Elba Lightfoot Explained

Elba A. Lightfoot[1]
Birth Name:Elba Ansaloise Lightfoot
Birth Date: 1906
Birth Place:Evanston, Illinois
Nationality:American
Known For:Muralist
Notable Works:Federal Art Project murals at Harlem Hospital

Elba Lightfoot (1906-1989[2]) was an African-American artist known for her work on the Works Progress Administration (WPA) murals at Harlem Hospital.[3] [4] [5]

She was born in Evanston, Illinois to Isaac Lightfoot and Carrie Jones.[6] She grew up in Evanston and lived there until at least 1930.[7] [8] [9] She was educated at Northwestern University in Evanston and Art Students' League in New York. In 1936, she married Nicaraguan immigrant Alberto Reyes in New York.[10]

In 1935, together with Charles Alston, Augusta Savage (who had experienced discrimination in her artistic career), others artists and bibliophile Arthur Schomburg, Lightfoot founded the Harlem Artists Guild[11] to work towards equality in WPA art programs in New York.[12] [13] In 1936, a group of African American artists, including Charles Alston, Georgette Seabrook, Vertis Hayes, Sara Murrell, Selma Day, and Lightfoot submitted mural designs for Harlem Hospital in New York City. The murals were approved by the WPA's Federal Art Project (FPA), but the hospital superintendent, L.T. Dermody, initially rejected four of the designs.[14] [15]

She was among the artists who took part in the Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851-1940) (July 4–September 2, 1940), connected with the American Negro Exposition, at the Tanner Art Galleries in Chicago.[16] She also featured in American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Centuries (December 9, 1941 – January 3, 1942) at New York's Downtown Gallery, the first exhibition of African-American art to have been held at a mainstream commercial gallery; curated by Edith Halpert, owner of the gallery. The exhibition counted among its sponsors such prominent white patrons as Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Archibald MacLeish, A. Philip Randolph, and Eleanor Roosevelt.[17]

Elba Lightfoot appears in a group photograph of the artists of the WPA Art Center at 306 W. 141st St., New York.[18]

A 1988 oral history interview of Elba Lightfoot is in the Camille Billops and James V. Hatch Archives at Emory University.[19]

A gravestone with her name at Trinity Church in Manhattan indicates that she died in 1989.[20]

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Elba Lightfoot in New York . 6 November 2022 . The New York Age . 19 September 1931.
  2. Web site: In Celebration of the Life of Elba Lightfoot DeReyes . NYPL Digital Collections . 4 January 2023.
  3. Web site: Elba Lightfoot . askART . 2012-02-02.
  4. Book: Full text of 'The New Deal fine arts projects : a bibliography, 1933-1992'. 1994 . 9780810827493 . 2012-02-02 . Kalfatovic . Martin R. . Scarecrow Press . Berman, Greta. "Walls of Harlem." Arts 52 (October 1977): 122-26. "Account of six African-American artists (Charles Alston, Vertis Hayes, Georgette Seabrooke, Sara Murrell, Selma Day, and Elba Lightfoot) who worked on murals at the Harlem Hospital in 1936.
  5. Web site: Harlem Hospital WPA Murals - The Artists: Introduction . 2012-02-02 .
  6. "Illinois, Cook County, Birth Certificates, 1871-1949", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q239-B8MR : 5 October 2022), Elba Ansaloise Lightfoot, 1942.
  7. "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKH2-61L : accessed 24 April 2023), Elba Lightfoot in household of Izaih [sic] Lightfoot, Evanston, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 100, sheet, family, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll ; FHL microfilm.
  8. "United States Census, 1920", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MJW7-7SJ : 1 February 2021), Elbe Lightfoot in entry for Isaac Lightfoot, 1920.
  9. "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XSRS-MH1 : accessed 24 April 2023), Elba Lightfoot in household of Isoc Lightfoot, Evanston, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 2135, sheet 15B, line 65, family 319, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 500; FHL microfilm 2,340,235.
  10. "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1938", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24DR-VTV : 21 August 2022), Alberto Reyes and Elba Ansoloise Lightfoot, 1934.
  11. Sharon F. Patton, "Negro art organizations", African-American Art, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 147.
  12. . 2004 . Charles Alston – An Appreciation . The International Review of African American Art . 4 . 33–38 .
  13. Encyclopedia: Second Harlem Renaissance . Encyclopedia of the Harlem Rennassance . Routledge . February 2, 2012 . Wintz, Carrie D. . Paul Finkelman . 2004 . 1 . New York . 1100 . 0-203-31930-3 .
  14. Web site: African American art. 2021-04-10. Grove Art Online. 2003. en. 10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T001094. 978-1-884446-05-4. Perry. Regenia. Knight. Christina. Jegede. Dele. Cooks. Bridget R.. Holloway. Camara Dia. Borum. Jenifer P..
  15. News: RACE BIAS CHARGED BY NEGRO ARTISTS; L.T. Dermody, Harlem Hospital Head, Accused of Rejecting 4 of 6 Murals.. The New York Times . 2021-04-10. en.
  16. http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=1645 "DeReyes, Elba Lightfoot. (Evanston, IL, 1910-New York, NY, 1989)"
  17. http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=4079 "Lightfoot, Elba (De Reyes)"
  18. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/iraas/wpa/photos/groupartists-large.html "The artists of the 306 W. 141st Street WPA Art Center"
  19. Web site: Elba Lightfoot interview, 1988, in Emory FindingAids : Camille Billops and James V. Hatch Archives at Emory University : Series 3: Artist and Influence oral history interviews. 2012-02-02.
  20. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/50673077/elba-reyes : accessed 24 April 2023), memorial page for Elba Reyes (1907–1989), Find a Grave Memorial ID 50673077, citing Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, Manhattan, New York County (Manhattan), New York, USA; Maintained by recordagrave.org (contributor 46960600).

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Elba Lightfoot".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.