Locke, Alain

Date born: 1885

Place Born: Philadelphia, PA

Date died: 1954

Place died: New York, NY

Philosopher, journalist, and scholar of African-American art. Born to an upper middle-class family in Philadelphia, Locke studied philosophy at Harvard College. He became the first African-American Rhodes scholar in 1907, which allowed him to study at both Oxford University and the University at Berlin. When he returned to the United States, Locke enrolled in the Ph.D. program at Harvard, receiving his degree in 1917. His life-long interest in race relations and cultural politics came from one of his professors, Horace Kallen, who worked as an assistant to Harvard philosopher George Santayana. Locke taught Philosophy at Howard University, and eventually chaired the department. His contributions to journals and magazines that focused on artists and writers in early twentieth century Harlem served as the foundation for Locke's reputation as a cultural critic and a patron of the arts. He regularly published articles in Opportunity magazine, published by the National Urban League. In 1925, Locke edited The New Negro, an anthology that symbolized the aesthetic philosophies of the Harlem Renaissance. In the anthology, Locke wrote several essays, including "The Legacy of the Ancestral Past," in which he compared his encounters with African and European art to his desire to create a new black modernism in art and literature. He encouraged black artists to use abstract African sculpture and themes from African-American history in their works in order to create an aesthetic style that would appeal to and educate all African-Americans. Locke, and his colleague W.E.B. Du Bois (q.v.) worked with artists such as Aaron Douglas and Jacob Lawrence, providing financial support as well as aesthetic and philosophical guidance. His efforts to compile a collection of literature about African-American culture led him to establish the Associates in Negro Folk Education, which published a series of analytical works about politics, history, literature, and art. Locke wrote The Negro in Art: Past and Present (1936) and The Negro in Art (1940) for the series. His articles on African sculpture and European art, specifically German Expressionism served as the foundation for the development of black modernism in America. Locke turned to anthropological studies of race and ethnicity later on in his life, editing an anthology entitled When Peoples Meet in 1942. He began research for a work entitled, The Negro in American Culture, but died before the project could be realized. LMW

Home Country: United States

Sources: The Oxford Companion to African-American Literature (1997), Biography from World Authors, 1900-1950 (1996).

Bibliography: The Negro Artist Comes of Age: A National Survey of Contemporary American Artists, Albany, NY: Albany Institute of History and Art, 1945; The Negro and his Music. Negro Art: Past and Present, New York: Arno Press, 1969; The Negro in art; a pictorial record of the Negro artist and of the Negro theme in art; Washington, D.C., Associates in Negro folk education, 1940, New York, Hacker Art Books, 1969; The New Negro: an interpretation, New York : A. and C. Boni, 1925.