Ernest Crichlow (June 19, 1914 – November 10, 2005) was an American social realist artist.

Early life and career

Crichlow was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1914 to Barbadian immigrants. He studied art at the School of Commercial Illustrating and Advertising Art in New York and New York University. Crichlow started work as an artist in a studio sponsored by Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project.

Augusta Savage Augusta Savage (born Augusta Christine Fells; February 29, 1892 – March 27, 1962) was an American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a teacher whose studio was important to the careers of a generation of artists who w ...

was an early patron of his work, as was the case for many of the artists of 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 ...

Career

His first exhibition was in 1938 in the Harlem Community Center in Harlem, New York. One of his best known works, the

lithograph Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

''Lovers III'' shows a young black woman being harassed in her bedroom by a member of the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

. Crichlow's work was exhibited in the

1939 New York World's Fair The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchas ...

and in the Library of Congress the following year. Over the next few decades, his work was regularly shown in leading US art galleries especially in the northeast although he held two exhibitions in Atlanta University in the 1940s. By the end of his career, his work had been honored by

President Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 19 ...

. His 1967 painting ''White Fence'' showing a young white girl being separated by a fence from five black girls was the most notable from his later career along with a 25 panel mural at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn. Crichlow was also well known as an illustrator for children's literature providing art work for T''wo in a Team'', ''Maria'', ''Lift Every Voice'' and ''Magic Mirrors''. In 1958, he founded the Brooklyn's Fulton Art Fair. He founded the

Cinque Gallery The Cinque Gallery was an artist run space in New York that displayed and supported the work of African American artists. It was founded in 1969 by artists Romare Bearden, Ernest Crichlow Ernest Crichlow (June 19, 1914 – November 10, 2005) wa ...

in 1969 with Norman Lewis and Romare Bearden. He taught art at the City College of New York, the State University of New York at New Paltz, Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Brooklyn Museum Art School and the Art Students Leaguebr>
ref> A resident of

Fort Greene, Brooklyn Fort Greene is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Flushing Avenue and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the north, Flatbush Avenue Extension and Downtown Brooklyn to the west, ...

, Crichlow died of heart failure on November 10, 2005.Potts, Monica
"Ernest Crichlow, 91, Lyrical Painter, Dies"
'' The New York Times'', November 14, 2005. Accessed September 2, 2018. "Ernest Crichlow, an influential Harlem Renaissance painter whose depictions of African-Americans reflected social injustices and shifting social realities through much of the 20th century, died on Thursday at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. He was 91 and lived in Fort Greene, Brooklyn."

References

Article on Ernest Crichlow
*"Ernest Crichlow." ''St. James Guide to Black Artists'' St. James Press, 1997. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2005.
''Newsday'' obituary November 12, 2005

External Links

Interview with Ernest Crichlow on All Things Considered, NPR
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crichlow, Ernest 1914 births 2005 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters Works Progress Administration workers People from Fort Greene, Brooklyn New York University alumni 20th-century African-American painters 21st-century African-American artists 20th-century American male artists