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Syracuse University Libraries

Old Arts Research Guides: Art as Resistance

All the old Arts Research Guides

Individual Artists or Groups

African American Artists

African American Artists

Charles Alston
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Romare Bearden
Richard J. Brown

African American Artists

Charles Alston
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Romare Bearden
Richard J. Brown
Willie Cole
Robert H. Colescott
Aaron Douglas
Sam Gilliam
Tyree Guyton
Jacob Lawrence
William H. Johnson
Edomonia (Mary) Lewis
Martin Puryear
Faith Ringgold
Alison Saar
Betye Saar
John T. Scott
Henry Ossawa Tanner
James Van Der Zee
Kara Walker
Eugene Warburg
Carrie Mae Weems
James Wells
Fred Wilson
Willie Cole
Robert H. Colescott
Aaron Douglas
Sam Gilliam
Tyree Guyton
Jacob Lawrence
William H. Johnson
Edomonia (Mary) Lewis
Martin Puryear
Faith Ringgold
Alison Saar
Betye Saar
John T. Scott
Henry Ossawa Tanner
James Van Der Zee
Kara Walker
Eugene Warburg
Carrie Mae Weems
James Wells
Fred Wilson

Resources in Special Collections

Radicalism in the Arts Collections

This collection documents the artistic expression of progressive ideologies, representing literature, visual art, and music relating to 20th-century social movements including civil rights, pacifism, environmentalism and ecology, prison reform, the labor movement, and issues of sexuality and gender.

 

Audio and Visual Materials

Many of the radicalism collections contain visual and audio materials. For example, see:

  • The Grove Press Records include the financial records of the press’s Film Division as well as some of the films that were distributed by Grove.
  • In addition to photographic prints, negatives, and photographic equipment, the Margaret Bourke-White Papers contain dictation discs, reel-to-reel tapes and phonodiscs (most 78rpm) of speeches, interviews, and speech therapy recordings made after Bourke-White was diagnosed with Parkinson's.
  • The William Gropper Papers contain original drawings, paintings, and prose by Gropper and others; published material, including cartoons from New Masses, clippings, exhibition lists, and illustrations.

Rare Books and Printed Materials

Our printed holdings include published essays, fiction, plays, poetry, and children's books. In addition to holding the records and titles of the American publisher Grove Press and its in-house literary magazine Evergreen Review, we also hold the publications of various small presses such as Angel Hair, C Press, Fuck You Press, Telegraph Press, Tiber Press, Beanbag Press, BkMk Press, Third World Press, Ishmael Reed Publishing Company, among others. Underground or independently published magazines and journals make up a significant portion of our collection.

Useful search terms to locate these items include "radicalism - history - 20th century," "mimeograph," "communism," "socialism," "black arts movement," "queer," "civil rights," "pacifism," "environmentalism," "prison reform," "labor movement," and "Marxism," "counterculture."

 

Archival Materials