Ultimately, the examination of African American art is double-edged, for it inherently involves two goals: to celebrate achievement and to fix/define notions about race. “Race” is an idea, a position; it is a process, undergoing constant change and negotiation. “Race” is not a fact; yet it is real. According to the cultural historian Raymond Williams, the difficulties surrounding the concept “race” began “when it was used to denote a group within a species, as in the case of the ‘races of man.’” 5 To quote historian Barbara J. Fields, “Race is a product of history, not of nature.” Furthermore, ideologies of race vary according to context. In the United States, “race” became current when large numbers of men and women began to question the moral legitimacy of slavery. Subsequently, stereotypes of difference arose from the opposition’s need to circumscribe “black” and “white.” As Fields noted, the often-contradictory qualities ascribed to the two “races” led to a hardening of categories, which profoundly influenced the lives of those forced to live within them. 6

In order to begin to confront the reality of those experiences mediated by “race,” we must acknowledge what historian Elsa Barkley Brown termed the “relational nature of difference.” Recognition and inclusion of difference are not enough, she argued; rather, such strategies often function as a way to avoid challenges. Using the example of the large number of African American women employed as domestics and childcare workers in the homes of middle- and upper-class white women, Brown argued that we must comprehend that white women historically were able to live the lives they did precisely because black women lived the lives that they did. 7 Likewise this issue of The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies could not exist without the understanding that, “out there somewhere,” there is a category (often unstated but absorbed as “the norm”) that can be labeled “white American art.”

How does one introduce a portfolio of twenty-nine works by African American artists in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago that span from 1803 to 1997 and differ so greatly? What can be inferred when, at the end of the twentieth century, we continue to link works solely because of the race of their makers that were actually produced at different historical moments and created in a variety of mediums and techniques? Since each of the objects mentioned in the Portfolio section is discussed in an individual entry, our aim here is to consider the historic and current implications, as well as the benefits and limitations, of discussing art by African Americans collectively.

Race and the Visual Arts: What is “African American Art”?

It is critical to consider the connotations of the term “African American art” and the ramifications of employing racially defined terminology. Throughout the twentieth century, many terms have been used to describe works by African Americans: Negro art, Afro-American art, Black art, and, currently, African American art (with and without a hyphen). Each term relates to specific moments in United States history; and each term––no matter how it is used––is inherently bound to shifting perceptions about race. Before examining the dangers inherent in this kind of thinking, we should mention its substantial positive effects.

Clearly, African American artists have profited from discussions and exhibitions dedicated exclusively to their work. Research with this focused aim has been crucial to examining, collecting, documenting, discussing, and constructing a history for visual art made by black Americans. Exhibitions and critical scholarship devoted specifically to the subject are still required. Numerous works by African Americans are undocumented or have vanished; many African American artists have been ignored by the art-historical discourse but deserve visibility and scholarly attention. This sort of focus fosters the recognition (and often the rediscovery) of under-researched artists and their work.