Dr. Susan Earle at the Spencer Museum of Art at The University of Kansas assembled a traveling exhibit on African-American artist, Aaron Douglas (1899-1979) entitled "Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist."  Douglas, born in Topeka and graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1922, was directly connected to the Texas Centennial Exposition fourteen years later.  His biography and influential works are published in Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, a catalogue book, published by Yale University Press to accompany the exhibit.  Its 252 pages contain six separate essays which put his life in perspective and interpret his works.

Douglas, a prolific artist and considered the foremost visual artist of the Harlem Renaissance, through his modern art, forced a dialogue with American and international modernism that put African artistic influences and African American life, labor and freedom at its center.  Through the racism of the 1920s, Douglas provided a dignified voice of opposition, insight and aspiration through his powerful and distinctive imagery.

The sixth essay, "Creating a 'Usable Past' and a 'Future Perfect Society: Aaron Douglas' Murals for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition" is by Renée Ater.  Douglas painted the four large murals that adorned the Hall of Negro Life's lobby walls. Ms. Ater essays the story of the Hall of Negro Life against the backdrop of the Texas Centennial and interprets his work.  Four pictures from Dallas Historical Society's collection are used with this essay.

The show is currently at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville until April 13, 2008 and then goes to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D. C. from May 9 to August 3, 2008 and then at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York from August 30 to November 30, 2008.

The catalogue book is available through the Yale University Press.