James Lesesne Wells was an African American graphic artist, print-maker, and painter associated with the Harlem Renaissance. He was an influential art professor at Howard University from 1929 to 1968 and is considered a pioneer in modern art education.
African Fantasy, woodcut, 1929
Farmlands, woodcut, WPA commission, 1935–1943
Charles Henry Alston was an American painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist and teacher who lived and worked in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. Alston was active in the Harlem Renaissance; Alston was the first African-American supervisor for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Alston designed and painted murals at the Harlem Hospital and the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building. In 1990, Alston's bust of Martin Luther King Jr. became the first image of an African American displayed at the White House.
Charles Alston in 1939
Alston's illustration of African-American historian Carter G. Woodson for the Office of War Information
Modern Medicine (1936) at the Harlem Hospital
Artworks Promoting the War Effort and Original Sketches by Charles Alston, compiled ca. 1942 - ca. 1945