Pyramid Club (Philadelphia)

Last updated
The Pyramid Club
FormationNovember 1937;87 years ago (1937)
TypePrivate Club
Legal statusPrivate Social Club
PurposeArt gallery, Meeting space
Location
Region served
Philadelphia metropolitan area
Key people
 Walter Fitzgerald Jerrick, Lewis Tanner Moore, Humbert Lincoln Howard, and Oscar James Cooper

The Pyramid Club was formed in November 1937 by African-American professionals [1] for the "cultural, civic and social advancement of Negroes in Philadelphia." [2] [3] By the 1950s, it was "Philadelphia's leading African-American social club." [4]

Contents

Between 1940 and 1957, the club's building at 1517 Girard Avenue, Philadelphia, PA, was a center for social and cultural life. Because African-Americans were barred from many clubs and restaurants, the Pyramid Club had its own bar and restaurant. It hosted parties, social events, concerts by noted musicians such as Marian Anderson and Duke Ellington, speakers including Martin Luther King Jr. and J. Robert Oppenheimer, and an annual art exhibition (1941–1957) featuring both local and national artists. [5] [6] [2]

The Pyramid Club was the only exhibition space in Philadelphia at the time that was owned, operated and controlled by African-Americans. The club played an important role within the African-American community by connecting artists with middle and upper-class professionals able to support their work. [7]

The Pyramid Club dissolved in 1963. [5] [6] It has been commemorated with a historical marker by the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission. [8]

Founding

Among those instrumental in establishing the Pyramid Club were Woodley Wells, Alton C. Berry, George Drummond, Wilbur Strickland, Lewis Tanner Moore, Scholley Pace Alexander, Oscar James Cooper, Theodore O. Spaulding, Thomas Powell, and Walter Fitzgerald Jerrick. [9] Dr. Walter Fitzgerald Jerrick became president of the club. Its directors included Drs. Harry J. Greene and Charles W. Dorsey and attorney Theodore O. Spaulding. [10]

Membership

According to The Crisis , all members of the Pyramid Club had to be members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). [10] Membership in the club cost $120, with monthly dues of $2.40. [6]

At least at first, only men were officially accepted as members in the Pyramid Club. Women, however, were active at an organizational level throughout the club's history. There was an active Ladies’ Auxiliary, a Pyramid Wives Club, and a Women’s Coordinating Committee. Women could sit on the exhibition committee, whose work included the selection of pieces for exhibitions. [11] [12] Works by women were accepted and shown in exhibitions. [12]

Art exhibitions

Between 1941 and 1957, the Pyramid Club held an annual art exhibition which has been described as "one of the pre-eminent black art exhibits in the country". [1] The exhibitions were managed by Humbert Lincoln Howard. [13] [14]

Members of the Pyramid Club worked closely with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), with benefits to both communities. Although the express goal of the club was to increase opportunities for African-Americans, exhibitions at the Pyramid Club included supportive white artists as well as African-American artists. [2] The club's art director, Humbert Howard, was widely connected in the art world and preferred to follow an integrationist policy in his selection of works for the club's shows. He believed that choosing works by both white and black artists, based on merit, would expand the show's patronage and ultimately benefit black artists. His strategy was not always popular: in 1949 Howard and an anonymous critic in the Philadelphia Afro-American debated the inclusion of white artists whose works were shown in discriminatory galleries. [2] Artist Julius Bloch refused to show his work at the Philadelphia Sketch Club when it would not include black artists, choosing to show his works at the Pyramid Club instead. [5]

Artists whose works appeared at the Pyramid Club included Morris Blackburn, Julius Thiengen Bloch, Samuel Joseph Brown, Jr., Claude Clark, Beauford Delaney, [15] Joseph Delaney, Allan Randall Freelon, Rex Goreleigh, Humbert Howard, [16] Paul F. Keene Jr., Ralph Taylor (1896–1978), and Dox Thrash. [12] [7] [17]

Although women were not accepted as members, their works were shown in the exhibitions. The exhibition “Fifty Seven Artists,” held February 20 – March 20, 1948 at the Pyramid Club, was dedicated to Laura Wheeler Waring (1887–1948) who had just died. Eleven women artists were listed in the program, which included Selma Burke, [18] Elizabeth Kitchenman Coyne, Hilde Foss, Etelka J. Greenfield, Reba Klein, Naomi Lavin, Maude C. Lewis, Beatrice Claire (or Clare) Overton and Elsie Reber. Edith Townsend Scarlett was Caucasian, and Sarai Sherman was described as Italian-American. [12]

The exhibition "We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s", held at the Woodmere Art Museum in January 2016, examined the influence of the Pyramid Club and other Philadelphia institutions on African-American artists. [19] [20] [21]

Photographs

The Pyramid Club and other centers of African-American culture and life in Philadelphia were extensively photographed by photographer John W. Mosley. [22] [23] Mosley worked as the staff photographer for the Pyramid Club for a number of years. [24] [25] [26] He published an annual album of photographs for the club, the Pictorial Album of the Pyramid Club. [27]

The Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University contains more than 300,000 photographs taken by Mosley. [23] [28] A retrospective of Mosley's work, A Million Faces: The Photography of John W. Mosley, appeared at the Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia in 2016. [29]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dox Thrash</span> African American artist (1893–1965)

Dox Thrash (1893–1965) was an African-American artist who was famed as a skilled draftsman, master printmaker, and painter and as the co-inventor of the Carborundum printmaking process. The subject of his artwork was African American life. He served as a printmaker with the W.P.A. at the Fine Print Workshop of Philadelphia. The artist spent much of his career living and working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude Clark</span> African American painter (1915–2001)

Claude Clark was an American painter, printmaker and art educator. Clark's subject matter was the diaspora of African American culture, including dance scenes, street urchins, marine life, landscapes, and religious and political satire images executed primarily with a palette knife.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allan Randall Freelon</span> American artist

Allan Randall Freelon Sr., a native of Philadelphia, US, was an African American artist, educator and civil rights activist. He is best known as an African American Impressionist-style painter during the time of the Harlem Renaissance and as the first African American to be appointed art supervisor of the Philadelphia School District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen Powell Tiberino</span> American painter

Ellen Powell Tiberino (1937-1992) was an African American artist who was figurative and expressionist in her pastels, oils, pencil drawings and sculptures. Her works were infused with the experiences and history of Black people, women in particular, whom she most often painted in dark and haunting hues. She was a prolific artist, working against time as she battled cancer for the last 14 years of her life.

Raymond Steth, born Raymond Ryles, was a Philadelphia-based graphic artist recognized for his paintings and lithographs on the African-American condition in the mid-20th century, often through scenes of rural life and poverty. Working under the Works Progress Administration's graphics division in the 1930s and 1940s, Steth's art covered a range of topics and emotions from pleasurable farm life to protest and despair.

John Edward Dowell Jr. is an American printmaker, etcher, lithographer, painter, and professor of printmaking at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John W. Mosley</span>

John W. Mosley was a self-taught photojournalist who extensively documented the everyday activities of the African-American community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for more than 30 years, a period including both World War II and the civil rights movement. His work was published widely in newspapers and magazines including The Philadelphia Tribune, The Pittsburgh Courier and Jet magazine.

Elizabeth Kitchenman Coyne was a Pennsylvania impressionist painter, best known for her landscapes and paintings of horses. Her works are included in the permanent collections of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Woodmere Art Museum and the Philadelphia Art Alliance.

Louise D. Clement-Hoff was an American painter and educator who specialized in oil painting, pastel and drawing of human figures and still lifes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roswell Weidner</span> American artist

Roswell Weidner was an American artist known for his paintings, charcoal and pastel drawings, and prints. His subject matter included still life, landscapes, and portraits. He was a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) city school and country school in Chester Springs, and the Barnes Foundation. He worked in the Works Progress Administration Arts Project during the Great Depression and in a shipyard as an expediter during World War II. Weidner began teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1938. He was associated with the academy for 66 years, first as a student and later as a teacher, until his retirement in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Joseph Brown Jr.</span> American visual artist and educator

Samuel Joseph Brown Jr. (1907–1994) was a watercolorist, printmaker, and educator. He was the first African American artist hired to produce work for the Public Works of Art Project, a precursor to the Work Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Brown often depicted the lives of African Americans in his paintings. He worked primarily in watercolor and oils, and he produced portraits, landscapes and prints.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oscar James Cooper</span> African-American physician and cultural leader

Dr. Oscar James Cooper (1888–1972) was a physician and African-American cultural leader. He is known for cofounding Omega Psi Phi in Washington, D.C., the first fraternity founded by students at a historically black college. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was a charter member of the Pyramid Club.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis B. Sloan</span> African American landscape artist


Louis B. Sloan (1932–2008) was an African American landscape artist, teacher and conservator. He was the first Black full professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), and a conservator for the academy and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Although he painted urban neighborhoods and other cityscapes, he was mostly known for his plein-air paintings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Columbus P. Knox</span> American artist

Columbus P. Knox (1923–1999) was a painter, muralist, illustrator and printmaker. He was a mainstay at the annual Rittenhouse Square Fine Arts Show in Philadelphia, the oldest outdoor art exhibition in the country. His works are in museums and private collections. Knox created his own style of painting: using brushstrokes that resembled a rake being pulled through sand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Britt</span> American painter

Benjamin Franklin (Ben) Britt (1923–1996) was a figurative, surrealist and abstract painter, and art teacher. His subjects were African American culture, religion and children, which he captured in oil and charcoals. Britt signed his works “B. Britt,” dotting the “i” with tiny round circles.

Henry Bozeman Jones was an African American artist, writer, print-maker, illustrator, teacher, athletic coach and school counselor. He was known primarily for his portraits and landscapes.

Reba Dickerson-Hill was a self-taught Philadelphia artist who painted in the ancient Japanese ink-and- brush technique called sumi-e. She was also a watercolorist and oil painter who primarily produced landscapes and portraits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humbert Howard</span> American artist

Humbert Howard was an American artist and art director of the Pyramid Club.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard N. Watson</span> American artist (1929–2022)

Howard N. Watson (1929–2022) was an African American watercolorist, landscape artist, illustrator and teacher. He was known for his impressionistic watercolors of historical buildings, streets, neighborhoods and landmarks in the Philadelphia region.

We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s–1970s was an art exhibition held at the Woodmere Art Museum from September 26, 2015 through January 24, 2016. It included artists from Philadelphia who were active from the 1920s through the 1970s. Many of those artist were invlolved with the Pyramid Club and other local organizations. The exhibit included paintings, photographs, prints, drawings and sculpture from the New Negro movement of the 1920s, the Works Progress Administration print works of the 1930s and the Civil rights era.

References

  1. 1 2 "Pyramid Club's black arts legacy". Auction Finds. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Brigham, David R. "The Pyramid Club and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts". Antiques & Fine Art. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  3. ↑ "Pyramid Club Purchases Site for Clubhouse". Philadelphia Tribune. February 29, 1940. p. 2.
  4. ↑ Booker, Bobbi (11 February 2003). "Pyramid Club was a sign of elite status". Philadelphia Tribune. Philadelphia, PA.
  5. 1 2 3 Crimmins, Peter (September 29, 2015). "Woodmere exhibit follows Philly's black artists through a tumultuous half-century". WHYY. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 Anderson, Faye (8 March 2015). "Philadelphia Pyramid Club". All That Philly Jazz. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
  7. 1 2 "Dox Thrash House" (PDF). NOMINATION OF HISTORIC BUILDING, STRUCTURE, SITE, OR OBJECT PHILADELPHIA REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES PHILADELPHIA HISTORICAL COMMISSION. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
  8. ↑ "Philadelphia Pyramid Club". Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  9. ↑ "Except from "Pictorial Album of The Pyramid Club, First Anniversary, October, 1941, Philadelphia, PA"". Howard Heartsfield Studio/Gallery. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  10. 1 2 "Pyramid Club Members NAACP". The Crisis. No. May. 1944. p. 157. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  11. ↑ "Pyramid Club, Philadelphia". Woodmere Art Museum. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  12. 1 2 3 4 "Pyramid Club's forgotten women artists". Auction Finds. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
  13. ↑ "Oral history interview with Humbert Howard, 1988 Oct. 26". Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
  14. ↑ Howard, Humbert; King-Hammond, Leslie; Panzera, Lisa; Collier-Thomas, Bettye (1996). Humbert Howard, Philadelphia painter: exhibition, January 17 – February 29, 1996. Philadelphia, PA: Levy Gallery for the Arts in Philadelphia.
  15. ↑ "Beauford in Philadelphia: The 1947 Pyramid Club Show". Les Amis de Beauford Delaney. August 22, 2015.
  16. ↑ Wintz, Cary D.; Finkelman, Paul, eds. (2004). Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Vol. 1, A–J. New York: Routledge. p. 517. ISBN   9781579584573 . Retrieved 23 February 2018.
  17. ↑ Brigham, David (2001). "Dox Thrash and the Pyramid Club". In Ittmann, John (ed.). Dox Thrash: An African American Master Printmaker Rediscovered. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art. pp. 53–65.
  18. ↑ "Selma Burke's sculpture Island Dancers at a Pyramid Club exhibition curated by Dox Thrash, Philadelphia". Woodmere Art Museum. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
  19. ↑ Bingaman, Brian (January 1, 2016). "Fifty years of art by Philadelphia African-Americans showcased in Woodmere exhibit". Berks-Mont Entertainment. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
  20. ↑ Kirsh, Andrea (December 28, 2015). "We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s–1970s at the Woodmere Art Museum". ArtBlog.
  21. ↑ Valerio, William R. (2015). We speak : black artists in Philadelphia, 1920s–1970s. Philadelphia, PA: Woodmere Art Museum.
  22. ↑ Blockson, Charles L. (1992). The journey of John W. Mosley. Philadelphia: Quantum Leap Publisher. ISBN   978-0962716171.
  23. 1 2 Jelesiewicz, Eryn (June 13, 2012). "Blockson Collection Photos give inside view of African-American life from 1930s to 1960s". Temple Now. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
  24. ↑ Wellington, Elizabeth (October 24, 2016). "A Million Faces: This John W. Mosley exhibit will leave Philadelphians reminiscing". The Inquirer. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
  25. ↑ "Black Philadelphia, 1930's-1960's: John W. Mosley's photographs of 'A Million Faces'". Vin de Vie Wine of Life. October 1, 2016. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
  26. ↑ Bixler, Michael (September 30, 2016). "A Million Faces Celebrates The Photography Of John Mosley". Hidden City Philadelphia. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
  27. ↑ "Black Philadelphia through the lens of John W. Mosley". Auction Finds. 26 September 2016. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
  28. ↑ "John W. Mosley Photographs". Temple University Libraries. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
  29. ↑ Hine, Thomas (December 4, 2016). "John Mosley's photos at Woodmere: The Philly African American world at midcentury". The Inquirer. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.