The Harlem Arts Guild (1937)
Gwendolyn Bennett
Before the Black Arts Movement, before the cultural wing of the civil rights struggle fully took shape, before the term “Black artist” had any institutional footing at all, there was the Harlem Artists Guild. Formed in 1935 by Augusta Savage and a small group of committed artists, the Guild emerged from a moment when art, labor, and anti-racist struggle were deeply entangled. Harlem was not only a cultural center but a political battleground shaped by the Great Depression, the rise of the Works Progress Administration, and the growing influence of leftist organizing among workers, writers, and artists. Within this charged atmosphere, the Guild positioned Black artists not as isolated individuals but as part of a broader, united front with all workers in the arts, insisting that the fight for Black cultural expression could not be separated from the fight for economic security, racial justice, and collective power.
The following text by Gwendolyn Bennett, published in 1937 in Art Front, the magazine of the Artists Union, itself aligned with the Communist Party USA, is both a report and a declaration. It captures a moment when Black artists were building institutions, demanding employment on federal art projects, organizing pickets against cuts to the WPA, and developing community art centers in Harlem. It documents not just the aesthetic aspirations of its members but their material struggle for jobs, training, visibility, and political leverage. Seen within the long lineage of artists organizing for liberation, the Harlem Artists Guild stands as an early and essential example of what it means for artists to fight collectively, to build their own structures of support, and to claim culture as a site of political power. Bennett’s piece offers us a window into that formative period and reminds contemporary artists of the legacy of struggle they inherit.
The Harlem Arts Guild
Gwendolyn Bennett – Art Front. Vol. 3 No. 4. May, 1937.
With the assumption of its duties as part of the national steering committee of the Federation of Artists’ Unions, the Harlem Artists’ Guild definitely comes of age. Organized originally with the in- tent of guarding the cultural, social and economic integrity of the Negro artist, the Guild within two years has arrived at the point in its development where it sees itself in relation to all artists, black and white. From such a point in its organizational development the Guild does well to pause in retrospective evaluation of its accomplishments up to the present time.
Following an exhibition of work by Negro artists, sponsored by the College Art Association and the W.P.A., in March, 1935, the Harlem Artists’ Guild was organized with less than a dozen members who saw the need for an organization that would have as its aim the welfare of Negro artists. Its present membership of approximately ninety artists has the same aims augmented by the growing understanding that the fate of Negro artists is identified with that of all other artists. The Guild plans to become more active in the organizational work of the New York Artists’
Union, the Coordination Committee and the American Artists’ Congress. While concerned primarily with problems peculiar to Negro artists by virtue of their bond of color and persecution, the Guild membership has been invigorated and heartened by the support its small number receives from the thousands of artists, banded together for their mutual welfare.
Part of the original program of the Guild was a plan for a Harlem community art center. The Federal Art program in Harlem is now housed in the West 123rd Street Music-Art Center preparatory to moving into a large place devoted solely to art. The opening of the Mayor’s proposed art center will go far toward materializing the program put forward by the Harlem Artists’ Guild. While supporting the need for an art center and critical of faulty attempts in this direction, the Guild is ready to lend its assistance to both ventures. The opening exhibition of the present Music-Art Center combined work done by the artists and children working under the guidance of the W.P.A., and paintings and sculpture by members of the Harlem Artists’ Guild. Attendance in the life-class at the W.P.A. center is part of the indoor program of the Guild. Through conference with the Committee of One Hundred, a municipal body headed by Mrs. Breckinridge, and consultation with members of the Board of Education under whose aegis the proposed art center is to be set up, the Guild keeping a watchful eye on the direction its organization is taking.
Members of the Harlem Artists Guild picketing with the Works Progress Administration to protest cutbacks, 1937.
Employment of Negro artists has always been one of the Guild’s major problems. When the Guild was organized, there were only a half dozen Negro artists employed on the W.P.A. project. This number has been materially increased. Through the efforts of the Guild, Negro artists are now employed in the teaching, mural, easel and index of design departments of the Federal Art Project. Before the formation of the Guild there was no Negro supervisor on the W.P.A. Projects; now in the Federal Art Project there are three Negro supervisors. Delegations from the Guild meet with the Administration of the Project and with organizations dealing with the problems of employment and quality of work among artists. In this connection the Guild hopes eventually to compile a roster of Negro artists from all over the country, their status–whether employed or unemployed–and their qualifications.
The cultural program of the Guild is steadily expanding. Lectures, symposia, and debates on technical subjects of interest to artists are arranged monthly for Guild members and associates. Sessions devoted to music, literature and other cultural subjects are offered to the general public once a month. Exhibitions of painting and sculpture have been shown in Harlem community centers and schools. An exhibition of work by the Harlem Artists’ Guild is being prepared for the American Artists’ School. Through sketch classes, museum tours and lectures for the benefit of its membership and the community the Harlem Artists Guild seeks to create a cultural program that will ultimately place the Negro artist in a position of importance in the society of which he is a part.
The Guild sets out to combat those forces that keep the Negro artist from his place in the sun, to strengthen and aid those forces that militate for his good. The Guild stands shoulder to shoulder with artists and organizations fighting on a united front for the freedom and integrity of all artists regardless of race or color. It has given no quarter to ignorance and prejudice; no ground to malice and ill-intent. What will the Guild do? It will continue its fight for the Negro artist’s legitimate place as a worthwhile force in the society of which he is a part.
Art Front was published by the Artists Union in New York between November 1934 and December 1937. Its roots were with the Artists Committee of Action formed to defend Diego Rivera’s Man at the Crossroads mural soon to be destroyed by Nelson Rockefeller. Herman Baron, director of the American Contemporary Art gallery, was managing editor in collaboration with the Artists Union in a project largely politically aligned with the Communist Party USA.. An editorial committee of sixteen with eight from each group serving. Those from the Artists Committee of Action were Hugo Gellert, Stuart Davis, Zoltan Hecht, Lionel S. Reiss, Hilda Abel, Harold Baumbach, Abraham Harriton, Rosa Pringle and Jennings Tofel, while those from the Artists Union were Boris Gorelick, Katherine Gridley, Ethel Olenikov, Robert Jonas, Kruckman, Michael Loew, C. Mactarian and Max Spivak.