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Robert Neal exhibited his own paintings at the same time. His work was included in two of the
most celebrated national exhibitions of African-American Fine Art - the 1939 Baltimore Museum
of Art’s
Contemporary Negro Art
, the first museum group exhibition of African-American artists, and
the 1940
Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851-1940)
at the Tanner Galleries in Chicago,
the largest survey of African-American art at the time. Neal is also mentioned in two seminal art
histories - Alain Locke’s 1940
The Negro in Art:A Pictorial Record of The Negro Artist and of The Negro
Theme In Art,
and James A. Porter’s 1943
Modern Negro Art.
Like Frederick Flemister and Albert
Wells, Neal was clearly a disciple of Hale Woodruff - his influence on Neal’s approach and style is
immediately apparent in this painting.The landscape is a Georgian rural scene outside Atlanta with
Spanish moss hanging from the trees. Neal moved to Dayton, Ohio in the 1940s, and little is known
about his later career. Heydt pp. 80,132.
[10,000/15,000]