Train your eye
The Gallery
Study pieces, each one echoing a movement in the archive. Read the caption, then try to catch the same cues in the next picture before you read it.
Carnival, turning the corner
echoes AfriCOBRA & the Cool-Ade Aesthetic
Saturated cool-ade color, pattern filling every open space, movement carried by repetition.
The kitchen at dusk
echoes Caribbean Intuitive Modernism
Flattened perspective, decorative pattern given the same care as the figure, hot even color.
Quartet, second chorus
echoes Pop-Cubist Social Portraiture
Flat unmodulated blocks, angular figures mid-gesture, adinkra signs held in the negative space.
Procession
echoes Négritude Modernism / École de Dakar
Figures in a measured frieze, dense woven pattern, the surface treated like cloth.
Civil Rights Figuration & Abstract Witness
New York City · 1963–1965
- rhythmic calligraphic mark-making
- forms that resolve on a second look
- near-monochrome restraint
AfriCOBRA & the Cool-Ade Aesthetic
Chicago, South Side · founded 1968
- saturated cool-ade palette
- figures stacked at rhythmic angles
- hand-lettering woven into the image
Washington Color School Abstraction
Washington, D.C. · mid-1960s onward
- short dabbed brushstrokes
- concentric rings or stripes
- luminous unmixed color
Diaspora Map Painting
London & New York, via Guyana · 1960s
- stenciled map outlines
- poured, stained pigment
- warm tropical palette
Afro-Brazilian Geometric Symbolism
Bahia & Brasília, Brazil · 1960s
- hard-edged geometric shapes
- sacred emblematic symbols
- radial totem-like symmetry
Pop-Cubist Social Portraiture
Harlem & New York City · 1963–1967
- flat unmodulated color blocks
- angular cubist-influenced figures
- high-contrast confrontation
Harlem Photomontage Narrative
Harlem, New York City · 1964 onward
- visible torn and cut edges
- mismatched scale between parts
- photographic fragments beside painted color
Négritude Modernism / École de Dakar
Dakar, Senegal · 1960–1974
- elongated stylized figures
- single confident contour line
- dense woven pattern fill
Caribbean Intuitive Modernism
Jamaica, Haiti & the wider Caribbean · 1950s–1970s
- flattened, even perspective
- saturated tropical color
- decorative repeating foliage