Russell "Rex" Gordon Goreleigh (1902 – 1986) was an African American

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

, printmaker, and arts educator. Goreleigh taught arts classes for the Works Progress Administration, and was active in the arts communities of Chicago, New York City, and Princeton, New Jersey. Much of his work depicts the African American experience.

Early life and education

Goreleigh was born on September 2, 1902, in

Penllyn, Pennsylvania Lower Gwynedd Township ( ) is a Township (Pennsylvania), township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 11,405 at the 2010 census. The township comprises four villages: Gwynedd, Pen ...

(now part of the Lower Gwynedd Township). His mother was a housemaid for a local doctor. He studied art as a child. Goreleigh moved to Philadelphia at the age of 15 upon his mother's death and went on to finish high school in Washington, D.C. at Dunbar High School. At the age of 18, he moved to New York City, where he studied acting at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem. Goreleigh attended classes at

Livingstone College Livingstone College is a private, historically black Christian college in Salisbury, North Carolina. It is affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Livingstone College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Sout ...

in Salisbury, North Carolina; 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 ...

; the University of Chicago from 1920 to 1924; and at Rutgers University in New Jersey from 1940 to 1941. In 1934, Goreleigh traveled to Europe where he studied under artists Andre Lhote in Paris, and with Leo Z. Moll in Germany.

Career

Goreleigh attended exhibitions at the Harmon Foundation, which inspired him to take up drawing and painting. He met Diego Rivera while working in a restaurant. Rivera invited to Goreleigh to watch him work on murals he was creating for the Rockefeller family. Goreleigh also became acquainted with 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 ...

including Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden. Goreleigh worked for the Federal Art Project, a project for the Works Progress Administration, through which he taught art to children at the Utopia Neighborhood House in New York. In 1934, Goreleigh traveled to Europe to further his art studies in Paris and Germany. He returned to Harlem and taught art at the YMCA. He then moved to Greensboro, North Carolina in 1938. While there, he taught art at the Agricultural and Technical State University of North Carolina and Bennett College for Women and opened an arts center with artist Norman Lewis. The center was based in the Carnegie Negro Library. In 1939, his watercolors were featured in the Baltimore Museum of Art’s ''Contemporary Negro Art'' exhibition. Goreleigh moved to Chicago in 1940 and managed the Works Progress Administration's South Side Community Art Center. He also produced artwork for a local advertising agency. His work was featured in the 1940 ''Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro'' at Chicago's Tanner Art Galleries. Goreleigh moved to Princeton, New Jersey in 1947 to serve as the first director of Princeton Group Arts. The organization was founded by the local Jewish and

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

communities to promote racial and religious integration through the arts. The center closed in 1954 due to a lack of funding. Goreleigh established the Studio-on-the-Canal, a Princeton-based arts center with workshops in painting, printmaking, and ceramics. Painter

Hughie Lee-Smith Hughie Lee-Smith (September 20, 1915 – February 23, 1999) was an American artist and teacher whose surreal paintings often featured distant figures under vast skies, and desolate urban settings. Life and career Lee-Smith was born in Eustis, ...

attended classes at the studio. He was the head of the Roosevelt Public School art program and taught at the Princeton Adult School, the Neuropsychiatric Institute, and the Trenton school district. He served on the Princeton Arts Council’s Board of Trustees from 1969 to 1972. He died on October 28, 1986, at the age of 84.

Collections

* University of Alabama, Paul R. Jones Collection, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, U.S. * Harriet and Harmon Kelley Collection of African-American Art * Petrucci Family Foundation * University of Delaware * New Jersey State Museum * Melvin Holmes Collection of African-American Art * Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. *

Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

, Harlem, New York City, New York, U.S.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goreleigh, Rex 1902 births 1986 deaths 20th-century African-American painters 20th-century American painters African-American painters African-American printmakers American educators Artists from Chicago Artists from New York City Artists from Princeton, New Jersey American printmakers Art Students League of New York alumni Burials at Princeton Cemetery Federal Art Project artists Livingstone College alumni People from Harlem People from Lower Gwynedd Township, Pennsylvania Rutgers University alumni University of Chicago alumni