This portrait gives us a glimpse into the creative circle of Alfred Stieglitz in 1920s New York, with references to Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Henry McBride, and others.
Seeing America Theme: Social Structures
Edmonia Lewis, an artist of Black and Indigenous heritage, uses a neoclassical style to depict Indigenous subjects from a popular novel around the time of the U.S. Civil War
Edmonia Lewis, The Old Arrow Maker
This monumental painting of Black people at the beach speaks to a dearth of Black figures in the art history canon
Amy Sherald, Precious Jewels by the Sea
The American Dream is not what it seems in this artwork that combines painting and collage
Kerry James Marshall, Our Town
Cartoonish coyotes play on Fonseca's overlapping identities as queer, American, and Indigenous.
Harry Fonseca, Two Coyotes with Flags
Painted during Reconstruction, this sentimental watercolor depicts the hope of transformation and possibility
Winslow Homer, Taking Sunflower to Teacher
This memorial honors three women who were victims of medical experimentation by the "father of gynecology"
Michelle Browder, Mothers of Gynecology
Enslaved artist David Drake inscribed a poem onto this jug at a time when literacy among enslaved people was outlawed
Literacy and slavery: David Drake, Double-handled jug
The first monument to commemorate the over 4,000 African Americans who were lynched in the early 20th century.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice ...
Delaney celebrates the famous opera singer Marian Anderson as a modern icon of Black excellence and civil rights
A modern icon: Beauford Delaney’s Marian Anderson
Woodruff reimagines racist tropes of Black banjo players with a figure who is confident and joyful
Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player
Is the bird real or imagined?
Thelma Streat, Girl with Bird
Ben Shahn's painting asks: Who belongs in the art world?
Ben Shahn, Contemporary American Sculpture
A 2004 plaque is the only marker of burial grounds of enslaved people who died while enslaved by the University of Alabama and its faculty
Slave Burial Ground, University of Alabama
Taking the name from Toni Morrison's debut novel, this painting's figures and scenes show the clash of innocence and the adult violence of bigotry and hatred
Stefanie Jackson, Bluest Eye
A horrifying painting of racial violence that can help us see where we are and where we need to be in terms of tolerance and empathy
Vertis Hayes, The Lynchers
In New Spain, Indigenous people, Africans, Spaniards, and their descendants mixed together. Casta paintings show one way Spaniards attempted to place these mixed-race families and their children into a hierarchy, although the realities of race and status in Spanish colonial society were much more complex.
APUSH: KC-2.1.I.A
APUSH: KC-2.1.I.A
Teaching guide
Constructing identity in the Spanish colonies ...
Aaron Douglas's paintings at the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition focused on how the rich African past inspired a bright future for African Americans, even in the midst of Jim Crow and the Great Depression.
APUSH: KC-7.2.I.B
TEKS: 113.41.(24)(B)
APUSH: KC-7.2.I.B
TEKS: 113.41.(24)(B)
Teaching guide
Aaron Douglas, Aspiration
How a portrait of an African Muslim came to hang side-by-side with the founding fathers in one of America's earliest museums.
A Muslim among the founding fathers
The artist asks us if maintaining can be as important as creating.
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