Palmer Hayden's Biography
Palmer Hayden (1890 to 1973) is the premier African American folklorist in the United States. Even his landscapes and seascapes of France and Maine reflect his personal experiences growing up in Widewater, Virginia.
Hayden moved to New York in the early 1920s where he later became a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance.
Admired by some, reviled by others, Hayden nevertheless stayed true to himself and to his art.
Artist statement: I remember scenes from when I was a child in Virginia, and try to paint them from memory. I remember the bunkhouse at the factory where I used to work, and laboreres in the brickyard at Haverstraw, and some of the roustabouts in the circus, and some of the soldiers in the army. Certain things - a parade, mounting guard, or...a group doing something together - come out in my memory.
Sometimes I hear an outlandish story and I try to paint that. When I was at West point, we soldiers used to go to Newburgh, which is about twelve miles up the river above West Point, to get "turned on," so to speak. Well, I heard this story about what happened at Newburgh at the Hudson-Fulton Centennial, a way back in 1909, an incident where one of the roustabouts around town called "Tricky Sam" shot a good old fellow named "Father Lamb," and so I made a painting about that.
I paint what us Negroes, colored people, us Americans know. We're a brand-new race, raised and manufactured in the United States. I do like to paint what they did.
Education
Boothbay Art Colony, Maine, 1925
Cooper Union, New York, under Victor Perard, 1919
Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France 1927 to 1932
Awards
American Veteran's Society of Artists honarable mention, 1965
Harmon Gold Award in Fine Arts, Harmon Foundation, 1926
Collections
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
Fisk University, Nashville
Museum of African American Art, Los Angeles
Oakland Museum, Oakland, California
Hampton University Museum, Hampton, Virginia
Publications
African American Art and Artists by Samella Lewis, Ph.D., published by University of California Press, Los Angeles, CA in 1990.
Black Artists on Art, Volume 1 by Samella Lewis, Ph.D. and Ruth Waddy, published by Contemporary Crafts, Inc., Los Angeles, CA in 1969.
A History of African American Artists: 1792 to Present by Harry Henderson and Romare Bearden, published by Panthen Books, New York in 1993.
Collecting African American Art by Halima Taha, published by Crown Publishers, Inc., New York City in 1998.
St. James Guide to Black Artists edited by Thomas Riggs, published by St. James Press, Detroit in 1997.
Echoes of Our Past: The Narrative Artistry of Palmer C. Hayden by Allan M. Gordon, published by the Museum of African American Art, Los Angeles in 1988.
"Giving Black Artists Their Due," Art & Antiques, Volume 19, Number 3, March 1996.
"Leading Negro Artists," Ebony, Septmeber 1963.
Exhibitions
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton
Salon des Tuileries, Paris, France
Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland
California African American Museum, Los Angeles
Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York
Newark Museum, New Jersey
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
Bellevue Art Museum, Washington
Museum of African American Art