"I think that every picture should tell a story and I think if a picture doesn't tell a story then it's not a picture. Of course, it's all right if you want to paint something decorative; well, that's all right, too, but that's a decorative painting. That's a lot different than doing something from the heart, something that's very serious," commented Archibald Motley during an interview (qtd. in the Oral History Interview). Archibald Motley, born in New Orleans in 1871, developed an art interest in French and African culture at an early age (James 116). Impassioned by Chicago African American life, Motley eventually used his artistic talent to portray images of life after slavery for African Americans, and these pictures all tell stories of African American in the United States (Robinson and Greenhouse 6). Mending Socks (Ackland Museum Site) and Nightlife (Robinson and Greenhouse 123) show Motley’s continual development throughout his career, and these paintings reveal Motley’s decision to depict two African American experiences: post-slavery and the Harlem Renaissance.

At the age of two years, Motley’s family moved from New Orleans to Chicago, but Louisiana and New Orleans culture continued to influence him (Robinson and Greenhouse 1). In elementary school, Motley recognized his love for drawing and his mother encouraged him to draw still lifes such as vases and blocks (2). Always interested in Chicago black life, Motley would venture as a child to Thirty-fifth and State streets to watch the dancing, singing, and people (2). After high school, Motley continued to learn about art though his education at the Chicago Institute of Art (Minderovic 373). Following his graduation from the CIA, Motley had a difficult time finding work because of his race (Robinson and Greenhouse 6). Therefore, the first twelve years of his career, Motley depicted African Americans through portraits (6). Mending Socks (1924), one of Motley’s most famous portraits, depicts his grandmother sitting in a room (Ackland Museum Site).

Motley chooses to depict his grandmother using a realistic technique. To avoid taking away from Motley’s grandmother and the room, Motley uses realistic colors. He wants a very real painting so that if the audience were actually to see this room, everything would look exactly the same. For example, Motley shows his grandmother’s face covered with distinctive wrinkles and her thin and gray hair, which illustrates how she appears in real life. Furthermore, the objects in the painting also appear real. The fruit and other objects from the grandmother’s past look as they would in any room. Therefore, Motley’s use of realism in this painting makes the scene believable, and the audience can relate to the grandmother and her past as a slave (Ackland Museum Site).

Using his grandmother and the objects that surround her, this portrait symbolizes slavery and its affects on African Americans. The grandmother shows the affects of a slavery life by mending the socks, which represents the menial work that masters subjected slaves to. With a somber look on her face, the grandmother seems tired from her life and her wrinkled face represents the physical suffering that slaves endured. In contrast to her physical appearance, the red shawl covering her shoulders represents the woman’s caring and strong character.  Ironically, the grandmother’s choice to mend socks shows how her slavery past remains in her present life. In addition, Motley’s grandmother shows strength because only a strong person can survive being considered property instead of a person. This woman overcame her bondage and adversity to lead a long life like many ex-slaves in the United States, which makes Motley’s grandmother a symbol of the direct affects of slavery.

Along with Motley’s grandmother, the inanimate objects in the room represent slavery. First, a picture of the grandmother’s ex-mistress hangs on the wall. Motley only paints half of the portrait suggesting that the mistress no longer has total control over Motley’s grandmother. However, since the portrait still hangs, it symbolizes the grandmother’s past as a slave, the grandmother’s loyalty to her ex-mistress, and the grandmother’s inability to forget slavery. Furthermore, the crucifix that hangs on the wall shows the woman’s strong religious beliefs and her hope. Christianity gave this woman hope while she lived as a slave. However, the crucifix also shows the relationship between the suffering and pain Jesus Christ lived through before his death and the suffering and pain slaves endured while in bondage. Jesus Christ and slaves only had their faith and hope to help them survive oppression and ridicule. Since these objects represent the grandmother’s past, the objects further show that the past presides in the present.

After painting portraits of his grandmothers, father, and other African Americans, Motley started to depict images of Bronzeville, the term used to describe the African American section of Chicago (Robinson and Greenhouse 40). Archibald Motley explained that, " In order to study them [African Americans in Chicago] I made it a habit to go to places where they gathered a lot like churches, movie houses, dance halls, skating rinks, sporting houses, sometimes not only sporting houses but gambling houses"(qtd. in the Oral History Interview). His interest in Chicago African American life coincided with the Harlem Renaissance movement, which occurred in the 1920s through the 1940s when African American artists, writers, and musicians celebrated the urban life of blacks (Rhapsodies). The Harlem Renaissance work also showed how far African Americans had come in terms of how they can paint, write, perform, and live like whites since the end of slavery (Rhapsodies). Although Motley did not paint scenes directly from Harlem, the works he painted, based on Chicago African American urban life, captured the same themes as the paintings from Harlem. Motley’s painting Nightlife (1943) shows the joy of African Americans in a bar/club setting using people and a modern technique to portray the people and events (Robinson and Greenhouse 123).

Unlike the realism used in Mending Socks, Motley uses a modern technique to capture this bar scene. For example, the African Americans in Nightlife do not have distinct characteristics, all of the men look the same and all of the women look the same. Using this technique, Motley makes this painting general in its main idea that African Americans are people just like anyone in the United States. Motley does not want viewers to focus on specific characteristics, but instead walk away from this picture realizing that African Americans continually try to move past slavery and can live just like whites. Because Motley used a modern technique in Nightlife and other paintings he worked on during this period in his career, he began to stray from the portraits and realistic art that started his career.

In addition to the modern technique used to paint Nightlife, these African Americans symbolize a group trying to move away from their past, and live like everyone else and have fun like everyone else. In Nightlife, men and women dance while musicians play music on their trumpets. The painting portrays a strong sense of prosperity because the African American men and women are wearing fashionable suits and dressed. In contrast to Motley’s grandmother’s possessions, the bar shows no link to a past of slavery or oppression, and it seems like these people use this bar as a place to shut out discrimination. Furthermore, Motley painted no white people in this picture, which also shows that these African Americans have left discrimination at the door. However, these individuals seem to display that African Americans can have fun, dance, drink, and dress just like white people. This bar scene makes these African Americans appear just like white people although once they leave the bar, they will have to face the same inequity that remains outside in the world.

. Therefore, Motley’s paintings reflect the African American experience from slavery to the Harlem Renaissance and Motley challenges museum audiences not to forget the affects of slavery and the strides that slaves made after emancipation (Craven 44). The African American idea of equality in the United States and around the world fueled the Harlem Renaissance. In New York, Chicago, Paris, and London, African Americans "seized their first chances for group expression and self-determination" (Powell 132). African American artists, writers, and musicians participated in the movement to make the world understand that their race equals any other in education and talent (Rhapsodies). Motley remains part of a long list of distinguished, talented, and contemporary African American artists such as Charles Alston, Aaron Douglas, Malvin Gray Johnson, and Miguel Covarrubias (Powell 134). These men pioneered the way for African American artists throughout the twentieth century.
 

Craven, Wayne. "An Awakening." American Art. 11 (1997): 42-4.

James, Curtia. "Archibald J. Motley, Jr., at the High Museum at Georgia Pacific Center."  Art in America. 81 (1993): 116-17.

"Mending Socks." Ackland Art Museum. Online. Internet. 9 Nov. 1999.

Minderovic, Christine Miner. "Motley, Archibald (Jr.)." St. James Guide to Black Artists. Ed. Thomas Riggs et al. Detroit: St. James P, 1997. 372-74.

"Oral History Interview with Archibald Motley." Interview with Archibald Motley. Smithsonian Archive of American Art. By Dennis Barrie. Chicago. 23 January 1978.

Powell, Richard J. "Art of the Harlem Renaissance." American Art Review. 10 (1998): 132-7.

"Rhapsodies in Black Art: Art of the Harlem Renaissance." Online. Internet. 16 Nov. 1999.

Robinson, Johntyle Theresa, and Wendy Greenhouse. The Art of Archibald J. Motley. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1991.

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Created on Dec. 5, 1999
Copyright 1999
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