Birth Year : 1900
Death Year : 1980
Country : US
Hale Woodruff was born in Cairo, Illinois. He received his early art training at the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis and the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University. In 1927 he received the Harmon Foundation Award of one hundred dollars and went to Paris. There with some additional money supplied by the philanthropist Otto Kahn, he lived for four years studying at the Acad�mie Moderne and the Acad�mie Scandinave. He was Art Director at Atlanta University from 1931 to 1946 and founded the Annual Atlanta University Art Exhibits, historically one of the most important contributions to the development of African American art in this country. During the years in Atlanta, Woodruff spent a summer (1936) in Mexico, studying mural painting with Diego Rivera, received a Rosenwald Fellowship for Creative Painting (1943-45) and was lecturer for the Association of American Colleges (1942-45). In 1945, he became a teacher at New York University where he was Professor of Art Education. Woodruff's abstract and semi-abstract oils show strong affinities with the works of modern European masters. His free, broad brushstrokes convey colorful impressions of rhythmic movements in nature-the rushing sea or the rippling plain-presented in bright, clear, resonant colors: whites, deep blues, rusty browns, yellows, reds, and pinks. He is also an important mural painter, where his talent for design gives cohesion and interest to the historical subjects he chooses. He is especially noted for his murals in the Savery Library at Talladega College, Alabama. The murals tell two stories. The first recounts an uprising of slaves on the slave ship Amistad, the second recounts the history of Talladega College from its founding in 1867 in an abandoned Civil War prison to its present status as one of the important southern colleges. The second mural was reproduced and included in a booklet sent to India by the Office of War Information s a counterattack to Japanese propaganda. As a teacher, Woodruff set an inspiring example. In 1967, the New York University alumni Association named him "Teacher of the Year."
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Hale Woodruff
Poor Man's Cotton
Hale Woodruff
Poor Man's Cotton
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