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Untitled (Lady Advertising Saving Bonds) by Charles C Dawson (American) - Watercolor / 1920s-1930s - DuSable Museum of African American History (Chicago, Illinois) #womeninart #art #watercolor #CharlesCDawson #CharlesDawson #AfricanAmericanArtist #DuSableMuseum #DuSableMuseumofAfricanAmericanHistory
Artist Charles Clarence Dawson's undated watercolor depicts a young pale-skinned woman with rosy-red face dressed in a patriotic "American flag" outfit. She wears a red liberty cap, a red and white striped dress, a blue jacket with white stars, and stylish yellow heels. She really stands out in the painting because, except for a few accents, her skin, and her clothing, the entire canvas is muted shades of beige and gray. She sits on a stone bench with an emblem of an eagle and shield, the Great Seal of the United States, on its side. In her left arm, she holds a fasces, or bundle of rods, wrapped in red cord with an axe at the top. In her right hand, she holds several oversized savings bonds, in amounts up to $1,000. Behind her is an eagle statue and a decorative roundel featuring a squirrel on a tree branch storing nuts in a hole. At the 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago, only one African American artist had a visible presence: an adman by the name of Charles Clarence Dawson, classmate of the more famous Archibald Motley, Jr., at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Dawson turned to commercial art to make a living. Born in Georgia in 1889, Dawson attended the famed Tuskegee Institute for two years before moving to New York City to advance his career as an artist. Encountering racism as the first African American in the Art Student League there, he switched to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which he believed was less hostile and biased. He co-founded Chicago’s first black arts collective, the Arts and Letters Society, and helped establish the Chicago Art League, a group of exhibiting African American artists. In 1927, Dawson took part in the first exhibition of African American art at a major American museum, the Art Institute’s Negro in Art Week. In the 1940s, Dawson retired from the fine art world, leaving Chicago to become the curator of the Museum of Negro Art and Culture at his alma mater, Tuskegee University in Alabama.
April 10, 2025 at 8:19 PM