The Founding of Chicago

Aaron Douglas, artist

1899–1979

The Founding of Chicago, circa 1933

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: paperboard; gouache

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 37.47 x 31.43 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 14 3/4 x 12 3/8 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 24 1/2 x 21 1/2 x 1 in
Weight (Weight): 7 lbs

Credit line: Museum purchase: R. Charles and Mary Margaret Clevenger Fund

Accession number: 2006.0027

Not on display

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Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist," 2007-08, Susan Earle
The Founding of Chicago articulates powerful ideas about the often uncelebrated role of African Americans in the building of American cities. Chicago is a particularly interesting example, since it was founded by a fur trader from Haiti, Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable. He is portrayed here with a shovel and coonskin cap, emerging from a rural setting with an enchained mother and her baby. Architectural emblems rise in the distance symbolizing the promise and the future of urban life in the North.

Douglas’s gouache probably dates to the time of the important American Negro Exposition in Chicago in 1940, and it may be the surviving sketch for a mural intended for this exhibition. A modernist allegory, the painting indicates the clarity with which Douglas understood the reverberations of history.