“African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond” presents a selection of works by 43 black artists who lived through the tremendous changes of the 20th century. In paintings, sculpture, prints, and photographs, the featured artists embrace themes both universal and specific to the African American experience, including the exploration of identity, the struggle for equality, the power of music, and the beauties and hardships of life in rural and urban America.

“African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond” is on view at the Crocker Art Museum from June 29 through September 21. “The Crocker Art Museum is the only West Coast venue for this stunning survey of African American visual heritage, its rich sources, and future directions.” said Diana Daniels, curator at the Crocker Art Museum.

The 100 works on view are drawn entirely from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s rich collection of African American art, the largest and finest in the United States. More than half of the works featured are being exhibited by the museum for the first time, including paintings by Benny Andrews, Loïs Mailou Jones and Jacob Lawrence, as well as photographs by Roy DeCarava, Gordon Parks and Marilyn Nance. Ten of the artworks were acquired within the past five years. More than half of the objects in the exhibition are photographs from the museum’s permanent collection. Individual object labels connect the artworks with the artistic and social factors that shaped their creation.

The 20th century was a time of great change in America. Many of the social, political and cultural movements that came to define the era, such as the jazz age, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights movement, were rooted in African American communities. Black artists explored their identity in this quickly changing world through a variety of media and in styles as varied as postmodernism, documentary realism, expressionism, and abstraction.

“This expansive display featuring paintings, sculptures, and photographs drawn solely from the Smithsonian American Art Museum offers the rare opportunity to see many of the most famous images of 20th-century African American art ever created,” said Daniels. In paintings, prints, and sculpture, artists such as William H. Johnson and Andrews speak to the dignity and resilience of those who work the land. Romare Bearden recasts Christian themes in terms of the black experience. Jones, Sargent Johnson, and Melvin Edwards address African heritage, while Alma Thomas explores the beauty of the natural world through color and abstract forms. Studio portraits by James VanDerZee document the rise of the black middle class in the 1920s, while powerful black-and-white photographs by DeCarava, Nance, Parks, Robert McNeill, Roland Freeman, and Tony Gleaton chronicle everyday life from the 1930s through the final decades of the 20th century.