Constructing a Cultural History

In 1927 Motley received a letter from George S. Hellman, director of the New Gallery in New York, where the artist was scheduled to have his first solo exhibition. Revealing his own prejudices, Hellman suggested that Motley paint “some pictures showing various phases of negro life in its more dramatic aspects––scenes, perhaps, in which the voo-doo element as well as the cabaret element––but especially the latter––enter.” 35 Motley produced five works with African themes: Kikuyu God of Fire (fig. 6), Waganda [Uganda] Woman’s Dream (fig. 7), Waganda [Uganda] Charm Makers, Devil-Devils, and Spell of the Voodoo. 36 Of these, only Kikuyu God of Fire is extant. These compositions, along with portraits, genre images, and cabaret scenes, were included in the exhibition, which took place in 1928 and generated a great deal of publicity.

Critics at the time assumed that the series Motley exhibited at the New Gallery represented an attempt to forge a connection with his ancestral heritage, to imagine himself as part of the cultures and countries he depicted. In an article on the exhibit to which the New York Times Magazine devoted a two-page spread, the series is described as follows:

• Myriad age-old racial memories drift up from Africa and glowing islands of the sea to color more recent ghostly memories of plantation days when black was black and slaves were slaves. . . . Mr. Motley appears to be forging a substantial link in the chain of negro culture in this country. . . . The same fundamental rhythms are found whether the setting be a jungle presided over by witchcraft or a cabaret rocking to the syncopation of jazz. . . . 37

This author’s commentary demonstrates the romanticized, reductivist, and primitivist attitudes that were prevalent during the 1920s; his suggestion that Motley’s paintings represent a link with the artist’s African ancestry reflects, as we shall see, expectations of African American artists that emerged at this moment.

In the catalogue that accompanied Motley’s exhibition, the gallery’s director dismissed the importance of Motley’s portraits, declaring that “the public will find most fascinating those paintings which depict Voodooism––the superstitions, the dreams, the charms of East Africa.” 38 Certainly, Hellman’s recommendation demonstrates his awareness of the commercial viability of works of art that were perceived as addressing the “primitive.” At this time, many equated African American culture and its most predominant artistic voice––jazz––with the idea of a sensationalized, savage Africa and focused their yearning for the exotic and uninhibited on this construct.

Leaders of the Harlem Renaissance also championed the link between African Americans and Africa, but for very different reasons. As philosopher, teacher, and critic Alain Locke asserted, by re-establishing the historic continuity that was destroyed by slavery, African American artists could help their race reclaim its ancestral heritage. In his landmark 1925 publication, The New Negro, he urged African American artists to incorporate the formal elements and themes of African art into their work in order to arrive at an “authentic” racial self-expression. In so doing, he believed, black artists would surpass European modernists such as Pablo Picasso, who freely borrowed formal ideas from African art without, in his view, having a valid connection with it. Essentially, Locke prescribed adopting a modernist aesthetic: reducing realistic, African-inspired subject matter to pure form. He hoped this would establish a new pictorial tradition whose authenticity would distinguish it from the biased European and Euro-American view of Africa as the uncivilized “Dark Continent.” 39