John McCrady (September 11, 1911 – December 24, 1968) was a
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
painter and printmaker. McCrady was born in
Canton, Mississippi
Canton is a city in Madison County, Mississippi, Madison County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 13,189 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. It is the county seat of Madison County, and situated in the northern part of th ...
and was raised in the
American South
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
. After winning a scholarship from the
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may stu ...
for his "Portrait of a Negro," McCrady studied art with
Thomas Hart Benton and
Kenneth Hayes Miller
Kenneth Hayes Miller (March 11, 1876 – January 1, 1952) was an American painter, printmaker, and teacher.
Career
Born in Oneida, New York, he studied at the Art Students League of New York with Kenyon Cox, Henry Siddons Mowbray and with Willia ...
. McCrady went on to become one of the best-known twentieth-century southern artists and was known for depicting scenes from the South, particularly images of southern African Americans.
He also founded the McCrady Art School in 1942 on
Bourbon Street in
.
Life
McCrady's father was an Episcopal minister named Edward McCrady, and his mother was Mary Ormond Tucker. They lived in
Greenwood, Mississippi,
Hammond, Louisiana
Hammond is the largest city in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, United States, located east of Baton Rouge and northwest of New Orleans. Its population was 20,019 in the 2010 U.S. census, and 21,359 at the 2020 population estimates program. Ham ...
, and settled in
Oxford, Mississippi in 1921 when Edward McCrady accepted a position to teach philosophy at the
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment.
...
. At 21 John McCrady left Mississippi and studied at the Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans School of Art. He also studied at the
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may stu ...
, and the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
.
In 1938 McCrady married Mary Basso, a classmate from the New Orleans School of Art. They had a daughter three years later.
In 1942 he opened the John McCrady School of Art; his students included Alan Flattmann,
Ida Kohlmeyer,
Rolland Golden
Rolland Harve Golden (November 8, 1931 – July 1, 2019) was an American visual artist known mainly for his realism, abstract realism and "Borderline-Surrealisterm", a term he used to describe a style of his where the subject is "not entirely imp ...
, and
Robert Malcolm Rucker.
In 1968 McCrady died suddenly after being diagnosed with cancer.
Works
At twenty-one John McCrady studied art at the Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans School of Art. From 1930 to 1932 McCrady attended the
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment.
...
and took courses at the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. McCrady took courses at the New Orleans Art School in 1932.
McCrady won a scholarship in 1933 to the Art Students League of New York after submitting "Portrait of a Negro" a portrait of an African American man. In
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, he studied with Kenneth Hayes Miller and Thomas Hart Benton. Benton’s sinewy anatomical style influenced McCrady’s work, while Miller introduced McCrady to a multistage technique used to paint oil transparencies over a tempera underpainting—a technique McCrady continued for the rest of his life.
McCrady developed a style influenced by the
Regionalism
Regionalism may refer to:
* Regionalism (art), an American realist modern art movement that was popular during the 1930s
* Regionalism (international relations), the expression of a common sense of identity and purpose combined with the creation a ...
movement; he often painted the religious and social life of African-Americans and, received positive reviews for his work.
He 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 ...
, creating a mural depicting an 1889 panoramic view of Amory, Mississippi's main street commissioned by
Treasury Section of Fine Arts in the Amory, Mississippi post office titled ''Amory, Mississippi, 1889'' and created murals for other federal buildings.
He earned 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 ...
in 1939 “to paint the life and faith of the southern Negro.” In 1940 he joined the
Associated American Artists
Associated American Artists (AAA) was an art gallery in New York City that was established in 1934 and ceased operation in 2000. The gallery marketed art to the middle and upper-middle classes, first in the form of affordable prints and later in ...
and he was encouraged by
Caroline Durieux
Caroline Wogan Durieux (January 22, 1896 – November 26, 1989) was an American printmaker, painter, and educator. She was a Professor Emeritus at both Louisiana State University, where she worked from 1943 to 1964 and at Newcomb College of Tula ...
to experiment with lithography. Under her direction, McCrady produced four silkscreens to aid the war effort. He produced only 9 lithographs in his career.
In 1942 McCrady made a series of war posters for the Graphic Section of the War Services Office, which was under the
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
. In 1946 McCrady received criticism from
The Daily Worker, a communist paper, calling his work “a flagrant example of racial chauvinism.”
Shocked by these comments, McCrady drew back his artistic production for a decade. When he resumed his work he focused less attention to African American communities and concentrated on rural life,
Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras (, ) refers to events of the Carnival celebration, beginning on or after the Christian feasts of the Epiphany (Three Kings Day) and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday, which is known as Shrove Tuesday. is French for "Fat ...
, and
The French Quarter.
In 1949 he received a grant from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. He had finished three murals for the Bank of Oxford in
Oxford, Mississippi when he suddenly died. He had been diagnosed with cancer three weeks prior. Collections of his work are in the
Georgia Museum of Art, the
Saint Louis Art Museum, the
Louisiana State Museum
The Louisiana State Museum (LSM), founded in New Orleans in 1906, is a statewide system of National Historic Landmarks and modern structures across Louisiana, housing thousands of artifacts and works of art reflecting Louisiana's legacy of historic ...
, and the
University of Mississippi Museum
The University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses is a museum and two historic houses owned and operated by the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. The museum is designed to appeal to both a popular and scholarly audience, with ...
. The
Historic New Orleans Collection
The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC) is a museum, research center, and publisher dedicated to the study and preservation of the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South region of the United States. It is located in New Orleans ...
maintains some of McCrady’s papers, as well as the records of the John McCrady School of Art.
Notable works
*''Portrait of a Negro''
*''Frightened Horses''
*''Swing Low, Sweet Chariot''
*''The Shooting of Huey Long''
*''Robert E. Lee and Natchez''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:McCrady, John
Southern art
1968 deaths
1911 births
American muralists
Art Students League of New York alumni
Artists from New Orleans
20th-century American painters
American male painters
People from Canton, Mississippi
Painters from Louisiana
Painters from Mississippi
20th-century American male artists