The New York School: The Painters and Sculptors of the Fifties by Irving Sandler (review)

76 Books length, nor does it add much that is new to an understanding of the objectives of Morris. Yet it fulfils a need for a lucid and informative introduction. Of special mention are the many excellent illustrations, 145 in all, that liven and clarify the text. Morris loomed large on the scene of his time and spoke eloquently and forcibly, but caricatures by Edward BurneJones ,who remained a life-long friend, some included in the book, suggest that Morris was aware of his eccentricities and tolerant of good-natured banter. Photographs of the Morris home and workshops, reproductions from the Morris and Company furniture catalog and samples of his tapestry and wallpaper patterns help to put the man in the perspective of the environment of his making. Not one of these, unfortunately, isin color; this nearly defeats the purpose of showing reproductions of his stained glass windows. It is ironic that the expense that would have been involved was not met in telling Morris’s story, for he could not tolerate the less-than-total effort. Still, readers new to Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement will enjoy and profit from this brisk and well told biography. References I. N. Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design from William Morris to Walter Gropius, rev. ed. (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1960). The Beautyof Life, TheCollected Workso f WilliamMorris, Vol. 22, May Morris, ed. (London: Longmans Green and Co., 1914)p. 76. 2. Art: African-American. Samella Lewis. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich , London, 1978.246 pp., illus. Paper f7.75. Reviewed by Margaret Burroughs* Coming in the period of the wake of ‘Black Awareness’, Black pride and general worldwide interest in the various phases of the Black experience, life and culture, this book is a welcome addition to the literature on the subject. In the first place, good books on the contributions of an individual Black or an African-USAmerican artist in the graphic and plastic arts have been few and far between. In my over 25 years of teaching art in the Chicago Public Schools, from the time I left the Chicago Art Institute in 1946 until about 1968,there were only three referencebooks available for research about Blacks in the visual arts. Most important was the oneby the late James A. Porter of the Howard UniversityArt Department. Porter was a pupil of the eminent philosopher and art critic, Alain Locke, also of Howard. Locke often reviewed exhibitions of the works of Black artists and wrote numerous learned articles on the subject. He also wrote the first book in the 1930son the subject entitled American Negro Art. Then came Porter’s book The Negro in Art in the 1940s. In the 1950s, the late Cedric Dover, a Eurasian, visited the U.S.A. and met many of the artists listed in Porter’s book. He updated the biographical sketches and added more photographs. Dover’s Modern Negro Art was based on the early original research of both Locke and Porter, Edited by Dover, it was publishedby the New York Graphic Societyin 1969and up until the 1960s no other major original research on Black USAmerican artists was published. One possibleexception isa book on 75 artists entitled Black Artists on Art collected and edited by Ruth Waddy and Samella Lewis and published by the Ward Ritchie Pressin 1969.The ‘BlackAwareness’era of the late 1960s attracted many so-called scholars, particularly Caucasians, who sensed in the subject matter a fertile and hitherto unexplored territory. A number of students received their Ph.D. degreeswith theses in this field. However, it is my feeling that Lewis’ book is at present the most complete and up-to-date work on Black Art in the U.S.A. With a foreword by the well-known painter and teacher Jacob Lawrence it does not merely borrow from the research of Locke and Porter but builds on and expands it to cover developments up to about 1977. The author divided her book into five parts: (I) 1619-1865: Cultural Deprivation and Slavery; (2) 1865 - 1920: Emancipation and Cultural Dilemma; (3) 1920-1945:New Americanism and Ethnic Identity; (4) 1940-1960: Social and Political Awareness and (5) 1960s-1977: Political and...