Richmond Barthé
Encyclopedia
James Richmond Barthé was an African American sculptor known for his many public works, including the Toussaint L’Ouverture Monument in Port-au-Prince
, Haiti
and a sculpture of Rose McClendon
for Frank Lloyd Wright
’s Fallingwater House.
Barthe once said that “all my life I have be interested in trying to capture the spiritual quality I see and feel in people, and I feel that the human figure as God made it, is the best means of expressing this spirit in man.”
, (in January 1901). His father died at 22, when Richmond was only one month old, leaving his mother to raise him alone. Barthé spent his teen years in New Orleans, Louisiana
.
His fourth grade teacher and his parish priest influenced young Richmond’s aesthetic development, and he showed great promise as an artist at a young age, but as a Colored American in the South, he was barred from enrolling in any of the art schools in New Orleans, Louisiana, near his home. When Barthé was twelve, his work was shown at the county fair in Mississippi
, and he continued to develop remarkably as an artist.
At fourteen, Barthé left school to take a job as houseboy and handyman, but he still spent his free time drawing. At eighteen, having moved to New Orleans, his parish priest in New Orleans and a writer for the New Orleans Times Picayune recognized his ability. Richmond donated a portrait he made for a church fund raiser. The priest and the writer, along with his employer determined to find an art school where Barthé could study and expand his talent.
Lyle Saxon
of the Times Picayune newspaper, fighting against current racist school segregation, tried unsuccessfully to get Barthé registered in art school in New Orleans. In 1924, with the aid of a Catholic priest, the Reverend Harry Kane, S.S.I, and with less than a high school education and no formal training in art, Barthé was admitted to the Art Institute of Chicago
. During the next four years Barthé followed a curriculum structured for majors in painting. During his four years of study he worked as a busboy at a small café. His work caught the attention of Dr. Charles Maceo Thompson, a patron of the arts and supporter of many talented young black artists. Barthé was a flattering portrait painter, and Dr. Thompson helped him to secure many lucrative commissions from the city’s affluent black citizens.
During his senior year he was introduced to sculpture by his anatomy teacher. He began modeling in clay to gain a better understanding of the third dimension in his painting. This transition proved to be, according to him, a turning point in his career. He exhibited two busts in the 1927 Negro in Art Week Exhibition and in the April 1928 annual exhibition of the Chicago Art League. He received much critical praise and numerous commissions following this.
Following his graduation from The Art Institute of Chicago in 1928, Barthé spent several months in New York
, established a studio in Harlem
, and eventually moved to NYC permanently in 1930. During the next two decades, he built his reputation as a sculptor. He is associated with the Harlem Renaissance
. He won a Guggenheim fellowship
twice and other awards. By 1934, his reputation was so well established that he was awarded his first solo show at the Caz Delbo Galleries in New York City. Barthé experienced success after success and was considered by writers and critics as one of the leading “moderns” of his time.
Harlem
was one of the three major centers of gay life in New York in 1930, and Barthé soon became integrated into Harlem's gay world. Throughout his career, many of his patrons and subjects were other gay men, and the exploration of both race and eroticism were central to his work.
Among his African American friends were Wallace Thurman
, Claude McKay
, Langston Hughes
, Jimmie Daniels, Countee Cullen
, and Harold Jackman. Ralph Ellison
was his first student. His white allies included Carl Van Vechten
, Noel Sullivan
, Charles Cullen
, Lincoln Kirstein
, Paul Cadmus
, and Jared French
.
In 1946 Barthé became a member of the National Sculpture Society
.
, West Indies. His career flourished in Jamaica and he remained there until the mid-1960s when ever-growing violence forced him to yet again move. For the next five years he lived in Switzerland
, Spain
, and Italy
before eventually settling in Pasadena
, California
. When he moved to a rental apartment, above a garage in Pasadena, the city named the street after him. In that apartment, Barthe worked on his memoirs and most importantly, editioned many of his works with the financial assistance of the actor James Garner
until his death in 1989.
and the General Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Monument (1952), in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Green Pastures: Walls of Jericho for the Harlem River Housing Project
, and a sculpture of Rose McClendon (1932), the African American actress, for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater House
.
Jamaica
, and were among his largest and most famous works. The huge equestrian bronze of Dessalines was one of four heroic sculptures commissioned in 1948 by Haitian political leaders to mark independence celebrations. The Dessalines monument was part of a larger 1954 restoration of the Champs-du-Mars park in Port-au-Prince, Barthe's 40 foot high L'Overture statue and stone monument was positioned nearer the National Palace, and was unveiled in 1950 with two other commissioned heroic sculptures (in the capital and in the north of the county) by Cuban sculptor Blanco Ramos. At the time, one African-American newspaper called the collection "the Greatest Negro Monuments on earth." L'Overture was in fact a subject Barthe returned to several times, having created a bust (1926) and painted portrait (1929) of the figure early in his career.
, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, the Pennsylvania Museum of Art, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
, among others.
, and was honored by the National Academy of Arts and Letters. Barthé also received awards for interracial justice and honorary degrees from Xavier and St. Francis Universities. He was the recipient of the Audubon Artists Gold Medal in 1950.
Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The city's population was 704,776 as of the 2003 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 897,859 in 2009....
, Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
and a sculpture of Rose McClendon
Rose McClendon
Rose McClendon born Rose Virginia Scott McClendon, was a leading African American Broadway actress of the 1920s....
for Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
’s Fallingwater House.
Barthe once said that “all my life I have be interested in trying to capture the spiritual quality I see and feel in people, and I feel that the human figure as God made it, is the best means of expressing this spirit in man.”
Early life
Richmond Barthé was born in Bay St. Louis, MississippiBay St. Louis, Mississippi
Bay Saint Louis is a city located in Hancock County, Mississippi. It is part of the Gulfport–Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 8,209. It is the county seat of Hancock County...
, (in January 1901). His father died at 22, when Richmond was only one month old, leaving his mother to raise him alone. Barthé spent his teen years in New Orleans, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
.
His fourth grade teacher and his parish priest influenced young Richmond’s aesthetic development, and he showed great promise as an artist at a young age, but as a Colored American in the South, he was barred from enrolling in any of the art schools in New Orleans, Louisiana, near his home. When Barthé was twelve, his work was shown at the county fair in Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, and he continued to develop remarkably as an artist.
At fourteen, Barthé left school to take a job as houseboy and handyman, but he still spent his free time drawing. At eighteen, having moved to New Orleans, his parish priest in New Orleans and a writer for the New Orleans Times Picayune recognized his ability. Richmond donated a portrait he made for a church fund raiser. The priest and the writer, along with his employer determined to find an art school where Barthé could study and expand his talent.
Lyle Saxon
Lyle Saxon
Lyle Saxon was a respected New Orleans writer, and journalist who reported for The Times-Picayune.-Life:He was born in Bellingham, Washington. He lived in the French Quarter; Sherwood Anderson, William Faulkner, Roark Bradford, and Edmund Wilson visited.He was an ardent student of the history of...
of the Times Picayune newspaper, fighting against current racist school segregation, tried unsuccessfully to get Barthé registered in art school in New Orleans. In 1924, with the aid of a Catholic priest, the Reverend Harry Kane, S.S.I, and with less than a high school education and no formal training in art, Barthé was admitted to the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
. During the next four years Barthé followed a curriculum structured for majors in painting. During his four years of study he worked as a busboy at a small café. His work caught the attention of Dr. Charles Maceo Thompson, a patron of the arts and supporter of many talented young black artists. Barthé was a flattering portrait painter, and Dr. Thompson helped him to secure many lucrative commissions from the city’s affluent black citizens.
During his senior year he was introduced to sculpture by his anatomy teacher. He began modeling in clay to gain a better understanding of the third dimension in his painting. This transition proved to be, according to him, a turning point in his career. He exhibited two busts in the 1927 Negro in Art Week Exhibition and in the April 1928 annual exhibition of the Chicago Art League. He received much critical praise and numerous commissions following this.
New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, established a studio in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, and eventually moved to NYC permanently in 1930. During the next two decades, he built his reputation as a sculptor. He is associated with the Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
. He won a Guggenheim fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
twice and other awards. By 1934, his reputation was so well established that he was awarded his first solo show at the Caz Delbo Galleries in New York City. Barthé experienced success after success and was considered by writers and critics as one of the leading “moderns” of his time.
Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
was one of the three major centers of gay life in New York in 1930, and Barthé soon became integrated into Harlem's gay world. Throughout his career, many of his patrons and subjects were other gay men, and the exploration of both race and eroticism were central to his work.
Among his African American friends were Wallace Thurman
Wallace Thurman
Wallace Henry Thurman was an American novelist during the Harlem Renaissance. He is best known for his novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life, which explores discrimination among black people based on skin color.-Early life:...
, Claude McKay
Claude McKay
Claude McKay was a Jamaican-American writer and poet. He was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance and wrote three novels: Home to Harlem , a best-seller which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, Banjo , and Banana Bottom...
, Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
, Jimmie Daniels, Countee Cullen
Countee Cullen
Countee Cullen was an American poet who was popular during the Harlem Renaissance.- Biography :Cullen was an American poet and a leading figure with Langston Hughes in the Harlem Renaissance. This 1920s artistic movement produced the first large body of work in the United States written by African...
, and Harold Jackman. Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
was his first student. His white allies included Carl Van Vechten
Carl van Vechten
Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein.-Biography:...
, Noel Sullivan
Noel Sullivan
Noel Sullivan , is a Welsh singer and actor. He was a member of the British pop group Hear'Say. Like the other members of the group, he won his part through the talent show Popstars.-Early life and career:...
, Charles Cullen
Charles Cullen
Charles Edmund Cullen is a former nurse who is the most prolific serial killer in New Jersey history, and suspected to be the most prolific serial killer in American history. Cullen told authorities in December 2003 that he could specifically recall the murder of perhaps 40 patients during the 16...
, Lincoln Kirstein
Lincoln Kirstein
Lincoln Edward Kirstein was an American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cultural figure in New York City...
, Paul Cadmus
Paul Cadmus
Paul Cadmus was an American artist. He is best known for his paintings and drawings of nude male figures. His works combined elements of eroticism and social critique to produce a style often called magic realism...
, and Jared French
Jared French
Jared French was a painter who specialized in the ancient medium of egg tempera. He was one of the masters of magic realism, part of a circle of friends and colleagues who all painted surreal imagery in egg tempera. Others included George Tooker and Paul Cadmus.French received a Bachelor of Arts...
.
In 1946 Barthé became a member of the National Sculpture Society
National Sculpture Society
Founded in 1893, the National Sculpture Society was the first organization of professional sculptors formed in the United States. The purpose of the organization was to promote the welfare of American sculptors, although its founding members included several renowned architects. The founding...
.
Later life
Eventually, the tense environment and violence of the city began to take its toll, and he decided to abandon his life of fame and move to JamaicaJamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, West Indies. His career flourished in Jamaica and he remained there until the mid-1960s when ever-growing violence forced him to yet again move. For the next five years he lived in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
before eventually settling in Pasadena
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. When he moved to a rental apartment, above a garage in Pasadena, the city named the street after him. In that apartment, Barthe worked on his memoirs and most importantly, editioned many of his works with the financial assistance of the actor James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...
until his death in 1989.
Public works and honors
Some of his major public works included the Toussaint L’Ouverture Monument (1950) installed originally at the Haitian National PalaceNational Palace (Haiti)
The National Palace is located in Port-au-Prince—facing Place L'Ouverture near the Champs de Mars—and is the official residence of the Haitian president. It was almost completely destroyed in the 2010 Haiti earthquake...
and the General Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1801 constitution. Initially regarded as Governor-General, Dessalines later named himself Emperor Jacques I of Haiti...
Monument (1952), in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Green Pastures: Walls of Jericho for the Harlem River Housing Project
Harlem River Houses
The Harlem River Houses are located at 151st street and the Harlem River Drive in the New York City borough of Manhattan, and covers in Harlem. They were built in 1937 for African Americans.-Building:...
, and a sculpture of Rose McClendon (1932), the African American actress, for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater House
Fallingwater
Fallingwater or Kaufmann Residence is a house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh...
.
Haitian works
Barthe's Haitian works came in a time after his 1947 move to Ocho RiosOcho Rios
Ocho Ríos is a town in the parish of Saint Ann on the north coast of Jamaica. Although he landed in many spots along the Jamaican coast, many believe that Christopher Columbus first set foot on land in Ocho Rios...
Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, and were among his largest and most famous works. The huge equestrian bronze of Dessalines was one of four heroic sculptures commissioned in 1948 by Haitian political leaders to mark independence celebrations. The Dessalines monument was part of a larger 1954 restoration of the Champs-du-Mars park in Port-au-Prince, Barthe's 40 foot high L'Overture statue and stone monument was positioned nearer the National Palace, and was unveiled in 1950 with two other commissioned heroic sculptures (in the capital and in the north of the county) by Cuban sculptor Blanco Ramos. At the time, one African-American newspaper called the collection "the Greatest Negro Monuments on earth." L'Overture was in fact a subject Barthe returned to several times, having created a bust (1926) and painted portrait (1929) of the figure early in his career.
Collections
Today Barthé's pieces are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American ArtWhitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, the Pennsylvania Museum of Art, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
The Virginia Museum of Fine arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, in the United States, which opened in 1936.The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia, while private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the support of specific programs and all...
, among others.
Honors
Richmond Barthé received many honors during his career, including the Rosenwald Fellowship, Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
, and was honored by the National Academy of Arts and Letters. Barthé also received awards for interracial justice and honorary degrees from Xavier and St. Francis Universities. He was the recipient of the Audubon Artists Gold Medal in 1950.
External links
- RICHMOND BARTHE: HIS LIFE IN ART Barthe and His Public Works. (photo gallery of Barthe's larger works in situ at time of installation) from Samella Lewis. Richmond Barthe: His Life in Art. Unity Works (2009) ISBN 9780692002018
- http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/674/Creative_southern_hands_Richmond_Barthe
- http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biob2/bart04.html
- http://www.childsgallery.com/artist.php?artist_id=167
- http://www.childsgallery.com/artist_bio.php?artist_id=167
- http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/archive/resources/images/ch27_img13.htm