Palmer Haydn and the Harlem Renaissance

Palmer Haydn - The Janitor Who Paints - ca. 1930 - oil on canvas - 39 1/8 x 32 7/8 in. (99.3 x 83.6 cm.) - Smithsonian American Art Museum (click photo for larger image)The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of African-American social thought that was expressed through the visual arts, as well as through music (Louis Armstrong, Eubie Blake, Fats Waller and Billie Holiday), literature (Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and W.E.B. DuBois), theater (Paul Robeson) and dance (Josephine Baker). Centered in the Harlem district of New York City, the New Negro Movement (as it was called at the time) had a profound influence across the United States and even around the world. Palmer Haydn (1890-1973) was well known for his treatments of both urban life (in New York City) and in the rural South. The Janitor Who Paints, created around 1930, was described by the artist as "a sort of protest painting" of his own economic and social standing ,as well as that of his fellow African Americans.