Study for Aspects of Negro Life: An Idyll of the Deep South

Artist Aaron Douglas (American, 1899 - 1979)

Date1934

MediumOpaque watercolor over graphite on board

DimensionsImage: 10 x 24 3/8 inches (25.4 x 61.91 cm)
Sheet: 15 x 29 3/16 inches (38.1 x 74.14 cm)
Framed: 16 1/4 x 30 1/4 x 1 1/4 inches (41.28 x 76.84 x 3.18 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the gift of David C. and Thelma G. Driskell; the generosity of Jeannette Nichols, Gwyn Prentice and Andy Atterbury, Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield, Mary and Alan Atterbury, the Sosland Family, Adelaide C. Ward, G. Wesley Nedblake, J. Scott Francis, Nancy and Rick Green, Sherrill Mulhern, Ann and G. Kenneth Baum, Sandra and Willie Lawrence, Phyllis and Ron Nolan, Union Pacific Foundation, Ann Dickinson, Rose Bryant, and Barbara and Herman Jones; Clifton R. Mitchell Fund; bequest of Dorothy K. Rice; and exchange of the gifts of Fred Cameron Vincent, Mr. and Mrs. Otto Wittman, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Vincent Jones in memory of Fred Cameron Vincent, and Mr. and Mrs. Richard S. Davis through the Friends of Art, Mrs. James P. Townley, the Howard P. Treadway and Tertia F. Treadway Collection, Ainslie Galleries, Mr. and Mrs. Albert R. Jones, Mrs. Nell H. Stevenson from the estate of S. Herbert Hare, Mrs. Massey Holmes, the National Academy of Design from the Mrs. William T. Brewster bequest, Mrs. Francis M. Dean, Earle W. Grant, Dr. Harry H. Watts, Dupuy G. Warrick, Richard Shields, the Friends of Art, Mrs. Alfred B. Clark, Harold Woodbury Parsons, Mr. and Mrs. Milton McGreevy, Mrs. J. N. Rosenberg, Mrs. Logan Clendening, Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Stone, Harvey Leepa, Mrs. Peter T. Bohan, Mrs. Waters, and the bequests of Earl Katz and Dorothy “Sis” Katz, Marie P. McCune, Helen Harding, Wallace C. Goffe, Frances M. Logan, Mrs. Clyde Bonebrake Lockwood, Mrs. Peter T. Bohan, Herbert Vincent Jones Jr., Mrs. Walter M. Jaccard, Helen F. Spencer, Maud Cooper Needles, Milton McGreevy, and Nelson Trust and Nelson Gallery Foundation properties

Object number2007.18

Inscribedl.r. (in gouache): "DOUGLAS"

On View

Not on view

Collections

American Art

Terms

DescriptionThe horizontal composition features silhouettes of many figures demonstrating a range of motion and activities in what appears to be a forested setting. At the far left, a five-pointed star emits a beam of light that stretches across three-quarters of the composition. Next, figures gather around a tree from which a man hangs. Near the center, concentric circles radiate from the center of a ground of musicians, including a guitarist and a banjo player. Farther to the right, figures toil in fields against an architectural backdrop. Pale lavender, beige, and blue tones dominate, offset by deeper browns.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

American Art – In Preparation, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, November 11, 2015-May 8, 2016, no cat.

American Art Deco: Designing for the People, 1918-1939, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, July 9 2022–January 8 2023, no cat.

Gallery Label

Aaron Douglas painted this small gouache (opaque watercolor) in preparation for his mural An Idyll of the Deep South. When he translated the study to the mural, he retained the silhouetted forms, flat planes of space, radiating circles and subtle gradations of tone. A closer look reveals that he simplified and refined other aspects of the composition, such as the amount of definition in the faces.

An Idyll of the Deep South is the third in Douglas’s striking four-mural series, Aspects of Negro Life. The entire series remains at its original location, the former 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library (now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture) in Harlem. This study and its resulting mural emphasize the roles that agricultural labor and music played in black life. They also reflect the tragic injustices that took place in the South after Reconstruction.

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