William Thacker McBride Jr. (September 27, 1912- August 11, 2000) was an African-American artist, designer and collector. McBride began his career in the 1930s in the circles of black art collectives and artistic opportunities afforded by the Works Progress Administration. He would ultimately leave his mark in Chicago as a driving force behind the South Side Community Art Center. McBride distinguished himself as a teacher, as a cultural and political activist, and as a collector of African art and artwork by black artists of his generation.

Personal life

William McBride Jr. was born in 1912 in

Algiers, New Orleans Algiers is a historic neighborhood of New Orleans and is the only Orleans Parish community located on the West Bank of the Mississippi River. Algiers is known as the 15th Ward, one of the 17 Wards of New Orleans. It was once home to many jazz mu ...

. He was the second of three children of William and Mary McBride. When he was around ten years old, he joined the so-called Great Migration of African Americans as he and his family moved to the

Chicago's South Side The South Side is an area of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. It lies south of the city's Loop area in the downtown. Geographically, it is the largest of the three sides of the city that radiate from downtown, with the other two being the north and we ...

, where he attended St. Elizabeth grammar school and

Wendell Phillips High School Wendell Phillips Academy High School is a public 4–year high school located in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Phillips is part of the Chicago Public Schools district and is managed by the Acad ...

. McBride passed away on August 11, 2000, at the Alden Princeton Rehabilitation Center in Chicago, at the age of 87.

Artistic career

Arts and Crafts Guild

Early in his life, McBride was interested in the visual arts. In the early 1930s, he took classes at

the School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

, and he went on to join a collective of young black artists known as the Arts and Crafts Guild. The guild was formed by George Neal during

the Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, and its members met regularly to share techniques and skills, discuss art and politics, and raise funds for their own exhibitions and artistic pursuits.

Civilian Conservation Corps

While collaborating with the Arts and Crafts Guild, McBride also worked for the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...

. By 1935, McBride was working as an artist through 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 ...

of 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 ...

(WPA), Illinois Art Project. Among his various WPA projects, McBride designed books and sketched costumes for the

Federal Theater Project The Federal Theatre Project (FTP; 1935–1939) was a theatre program established during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by ...

, including for such productions as the theatrical adaptation of

Helen Bannerman Helen Brodie Cowan Bannerman (' Watson; 25 February 1862 – 13 October 1946) was a Scottish author of children's books. She is best known for her first book, ''Little Black Sambo'' (1899). Life Bannerman was born at 35 Royal Terrace, Edinbur ...

's 1899 children's book, ''

Little Black Sambo ''The Story of Little Black Sambo'' is a children's book written and illustrated by Scottish author Helen Bannerman and published by Grant Richards in October 1899. As one in a series of small-format books called The Dumpy Books for Children, ...

''.

South Side Community Art Center

McBride is also credited as an early supporter and featured artist of the

South Side Community Art Center The South Side Community Art Center is a community art center in Chicago that opened in 1940 with support from the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project in Illinois. Opened in Bronzeville in an 1893 mansion, it became the first blac ...

(SSCAC). The SSCAC was established by the Federal Art Project/Works Project Administration as an inner-city community art center located in a former mansion on S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The SSCAC was formally dedicated in 1941, but held its first exhibition on December 15, 1940. The exhibition featured paintings that had already been on display at the

American Negro Exposition The American Negro Exposition, also known as the Black World's Fair and the Diamond Jubilee Exposition, was a world's fair held in Chicago from July until September in 1940, to celebrate the 75th anniversary (also known as a diamond jubilee) of t ...

held in Chicago earlier that year. McBride's paintings were featured in the exhibition alongside works by his contemporaries, including Henry Avery, William Carter, Charles White, Archibald Motley Jr., Joseph Kersey, Margaret Taylor Goss (later Margaret Taylor-Burroughs), and Bernard Goss. Margaret Taylor Goss proclaimed the mission of the SSCAC as the "defense of culture." When the country entered World War II, the federal government drastically reduced WPA spending, with all federal funding for art projects terminating in 1943. Despite losing federal assistance, the SSCAC nevertheless remained active through local fundraising and community support. To this day, the SSCAC remains the only surviving community art center created under the WPA.

Promotional designs

During the early 1940s, McBride served as publicity director of the SSCAC. He became renowned for his designs in souvenir books and posters for the SSCAC's Artists and Models Ball, which was the organization's annual fundraising gala. The first Artists and Models Ball was held in 1939. The event was considered a marquee calendar event in the Bronzeville neighborhood. McBride also created Christmas cards for the nearby tavern The Brass Rail. McBride's souvenir books and concert programs included advertisements for, representations of, and endorsements from many sectors of black Chicago society, such as the Metropolitan Mutual Assurance Company, a black Chicago insurance company. The promotional items created by McBride for the SSCAC would go on to become some of his most celebrated works.

Performing Arts

In the 1940s, McBride wrote a number of mostly unpublished plays, poems, and songs, and through the 1950s he was active in the Black Chicago Renaissance dance scene. McBride served as art director for both the annual Sadie Bruce Dance Revue and the annual concert of the Mildred B. Haessler Ballet Group.

Silkscreen prints

McBride learned screen-printing while working for the display section of

Goldblatt's Goldblatt's was an American chain of local discount stores that operated in Chicago, Illinois, as well as Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Founded in 1914, the chain grew to more than twenty stores at its peak, gradually closing some stores in th ...

, a chain of department stores in Chicago. McBride later famously became inspired by African masks, and incorporated them into his screenprints, as in his series of prints featuring masks in the early 1940s. McBride "looked to Africa for a visual language," which he found in traditional

African art African art describes the modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual culture from native or indigenous Africans and the African continent. The definition may also include the art of the African diasporas, su ...

exhibited in natural history museums and textile designs he reportedly came across in the British publication ''

The Illustrated London News ''The Illustrated London News'' appeared first on Saturday 14 May 1842, as the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. Founded by Herbert Ingram, it appeared weekly until 1971, then less frequently thereafter, and ceased publication in ...

.''

Art collector

McBride was known as "a collector's collector." He traveled to postcolonial nations such as Ghana, Benin, and Nigeria, and collected African art to bring back to the United States. For this he is credited with helping to raise awareness in Chicago of the art and culture of the black diaspora. McBride was also interested in documenting his own community in South Side Chicago. Commenting on McBride's collecting habits, an observer quoted in a ''Chicago Tribune'' article described McBride as having gone "to virtually every art show, live performance and play, anything that was happening in the vibrant world of the South Side from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. And he'd go to an event and pull the paper off the wall and take it home." Early on, McBride recognized the talents of his fellow Chicago artists such as Charles White,

Eldzier Cortor Eldzier Cortor (January 10, 1916 – November 26, 2015) was an African-American artist and printmaker. His work typically features elongated nude figures in intimate settings, influenced by both traditional African art and European surrealism ...

, William Carter,

Charles Sebree Charles Sebree (1914–1985) was an American painter and playwright best known for his involvement in Chicago's black arts scene of the 1930s and 1940s. Early life and education Sebree spent his early childhood in White City, located in eastern ...

, Richard Hunt,

Marion Perkins Marion Marche Perkins (1908 – December 17, 1961) was an American sculptor who taught and exhibited at Chicago's South Side Community Art Center and exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago. Perkins is widely considered an important artist of t ...

, Margaret Tayler Goss Burroughs,

Gordon Parks Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, composer, author, poet, and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s—particu ...

, Joseph Kersey, and over time built his own collection of their works. In 1995, McBride donated his collection of thousands of posters, playbills, exhibition catalogs and other ephemera to the

Chicago Public Library The Chicago Public Library (CPL) is the public library system that serves the City of Chicago in the U.S. state of Illinois. It consists of 81 locations, including a central library, two regional libraries, and branches distributed throughout the ...

's Vivian G. Harsh Collection of Afro-American History and Literature, a major repository of African American artists' activities in Chicago between the 1920s and the 1950s. His papers include early SSCAC organizational and publicity files, as well as extensive files of cultural and political activities, correspondence, fliers, programs, posters, playbills, art studies and photographs.

Selected exhibitions

"Alone in Crowd: Prints of the 1930s and 1940s by African-American Artists From the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams" an exhibition organised and circulated by

American Federation of Arts The American Federation of Arts (AFA) is a nonprofit organization that creates art exhibitions for presentation in museums around the world, publishes exhibition catalogues, and develops education programs. The organization’s founding in 1909 w ...

, opening at

Newark Museum The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Af ...

, N.J. and the Equitable Gallery, N.Y., Dec.10 1992-Feb.28, 1993.African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce, and the Politics of Race Exhibitions, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, October 27, 2018 – March 3, 2019

Selected Collections

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 F ...

, New York, NY

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Inst ...

, New York, NY

DuSable Museum of African American History The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, formerly the DuSable Museum of African American History, is a museum in Chicago that is dedicated to the study and conservation of African-American history, culture, and art. It was founded i ...

, Chicago, IL

References

External links

Works of art held in collections:
Christmas Greeting (1941)
Screenprint - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Face (1936)
Screenprint - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Masks (1941)
Screenprint - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Masks (1941)
Screenprint - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Mask (1941)
Screenprint - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Concept Car ( ca.1935)
Gouache, Pen and Ink on illustration board- Cooper Hewitt Collection, New York, NY
Robert Abbott Founds the Chicago Defender (1963)
Oil on canvas -The DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, IL {{DEFAULTSORT:McBride, William 1912 births African-American painters African-American printmakers Civilian Conservation Corps people Federal Art Project artists 2000 deaths 20th-century African-American politicians 20th-century American politicians

Personal life

Artistic career

Arts and Crafts Guild

Civilian Conservation Corps

South Side Community Art Center

Promotional designs

Performing Arts

Silkscreen prints

Art collector

Selected exhibitions

Selected Collections

References

Further reading

External links