Palmer Hayden

Palmer Hayden (1890-1973)

Hayden, born in Virginia, had little artistic training. He worked odd jobs while painting landscapes, seascapes, and scenes of African American life. In 1926 he won the Gold Medal in Fine Arts from the Harmon Foundation, where he was the janitor. The prize helped Hayden travel to Paris; later, he became an FAP/WPA artist. Hayden’s purposeful “folk” style, in which he often gave his black subjects exaggerated features, generated controversy among African Americans, divided as to whether his works were celebratory or caricatural.

Important Source Material:

Campbell, Mary Schmidt, and David Driskell, David Levering Lewis, and Deborah Willis Ryan. Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America. New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994.

Gordon, Allan M, Ph.D. Echoes of Our Past: The Narrative Artistry of Palmer C. Hayden. Los Angeles: The Museum of African American Art, 1988.

Hanks, Eric. “Journey From the Crossroads: Palmer Hayden’s Right Turn.” The International Review of African American Art, Vol. 16, Number 1, 1999.

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