Artwork Title: Harold Cruse

Harold Cruse, 1950

Alice Neel

In a portrait of Harold Cruse, an intellectual, educator and writer, his crooked jaw, outlined in black, is offset by thoughtful eyes, and the sheen of his skin is captured by two masterful brushstrokes, one across his brow, and the other running down his hand. They move the eye and enliven the painting. [http://www.ourtownny.com/local-news/2017032 Harold Cruse would go on to become a key intellectual figure in civil rights and black nationalist movements, and is best known for his widely published academic book The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1967). In the 1940s and early 1950s, he wrote plays and was a member of the Communist-affliated Committee for the Negro in the Arts (CNA). After meeting and travelling to Cuba with LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) in the early1960s, Cruse taught at Jones’ (Baraka’s) Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School in Harlem. Neel likely knew Cruse from political and literary circles. [http://arthistorynewsreport.blogspot.nl/2017/07/alice-neel-uptown.html]
37 x 22 in
Uploaded on Oct 17, 2017 by Suzan Hamer

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