Ellis Wilson (20 April 1899 – 2 January 1977) was an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

artist associated with the

Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...

Biography

Early life

Wilson was born in 1899 in

Mayfield, Kentucky Mayfield is a home rule–class city and the county seat of Graves County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 10,017 as of the 2020 United States Census. History 19th century Mayfield is in the center of the Jackson Purchase, an eig ...

. His parents were Frank and Minnie Wilson. Frank Wilson was a barber and amateur painter. Wilson attended the Mayfield Colored Grade School. He later attended the Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute in Frankfort for two years, but was only allowed to take courses in agriculture and education. Interested in studying art, Wilson left school at 19 and moved to Chicago where he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He completed his art studies in 1923 and lived in Chicago for the next five years, seeking work as a commercial artist.

Harlem Renaissance and after

Wilson moved to

Harlem, New York Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

from Chicago after hearing Alain Locke speak at a Chicago art exhibition titled "The Negro in Art Week" in 1927. Wilson moved the following year where he joined the

Harlem Artists Guild The Harlem Artists Guild (1935–41) was an African-American organization founded by artists including Augusta Savage, Charles Alston, Elba Lightfoot, Louise E. Jefferson and bibliophile Arthur Schomburg with the aims of encouraging young talent, ...

and worked at a brokerage house. When Ellis first arrived in New York, black artists could not exhibit their work in mainstream galleries. He became an active member of the

, a collaborative effort to promote and exhibit the work of black artists. Ellis participated in many of the exhibitions associated with the movement. Wilson worked for the

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

from 1935 to 1940. He was also commissioned to create triptychs for US Army and Navy chaplains. In 1944 he was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and subsequently travelled through the southern United States. Wilson was very interested in

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

and visited the country after receiving an award from the Terry Art Institute in 1952. His fondness for the country and its people is reflected in the vitality of paintings during that time period.Ellis Wilson Timeline
, accessed 22 April 2009. Wilson is most noted for his paintings of Haitian people and culture. According to artist, Samella Lewis, "Wilson always produced fully accomplished and sophisticated design patterns...Making bold use of color, his paintings reflect a coherent and personal style that combines aspects of Expressionism with contemporary Realism. His vigorous distortion of form, one of the aspects of Expressionism, is evident in such compositions as Bird Vendor. Although Wilson had several exhibitions and won several prizes for his paintings he never became wealthy.

Death

A resident at the Cornish Arms Home for Adults, he died in French Hospital on Sunday, January 2, 1977 at the age of 76, after a two-week-long illness, and was buried in a

pauper's grave A potter's field, paupers' grave or common grave is a place for the burial of unknown, unclaimed or indigent people. "Potter's field" is of Biblical origin, referring to Akeldama (meaning ''field of blood'' in Aramaic), stated to have been p ...

. The exact site of his grave is unknown.

In pop culture

Ellis Wilson's painting "

Funeral Procession A funeral procession is a procession, usually in motor vehicles or by foot, from a funeral home or place of worship to the cemetery or crematorium. In earlier times the deceased was typically carried by male family members on a bier or in a cof ...

" was featured in the American television NBC

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

'' The Cosby Show'', in Season 2, "The Auction". In this episode, Clair Huxtable, played by

Phylicia Rashad Phylicia Rashad ( ) (née Ayers-Allen; born June 19, 1948) is an American actress, singer and director who is dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University. She is best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the NBC sitcom ''The Cosby S ...

, bids on the painting by her great-uncle (Ellis Wilson) and she wins the auction. The painting then remains in the Huxtable living-room throughout the series.

References

External links

;''Celebrating Ellis Wilson'', by Eva F. Kin '
KET Education, "So Much to Paint"
''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Ellis 1899 births 1977 deaths Painters from Kentucky 20th-century American painters American male painters People from Mayfield, Kentucky 20th-century African-American painters 20th-century American male artists