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Clark, Ed  

Genevieve Slomski

pioneer of abstract painting, was born Edward Clark in the Storyville section of New Orleans, Louisiana. Little is known about his family, but they moved north during the Depression, and he was raised in Chicago.

Following service in the U.S. Air Force, Clark attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago under the G.I. Bill from 1947 to 1951. At the Art Institute, he met abstract painter Joan Mitchell, with whom he developed a lifelong friendship, and the impressionist painter Louis Ritman, who was an encouraging instructor. During this period, Clark's work was traditional and figurative. But Clark's frustration with the Institute's academic restraints, such as the directive to avoid oils during this period, led-him to create an experimental self-portrait that took two years to complete. The classic head-and-shoulders depiction was set against a Renaissance landscape consisting of subtle layers of stippled watercolors.

In 1952 Clark ...

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Green, Jonathan  

Anne K. Driscoll

painter, printmaker, and illustrator, was born in Gardens Corner, South Carolina, the second of seven children of Ruth J. Green (a home manager) and Melvin Green (occupation unknown). Green is possibly the first person of Gullah descent to train at a professional art school. The Gullah are the descendants of West African slaves who lived on and near the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina.

Great things were expected of Green from the time of his birth. He was born with an inner fetal membrane covering his head and for this reason was considered a “child of the Veil” (Green). In Gullah culture the Veil marks children “touched by uncommonness and magic that will bring inordinate grace to the community.” Traveling to New York seeking employment, Green's mother left Green in the care of his maternal grandmother, Eloise Stewart Johnson Green was interested in art ...

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Hutson, Bill  

Amalia K. Amaki

painter, graphic artist, and archivist, was born William Richard Hutson in San Marcos, Texas, to Mattie Lee (Edwards) Hudson, a homemaker and employee at Texas State University, and Floyd Waymon Hudson, a laborer, bandleader, and pianist. He grew up with three siblings, Floyd Waymon Jr., Ellen Ruth, and Clarence Albert. When his father died in 1942 his family moved in with his grandmother. In 1949 he entered San Marcos Colored High School. With no art classes at school or in the segregated community, he took a drawing correspondence course in 1951 from Art Instruction, Inc. of Minneapolis, Minnesota, working odd jobs to cover costs. His mother died in 1952 at thirty-nine following a long illness, and Hutson moved to San Antonio with his siblings to live with aunts Jewel Littlejohn and Milber Jones in the East Terrace Housing Project, his uncle Wilbur ...

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Love, Edward  

Willie Hobbs

visual artist and educator, was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Alyce and Edward Love, about whom little is known. After attending Manual Arts High School, Love, a baseball standout, was slated to be recruited by the San Francisco Giants. The U.S. Air Force proved more attractive to Love than baseball. While serving a five-year stint in the military that ultimately took him to Japan, Love became deeply influenced by Japanese culture. He also developed an affinity for the music of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis and the discourse of the Black Arts Movement, as well as a fascination with architectural design.

After an honorable discharge, Love earned a BFA in Sculpture in 1966 and an MFA in Design in 1967 from California State University Los Angeles A postgraduate fellowship to study humanities and fine arts at Uppsala University in Sweden soon followed While there ...

Article

Nappier, Connie, Jr.  

Minna Zeesy Philips

was born in Eastman, Georgia to Connie Nappier, Sr. and Lutha Ophelia (Jones) Nappier. Public school was permitted only for white children, so Nappier was first educated by a Ms. Rose, a black woman in Eastman who taught in her own home. His family moved to Hartford, Connecticut before he was five years old, where he attended preschool on Wooster Street. At age six Nappier was walking with his father in Hartford’s North End when he heard a plane flying overhead. At that moment he decided he wanted to be a pilot. Nappier enjoyed golf and music, and studied guitar and alto saxophone at the Drago School of Music in his middle school years. He joined the Clyde Board Band, and traveled up and down the East coast playing music. By age fourteen he was being paid as a musician.

In 1939 Nappier started ninth grade at Hartford s ...

Article

Powell, Bill  

Dália Leonardo

golf-course designer and owner, was born William James Powell to Berry and Massaleaner Powell in Greenville, Alabama. He was one of six children. When Powell was still a child, his family relocated to Minerva, Ohio, where his father found employment in a pottery factory. When he was only nine years old, Powell began playing golf and serving as a caddy at the Edgewater Golf Course. He attended Minerva High School, where he was captain of both the golf and football teams. After graduating from Wilberforce University, where he and his brother Berry founded the school's golf team, he began working as a janitor for the Timken Company in Canton, Ohio, and was subsequently promoted to security guard. On 22 November 1940, he married Marcella Olivier, who later passed away in 1996. The couple had five children: two sons, William and Lawrence and three daughters Mary Alice Rose Marie ...

Article

Weeks, James  

Roxanne Y. Schwab

painter and instructor, was born in Oakland, California, the son of Anson Weeks, a pioneering West Coast bandleader, and Ruth Daly Weeks, a classical pianist. When his father's band was booked for a seven-year engagement at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco, the family enrolled Weeks at the Pacific Heights Grammar School in San Francisco and, a few years later, into children's art classes at the California School of Fine Arts. His junior high and high school years introduced him to fellow students and artists William Wolff and Richard Diebenkorn, who eventually would achieve celebrity as a woodcut printer and an abstract painter, respectively.

Following graduation in 1940, Weeks enrolled in evening painting classes at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA), while supporting himself by working days at Wells Fargo Bank. He studied under traditionalist painter William Gaw but he was drawn ...