Archibald Motley

Archibald John Motley, Junior (October 7, 1891, New Orleans, Louisiana – January 16, 1981, Chicago, Illinois) was an African-American painter. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1910s, graduating in 1918. He is most famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience during the 1920s and 1930s, and is considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance. George Focus

Youth and schooling

Unlike many other Harlem Renaissance artists, Archibald Motley, Jr. never lived in Harlem—-he was born in New Orleans and spent the majority of his life in Chicago. His was the only black family in a white, European neighborhood. Though he was offered a scholarship to study architecture, he turned it down in order to study art.[1] He attended the school of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received classical training but his modernist-realist works were out of step with the school's then-conservative bent. While he was a student, in 1913, other students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago rioted against the Armory Show, a collection of the best new modern art. Motley graduated in 1918 and kept his modern, jazz-influenced paintings secret for some years thereafter. Motley experienced success early in his career; in 1927 his piece Mending Socks was voted the most popular exhibit at the Newark Museum in New Jersey.[2] He was awarded the Harmon Foundation award in 1928, and then became the first African-American to have a one-man exhibit in New York City. He sold twenty-two out of the twenty-six exhibited paintings.

Foreign study and inspirations

In 1927 he had applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship and was denied, but he reapplied and won the fellowship in 1929. He studied in France for a year, and chose not to extend his fellowship another six months. While many contemporary artists looked back to Africa for inspiration, Motley was inspired by the great Renaissance masters available at the Louvre. He found in the artwork there a formal sophistication and maturity that could give depth to his own work, particularly in the Dutch painters and the genre images of Delacroix, Hals, and Rembrandt. Motley’s portraits take the conventions of the Western tradition and update them—allowing for black bodies, specifically black female bodies, a space in a history that had traditionally excluded them.

Career

During the 1930s, Motley was employed by the federal Works Progress Administration to depict scenes from African-American history in a series of murals, some of which can be found at Nichols Middle School in Evanston, Illinois. After his wife’s death in 1948 and difficult financial times, Motley was forced to seek work painting shower curtains for the Styletone Corporation. In the 1950s, he made several visits to Mexico and began painting Mexican life and landscapes.[3]

Skin tone and identity

Motley was highly interested in skin tone, and did numerous portraits documenting women of varying African-blood quantities ("octoroon," "quadroon," "mulatto"). These portraits celebrate skin tone as something diverse, inclusive, and pluralistic. The also demonstrate an understanding that these categorizations become synonymous with public identity and influence one's opportunities in life. It is often difficult if not impossible to tell what kind of racial mixture the subject has without referring to the title. These physical markers of blackness, then, are unstable and unreliable, and Motley exposed that difference.

Motley’s fascination with painting the different types of African Americans stemmed from a desire to give each African American his or her own character and personality. This is consistent with Motley’s aims of portraying an absolutely accurate and transparent representation of African Americans; his commitment to differentiating between skin types shows his meticulous efforts to specify even the slightest differences between individuals. In an interview with the Smithsonian Institution, Motley explained his motives and the difficulty behind painting the different skin tones of African Americans:

“They're not all the same color, they're not all black, they're not all, as they used to say years ago, high yellow, they're not all brown. I try to give each one of them character as individuals. And that's hard to do when you have so many figures to do, putting them all together and still have them have their characteristics” (Motley 1978)

In this excerpt from the interview, Motley describes how each individual he paints has a unique skin tone. By painting the differences in their skin tones, Motley is also attempting to bring out the differences in personality of his subjects. It could be interpreted that through this differentiating, Motley is asking white viewers not to lump all African Americans into the same category or stereotype, but to get to know each of them as individuals before making any judgments.[4]

Observation of jazz culture

His night scenes and crowd scenes, heavily influenced by jazz culture, are perhaps his most popular and most prolific. He depicted a vivid, urban black culture that bore little resemblance to the conventional and marginalizing rustic images of black Southerners so popular in the cultural eye. It is important to note, however, that it was not his community he was representing—he was among the affluent and elite black community of Chicago. He married a white woman and lived in a white neighborhood, and was not a part of that urban experience in the same way his subjects were.

Bronzeville at Night

In his paintings of jazz culture, Motley often depicted Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood, which offered a safe haven for blacks migrating from the South. One of his most famous works showing the urban black community is Bronzeville at Night, showing African Americans as actively engaged, urban peoples who identify with the city streets. In the work, Motley provides a central image of the lively street scene and portrays the scene as a distant observer, capturing the many individual interactions but paying attention to the big picture at the same time .

Like many of his other works, Motley’s cross-section of Bronzeville lacks a central narrative. For example, a brooding man with his hands in his pockets gives a stern look. Behind the bus, a man throws his arms up ecstatically. In the center, a man exchanges words with a partner, his arm up and head titled as if to show that he is making a point. By displaying a balance between specificity and generalization, he allows “the viewer to identify with the figures and the places of the artist’s compositions.”.

Stomp

In Stomp, Motley painted a busy cabaret scene which again documents the vivid urban black culture. The excitement in the painting is very much palpable. One can observe a woman in a white dress throwing her hands up to the sound of the music, a couple embracing – hand in hand - in the back of the cabaret, the lively pianist watching the dancers. Interestingly, both black and white couples dance and hobnob with each other in the foreground. For example, on the right of the painting, an African American man wearing a black tuxedo dances with a woman whom Motley gives a much lighter tone. By doing this, he hoped to counteract perceptions of segregation.

Critics of Motley point out that the facial features of his subjects are in the same manner as minstrel figures. But Motley had no intention of stereotypes and hoped to use the racial imagery to increase "the appeal and accessibility of his crowds". It opened up a more universal audience for his intentions to represent African American progress and urban lifestyle.

Octoroon Girl

The Octoroon Girl, features a woman who is one-eighth black. In the image a graceful young woman with dark hair, dark eyes and light skin sits on a sofa while leaning against a warm red wall. She wears a black velvet dress with red satin trim, a dark brown hat and a small gold chain with a pendant. In her right hand, she holds a pair of leather gloves. The woman stares directly at the viewer with a soft, but composed gaze. Her face is serene. Motley balances the painting with a picture frame and the rest of the couch on the left side of the painting.

In Motley’s paintings, he made little distinction between octoroon women and white women, depicting octoroon women with material representations of status and European features. It appears that the message Motley is sending to his white audience is that even though the octoroon woman is part African American, she clearly does not fit the stereotype of being poor and uneducated. He requests that white viewers look beyond the genetic indicators of her race and see only the way she acts now—distinguished, poised and with dignity. In his attempt to deconstruct the stereotype, Motley has essentially removed all traces of the octoroon’s race. The only indicator of her African American descent is the title, which seems almost like an afterthought. If a white viewer were to see this painting without the title, he or she may not even realize that the woman was part African American. Upon viewing the title, Motley hopes then that the audience will see just how unfitting the stereotype is for this refined young woman.

It is also important to consider Motley’s African American audiences. His paintings possess a very prevalent sense of his racial pride, a feeling he hopes African American audiences will relate to and appreciate. It appears that he is saying to African American viewers that although he is not a loud advocate for equal rights, his paintings are his way of making his voice heard and contributing to the cause.

Nightlife

During this period, Motley developed a reusable and recognizable language in his artwork, which included contrasting light and dark colors, skewed perspectives, strong patterns and the dominance of a single hue. He also created a set of characters who appeared repeatedly in his paintings with distinctive postures, gestures, expressions and habits. These figures were often depicted standing very close together, if not touching or overlapping one another. Nightlife depicts a bustling night club with people dancing in the background, sitting at tables on the right and drinking at a bar on the left. The entire image is flushed with a burgundy light that emanates from the floor and walls, creating a warm, rich atmosphere for the club-goers. The rhythm of the music can be felt in the flailing arms of the dancers, who appear to be performing the popular lindy hop.

In contrast, the man in the bottom right corner sits and stares in a drunken stupor. Another man in the center and a woman towards the upper right corner also sit isolated and calm in the midst of the commotion of the club. These secluded figures could be interpreted as representing the somewhat tamer, mellower rhythms of jazz music at the time. It is also interesting to note that these figures could represent another aspect of African American life. It’s as if Motley is reminding his viewers that although great strides have been made, society still has work to do towards completely eliminating racism. In contrast with the happy, engaged dancers who signify progress, these lonely individuals represent the more melancholy instances of racial violence that occurred during the Harlem Renaissance.

Nonetheless, in this painting Motley attempts to portray the idea that African Americans as a whole are trying to rise above any negativity from the past, such as mob violence or unequal legal treatment. By showing them in an inviting atmosphere, having a good time and escaping their troubles, Motley is attempting to show the similarities between African Americans and other races: everyone likes to have a good time and forget their worries. In this way, Motley attempts to bridge the gap between African Americans and white Americans by showing his audience that the two races have many commonalities. Though discrimination may still be prevalent in the patrons’ lives, they have left these negatives at the door. It also demonstrates a sense of prosperity amongst the patrons; the men and women are well dressed and obviously have a high enough income to enjoy a night out on the town. This disproves the stereotype of the poor, manual labor performing African American.

In an interview with the Smithsonian Institution, Motley explained this disapproval of racism he tries to dispel with Nightlife and other paintings:

“And that's why I say that racism is the first thing that they have got to get out of their heads, forget about this damned racism, to hell with racism . . . That means nothing to an artist. We're all human beings. And the sooner that's forgotten and the sooner that you can come back to yourself and do the things that you want to do” (Motley 1978)

In this excerpt, Motley calls for the removal of racism from social norms. He goes on to say that especially for an artist, it shouldn’t matter what color of skin someone has—everyone is equal. He suggests that once racism is erased, everyone can focus on his or her self and enjoy life. In Nightlife, the club patrons appear to have forgotten racism and are making the most of life by having a pleasurable night out listening and dancing to jazz music. As a result of the club-goers removal of racism from their thoughts, Motley can portray them so pleasantly with warm colors and inviting body language.[5]

Family

His nephew (raised as his brother), Willard Motley, was an acclaimed writer known for his 1947 novel Knock on Any Door. He married his high school sweetheart Edith Granzo in 1924, whose German immigrant parents were opposed to their interracial relationship and disowned her for her marriage.[6]