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On Juneteenth, 19 June 1936, visitors to the Hall of Negro Life at the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas entered through an elegant, octagonal lobby inscribed with the names of cultural icons such as Booker T. Washington, Sojourner Truth, and Paul Laurence Dunbar, and surmounted by four murals by the African American painter, muralist, printmaker, and illustrator Aaron Douglas. Selected by exhibition curator Alonzo J. Aden of Howard University, Douglas was commissioned to chart the progress of the Negro in American culture, from slavery to present. Of these remarkable, uplifting paintings, only two remain. Long believed lost, Into Bondage came into the Corcoran’s collection in 1997. A year later the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco purchased its companion piece, Aspiration. . . .
:: Susan Badder, Senior Curator of Education Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, which is available for purchase in the Corcoran Shop. :: Click here to purchase this catalog online :: Also see the past exhibition Celebrating the Legacy III: African-American Art at the Corcoran
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