# Harlem Renaissance Graphic Art

> The illustration, cover and jacket art of the New Negro movement, set by Aaron Douglas after he moved to Harlem in 1925 and studied with Winold Reiss. Flat, hard-edged silhouettes of Black figures, with Egyptian-profile heads and mask-like eyes, stand among skyscrapers, palms, pyramids and radiating shafts of light. Art Deco geometry fuses with African sculpture to picture Black history, faith and modern urban life with dignity.

- Period: 1925–1940
- Where: North America
- Origin: Harlem, New York City: The Crisis (NAACP), Opportunity (National Urban League), Fire!! and Harlem, and New York publishers such as Knopf and Viking
- Branch: Pictorial & machine age
- Also known as: New Negro graphics, Aaron Douglas style, Harlem Renaissance book and magazine art
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/harlem-renaissance-graphics/

## Use it with care

Douglas built this idiom so that Black artists could picture Black history against minstrel caricature and white primitivist fantasy. Lifted as generic Jazz Age or 'tribal' decoration, the Egyptian profiles, mask-like eyes and black silhouettes can slide back into the stereotypes it answered, so use it to tell Black stories with Black artists and writers, and credit Douglas and the magazines (The Crisis, Opportunity) whose images you draw on.

## How it works

- Render figures as flat, hard-edged silhouettes: head in Egyptian profile, torso frontal, eyes slanted like a Dan mask.
- Fuse African signs (masks, pyramids, palms, foliage) with Deco geometry, skyscrapers and smokestacks on one flat picture plane.
- Print in one to three flat colours, often black on a bright orange, pink or yellow ground, and hand-letter the titles.
- Radiate concentric circles or shafts of light from a focal point, stepping the tone of every figure the bands cross.
- Picture Black history, faith, labour and music as a dignified modern narrative, never as minstrel caricature.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Radial & concentric](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/radial-and-concentric/) (characteristic)
- [Diagonal axis](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/diagonal-axis/) (characteristic)
- [Isolated object](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/isolated-object/) (occasional)
- [Framed panels](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/) (occasional)
- [Central symmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/central-symmetry/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (characteristic)
- [Sequential narrative](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/sequential-narrative/) (occasional)

### Typography
- [Hand-lettering](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-lettering/) (defining)
- [All caps](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-caps/) (characteristic)
- [Geometric sans](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/geometric-sans/) (occasional)
- [Ornamented display](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ornamented-display/) (occasional)

### Colour
- [Limited spot colours](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/) (defining)
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (defining)
- [Monochrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/monochrome/) (characteristic)
- [Earth & mineral](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/earth-and-mineral/) (occasional)
- [Analogous harmony](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/analogous-harmony/) (occasional)

### Form & shape
- [Stylised figuration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/stylised-figuration/) (defining)
- [Angular & zigzag](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/angular-and-zigzag/) (characteristic)
- [Geometric primitives](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/geometric-primitives/) (characteristic)
- [Biomorphic curves](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/biomorphic-curves/) (occasional)

### Surface & texture
- [Flat](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat/) (defining)

### Ornament
- [Folk & sacred symbols](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/folk-and-sacred-symbols/) (defining)
- [Cosmic & celestial](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/cosmic-and-celestial/) (characteristic)
- [Borders & frames](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/borders-and-frames/) (occasional)
- [Floral & vegetal](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/floral-and-vegetal/) (occasional)

### Imagery
- [Line illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/line-illustration/) (defining)
- [Painterly illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/painterly-illustration/) (occasional)

### Medium & production
- [Letterpress](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/letterpress/) (characteristic)
- [Offset printing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/offset-printing/) (occasional)
- [Hand-painted](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-painted/) (occasional)

### Tone & intent
- [Spiritual & sacred](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/spiritual-and-sacred/) (characteristic)
- [Communal & popular](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/communal-and-popular/) (characteristic)
- [Utopian & idealistic](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/utopian-and-idealistic/) (characteristic)

Avoids: Luxurious & glamorous, Ironic & self-aware, Comic & cartoon, Gloss & highlights, Straight photography, Collage & layering

Palette: #161210, #e3782b, #e9a3ad, #5d4a86, #d6b44a, #efe5cf

Typefaces: Aaron Douglas's hand-lettered Deco capitals on jackets and covers, C. B. Falls's gothic title lettering for God's Trombones (1927)

Known for: Aaron Douglas, covers and drawings for Opportunity (1925–27) and The Crisis (1925–29); Aaron Douglas, cover and drawings for Fire!! (November 1926); Aaron Douglas, illustrations for James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones (Viking, 1927); Aaron Douglas, jackets for Langston Hughes's Fine Clothes to the Jew (Knopf, 1927) and Claude McKay's Home to Harlem; Winold Reiss, decorations and portraits for Alain Locke (ed.), The New Negro (1925); Aaron Douglas, Aspects of Negro Life murals (1934; Schomburg Center, New York Public Library)

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Grew out of: [Art Deco](https://stylogeny.com/styles/art-deco.md) (1910–1939)
- Influenced by: [Cubist Pictorial Space](https://stylogeny.com/styles/cubism.md) (1907–1925)
- Alike in its design choices: [Woodland School (Legend Painting)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/woodland-school.md) (1962–present), 73% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Kultur-Lige & Yiddish Avant-Garde Book Design](https://stylogeny.com/styles/kultur-lige-book.md) (1917–1924), 71% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Mithila (Madhubani) Painting](https://stylogeny.com/styles/mithila-painting.md) (c. 1350–present), 71% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book & Periodical Design](https://stylogeny.com/styles/cairo-beirut-book-design.md) (1952–1990), 65% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Warli Painting](https://stylogeny.com/styles/warli-painting.md) (1970–present), 64% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Chinese Paper-Cut (Jianzhi)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/chinese-paper-cut.md) (c. 500–present), 62% alike

## Real works

- [Fire!! A Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists, vol. 1 no. 1 (front cover)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fire_-_front_cover.jpg): Aaron Douglas, November 1926, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University (via Wikimedia Commons)
- [Dust jacket for Langston Hughes, Fine Clothes to the Jew](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fine_Clothes_to_the_Jew_dust_jacket.png): Aaron Douglas (jacket design, initialled 'A' and 'D'); Alfred A. Knopf, publisher, 1927, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University (via Wikimedia Commons)
- [Harlem: A Forum of Negro Life, vol. 1 no. 1 (cover)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harlem,_a_forum_of_Negro_life,_v1n1_cover.tif): Unsigned cover design; Wallace Thurman, editor (neither Commons nor the NYPL link names a designer), November 1928, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library (via Wikimedia Commons)
- [The New Negro: An Interpretation, ed. Alain Locke (front cover)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Edition_Cover_of_The_New_Negro_(1925).jpg): Winold Reiss (cover label, attributed; Commons credits Reiss, Covarrubias and Douglas, the book's artists), 1925, Wikimedia Commons (photograph of a copy; credited to a Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery web page that could not be checked)
- [The Prodigal Son, illustration in James Weldon Johnson, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:God%27s_Trombones_p40.jpg): Aaron Douglas, 1927, Internet Archive scan (godstrombonessev00johnso) of the Viking Press 1927 edition, via Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource

## Sources

- https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/node/2149
- https://www.aiga.org/membership-community/aiga-awards/2018-aiga-medalist-aaron-douglas

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From Stylogeny (https://stylogeny.com/), an atlas of graphic-design styles by Van Riel Online Services. How it is made: https://stylogeny.com/about/. Cite as: Stylogeny, “Harlem Renaissance Graphic Art”, https://stylogeny.com/styles/harlem-renaissance-graphics/