Take This Art History Quiz!

How well do you know famous African-American Artists? In this quiz you’ll find a combination of well-known and lesser-known facts about famous African-American artists born in the U.S. Their names are listed at the end of the page. Some of the artists are also featured in other articles on this website. This post is part of our quiz series about famous artists from history. The purpose of this series is to raise your level of awareness and appreciation for art history.

If you enjoyed reading this don’t forget to subscribe to our free email newsletter so you’ll find out as new articles are added to the website.

Jacob Lawrence, Confrontation at the Bridge from the series “Not Songs of Loyalty Alone: The Struggle for Personal Freedom”, painting, 1975. Photo: Fair Use. wikiart.com

Facts About Famous African-American Artists

#1. His lifelong support of young, emerging artists led him and his wife to create a Foundation in his name to support young or emerging artists and scholars. In 1987, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. His work in collage led the New York Times describing him as “the nation’s foremost collagist.

#2. This contemporary painter, silhouettist, printmaker, installation artist and film-maker explores race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes. At the age of 28 she received a MacArthur fellowship. In 2007, she was listed among Time Magazine‘s 100 Most Influential People in The World.

#3. He was known for his portrayal of African American life. He referred to his style as “dynamic cubism”. The New York Times recognized him as “One of America’s leading modern figurative painters”.

#4. A figurative painter in the expressionist style he painted a diverse range of themes of suffering and injustice, including The Holocaust, Native American forced migrations, and Hurricane Katrina. As a social activist, he co-founded the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition.

#5. This leading sculptor and artist of the Harlem Renaissance worked for equal rights for African Americans in the arts. In 1934 she became the first African-American artist to be elected to the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.

#6. He received his freedom in 1782 and began advertising, identifying himself as a portrait painter and “limner” (an illuminator of manuscripts, or more generally, a painter of ornamental decoration) as of 1796.

#7. An Expressionist painter and art educator, stylistically her art has qualities similar to West African paintings as well as Byzantine mosaics. She was the first African-American woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and within the same year an exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Harriet Powers, Bible quilt, mixed media, 1886. Powers exhibited this at the Athens Cotton Fair in 1886. Photo: Public Domain

#8. World-renowned for his graffiti works his art focused on “suggestive dichotomies”, such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience. A retrospective of his art was held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1992.

#9. Her artwork was inspired by the people, poetry, and music she was exposed to in her childhood and also reflected the racism, sexism, and segregation she faced. Her celebrated series of paintings called “American People”, portrayed the civil rights movement from a female perspective.

#10. His iconic photos of poor Americans during the 1940’s are held in the highest esteem. A pioneer among black filmmakers, he was prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism for three decades. He focused on issues of civil rights, poverty and African-Americans.

#11. He was known as a black and white fine art photographer and was the first African-American photographer to win a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1955 he established A Photographer’s Gallery in New York, NY to show work by the great names of American photography. He also wrote five books.

#12. She began quilting in rural Georgia while she was a slave. Her quilts represent the finest ones created of her time. She used traditional appliqué techniques to record local legends, Bible stories, and astronomical events. Her art was shown in the Smithsonian.

13. Born in 1888, this self-taught painter focused on the injustice of slavery and American segregation. His art is included in major museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

14. Best known for her work in the field of photography she works with text, fabric, audio, digital images, and installation videos that focus on serious issues that face African-Americans today, such as racism, sexism, politics, and personal identity.

The Answers

#1. Romare Bearden
#2. Kara Walker
#3. Jacob Lawrence
#4. Benny Andrews
#5. Augusta Savage
#6. Joshua Johnson
#7. Alma Woodsey Thomas
#8. Jean-Michel Basquiat
#9. Faith Ringgold
#10. Gordon Parks
#11. Roy De Carava
#12. Harriet Powers
#13. Horace Pippin
#14. Carrie Mae Weems

Increase Your Knowledge About Black Artists and Black Art History

Please also read my article  “Celebrating the Accomplishments of African-American Artists”.

The Studio Museum in Harlem is “the nexus for artists of African descent locally, nationally, and internationally and for work that has been inspired and influenced by black culture. It is a site for the dynamic exchange of ideas about art and society.” Visit the website to learn about its exhibitions, view art from its permanent collection, find education materials and programs.

Visit Wikipedia – List of African-American Visual Artists

---