Walter Ellison (1899–1977) was an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

artist, born in the state of

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

. Although the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

had ended in 1865, African Americans still faced many difficulties at the turn of the century, so many of them left the South and moved

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north ...

in search for better opportunities; Ellison was one of them.

Early life

Born in

Eatonton, Georgia Eatonton is a city in and county seat of Putnam County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 6,307. It was named after William Eaton, an officer and diplomat involved in the First Barbary War. The name co ...

, according to census and draft records Ellison was a farm hand. He was 18 years old when the United States decided to enter

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

in Europe in 1917 and immigration from Europe to the United States virtually stopped. Because of that, between 1916 and 1970 seven million African Americans left the South for the North, in what became known as the Great Migration, with about half a million of them going to Chicago looking for jobs and new opportunities. Ellison boarded the train to Chicago in the early 1920s in search of an education and a job. He attended classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and at

Hull House Hull House was a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located on the Near West Side of the city, Hull House (named after the original house's first owner Cha ...

. He was employed on the Illinois Art Project of the

WPA WPA may refer to: Computing *Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard *Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing * Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada * Windows Performance An ...

and was a founding member 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 ...

, along with a number of younger black artists, including

Margaret Burroughs Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (November 1, 1915 – November 21, 2010), also known as Margaret Taylor Goss, Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs or Margaret T G Burroughs, was an American visual artist, writer, poet, educator, and arts organizer. She co-fo ...

, Eldzier Cortor,

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—particula ...

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 ...

, and Charles White. He also became involved in the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

Art and work

Ellison is best known for intimately-scaled works that reveal the private lives and shared experiences of African Americans who moved to northern cities from the rural South between World War I and II. His most famous painting, ''Train Station'', held in the Art Institute of Chicago, depicts white people on one side of a station platform, identified as being in Macon, Georgia, who are heading south for luxury holidays, with African Americans carrying their bags, and African Americans on the other side of the platform, carrying their own luggage, boarding a train for the North and a new start. In an untitled painting created in 1937, Ellison depicts a well-made-up African American woman lying back in a beautician's chair with her eyes closed and her temples being massaged. Only the beautician's hands are seen, with her fingernails featuring a "French manicure" – red centers with white moons and tips – a style that has obviously captivated the artist. The woman being massaged seems millions of miles away from whatever might have been troubling her that day.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellison, Walter 1899 births 1977 deaths School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni African-American painters 20th-century African-American people