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Aaron Douglas, a Topeka native and 1917 alumnus of Topeka High School, is among a dozen artists whose work is being honored in a new set of postage stamps, “Modern Art in America, 1913-1931.” UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE “Modern Art in America, 1913 – 1931,” a recently issues set of U.S. postage stamps, includes “The Prodigal Son,” second row, third column, by Topeka native and 1917 Topeka High School alumnus Aaron Douglas, an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance cultural movement in the 1920s.
The U.S. Postal Service issued the stamps to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art staged in New York City’s 69th Regiment Armory. Better known as the Armory Show, the exhibit introduced many Americans to experimental styles of art that departed sharply from the realistic art to which they were accustomed.
Included in the panel of stamps is “The Prodigal Son,” one of the illustrations Douglas created in 1927 for “God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse,” James Weldon Johnson’s book of poems patterned after traditional African-American sermons.
Douglas, who died in 1979 at the age of 79, is considered as the dean of African-American artists. He was an important figure is the Harlem Renaissance cultural movement in the 1920s in New York where he moved after earning his bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
Douglas is remembered in his hometown by the Aaron Douglas Art Park, located on the south side of S.W. 12th between Lane and Washburn avenues. The main attraction of the park is a recreation of Douglas’ famed mural, “Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction.”
Each year the Aaron Douglas Art Fair is staged in the park. Organizers have issued a call for artists wanting to exhibit in this year’s event. The eighth annual fair will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 21.
Submissions may be made online at www.aarondouglasartfair.com or by contacting art director Aaron Mays at artdirector@aarondouglasartfair.com. The deadline for submissions is July 31.
The other masterpieces reproduced on the “Modern Art in America stamps” are: “House and Street” (1931), Stuart Davis; “I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold” (1928), Charles Demuth; “Fog Horns” (1929), Arthur Dove; “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2” (1912), Marcel Duchamp; “Painting, Number 5” (1914-15), Marsden Hartley; “Sunset, Maine Coast” (1919), John Marin; “Razor” (1924), Gerald Murphy; “Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico/Out Back of Marie’s II” (1930), Georgia O’Keefe; “Noire et Blanche” (1926), Man Ray; “American Landscape” (1930), Charles Sheeler; and “Brooklyn Bridge” (1919-20), Joseph Stella.
To learn more about the stories behind the stamps, visit beyondtheperf.com.
Bill Blankenship can be reached at (785) 295-1284 or bill.blankenship@cjonline.com.
