully respun by Leininger-Miller. The stories are sometimes bleak--her depiction of Prophet's destitution should banish once and for all any romantic conceptions of the starving artist. Unable to rely on selling their works, the artists under consideration turned to other means of support, such as grants, prize winnings from competitive exhibitions, and gifts from wealthy supporters.
