Conference Paper: The Modernist Studies Association's Annual Conference
Title: âHoly Hub: Picturing the Modern Black Madonna in the Streets of Harlem and Beyond (1940-1948)â
Panel:Â âSensing Harlem: Visual and Sonic Cultures of the Harlem Renaissanceâ
Presented at:Â Modernist Studies Association Conference (New York City, NY, City, October 2023)
Award: Supported by a grant awarded by the Modernist Studies AssociationÂ
Summary: This paper explores modern reinterpretations of the Black Madonna in 1940s Harlem and beyond, analyzing works by Palmer Hayden, Jacob Lawrence, and Allan Rohan Crite. It argues that these street-centered portrayals of sacred maternity reframe Marian iconography and challenge the male-centered focus of Harlem Renaissance scholarship.
Abstract:
In âThe Task of Negro Womanhood,â an essay published in Alain LeRoy Lockeâs The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925), educator Elise Johnson McDougald declared laboring African American womenâespecially working mothersâthe âhub of progress.â McDougald acknowledged that this neoteric perception of the figure was not yet part of the popular imagination, lamenting that âthe ideals of beauty, built up in the fine arts, have excluded her almost entirely.â Soon, however, a new feminine iconography would challenge this reality. Enthroned on stoops and enshrined by sidewalks, the modern Black Madonna of the 1940s brought sacred maternity down to earthâspecifically, to the streets of contemporary Harlem.
This paper presents a case study comprising three paintings. Two of these worksâMadonna of the Stoop (1940) by Palmer Hayden and Tombstones (1942) by Jacob Lawrenceâare set in Harlem; the otherâOur Lady of the Neighborhood (1948) by Allan Rohan Crite, an East Coast artist who exhibited with the Harlemitesâis based in Boston.
This paper first explores how these radical interpretations of the Madonna reconsidered established conventions of Marian iconography, paying particular attention to the significance of the street as a sacred spaceâan unexpected modernist motif. This paper then questions why this iconography is overlooked by recent research. Stressing that contemporary scholarship seldom diverges from the movementâs masculine metaphors, it asks the question: If the modern Black mother was the âhub of progressâ during the Harlem Renaissance, can scholarship that disregards her role in the artsâa âspokeâ of this hubâtruly be progressive?
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