Vertis Hayes and the Johnson Hall Carver Mural

• Published in: The Mississippi quarterly Vol. 75; no. 3; pp. 229 - 251
• Main Author: Myburgh, Brittany
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Mississippi State Johns Hopkins University Press 2022
• Subjects: African Americans; Appointments & personnel changes; Art galleries & museums; Artists; Careers; Education; Employment; Harlem Renaissance; Historically Black Colleges & Universities; Murals; Personal profiles; Public art; Realism; Segregation; Textile design; Violence; New York; Atlanta Georgia; Georgia; United States > US; Tennessee; New York City New York
• ISSN: 0026-637X; 2689-517X; 2689-517X
• DOI: 10.1353/mss.2022.a905461

Arriving in New York at the very beginning of the Great Depression, he became involved with the 1930s Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP), a New Deal program designed to provide relief for practicing artists during the Depression. In what follows, I hope to contribute to this area of research by further expanding upon the biography and career timeline of Vertis Hayes and situating the Carver Mural at Jackson State University in relation to his broader practice and engagement with community art centers and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. [...]the Negro artists' lack of adequate participation in the progressive art movement on the one hand and the ever-widening breach of understanding among his own people (artist and layman) on the other. While working on one of his first mural commissions, he remarked that "poor people don't have the time to purchase easel drawings, or much time to attend the art galleries," and consequently "murals have a significant function in community life where their messages are able to reach great numbers of people" (Cooke).