Ernest Crichlow

Ernest Crichlow (June 19, 1914 – November 10, 2005) was an American social realist artist known for his narrative paintings and illustrations from the Depression-era, which focused on social injustice and the realities faced by African Americans.

Early life and career

Ernest Crichlow was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1914 to Barbadian immigrants. He was the second child of nine children. Crichlow's father was a skilled mason and cricketer. With Crichlow's interesting in drawing beginning during his youth, his parents encouraged him to pursue art. He studied art at the School of Commercial Illustrating and Advertising Art in New York and New York University. Crichlow started work as an artist in a studio sponsored by Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Augusta Savage was an early patron of his work, as was the case for many of the artists of the Harlem Renaissance.

Career

His first exhibition was in 1938 in the Harlem Community Center in Harlem, New York. One of his best known works, the lithograph ''Lovers III'' shows a young black woman being harassed in her bedroom by a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Crichlow's work was exhibited in the 1939 New York World's Fair and in the Library of Congress the following year.

Over the next few decades, his work was regularly shown in leading US art galleries especially in the northeast although he held two exhibitions in Atlanta University in the 1940s. By the end of his career, his work had been honored by President Carter. His 1967 painting ''White Fence'' showing a young white girl being separated by a fence from five black girls was the most notable from his later career along with a 25-panel mural at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn.

Crichlow was also well known as an illustrator for children's literature, providing art work for T''wo in a Team'', ''Maria'', ''Lift Every Voice'' and ''Magic Mirrors''. In 1958, he founded the Brooklyn's Fulton Art Fair. He founded the Cinque Gallery located in New York City in 1969 with Norman Lewis and Romare Bearden to showcase art by African American artists. Crichlow taught art at the City College of New York, the State University of New York at New Paltz, Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Brooklyn Museum Art School and the Art Students Leaguebr>

Crichlow was a member of Spiral (arts alliance), Spiral, an African American artist collective that was formed in 1963 and disassembled in 1966. The group's mission was to contribute to the civil rights movement while maintaining their identities as individuals and artists. Spiral organized one art exhibition and is notable for their thought-provoking discussions on the African American experience, African American image, and other topics surrounding civil rights and social justice.

At the time of his death on November 10, 2005, he was a resident of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Crichlow's cause of death was heart failure.Potts, Monica
"Ernest Crichlow, 91, Lyrical Painter, Dies"
''The New York Times'', November 14, 2005. Accessed September 2, 2018. "Ernest Crichlow, an influential Harlem Renaissance painter whose depictions of African-Americans reflected social injustices and shifting social realities through much of the 20th century, died on Thursday at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. He was 91 and lived in Fort Greene, Brooklyn."

References

Further reading

Article on Ernest Crichlow
*"Ernest Crichlow." ''St. James Guide to Black Artists'' St. James Press, 1997. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2005.
''Newsday'' obituary November 12, 2005

External links

Interview with Ernest Crichlow on All Things Considered, NPR

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crichlow, Ernest
1914 births
2005 deaths
20th-century American painters
American male painters
21st-century American painters
Works Progress Administration workers
People from Fort Greene, Brooklyn
New York University alumni
20th-century African-American painters
21st-century African-American artists
20th-century American male artists