Arcana:

(WOODRUFF, HALE). Woodruff, Hale. NP. ND (Circa 1935).: Self-Published. First Edition. 4to. Printed Paper. Color Linoleum Block Print. Near Fine.. One 8 x 10 ¼" sheet of cream wove paper printed in colors recto only, neatly folded vertically to make 8 x 5 1/8" mounted with archival photo corners in a heavy white 14 x 11" beveled mat, 1 color illustration. This is the vibrant linoleum block print in colors entitled "The Travelers" self-published in the 1930s by the noted muralist, painter, and printmaker Hale Woodruff. Sent to a friend as a holiday card, it features three doves flying above three riders on asses underneath a brilliant star, in what was likely a stylized depiction of the three wise men. The recipient was Ms. Marjorie Green, a modest art collector and employee of Los Angeles' Golden State Mutual Insurance Company, the city's largest black-owned insurer for most of the twentieth century. Golden State Mutual collected work by many of the major "negro artists" of the period, and in 1949 commissioned a mural from Woodruff in collaboration with Charles "Spinky" Alston entitled "The Negro in California History". A native of Cairo, Illinois, Hale Aspacio Woodruff began his career as a political cartoonist, first for a high school newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee, and later for an African American newspaper in Indianapolis. In 1926 he won an award from the Harmon Foundation that enabled him to study art in Paris from 1927 to 1931, where he met Henry Ossawa Tanner, leading figures of the French avant-garde, and began collecting African art. Returning to the U.S., Woodruff secured work as an art teacher to support himself, and subsequently became the art director at Atlanta University - a Historically black college - where he taught classes at the university's Laboratory High School, as well as for students at Morehouse and Spelman, a related college for black women. He founded the annual competition, "Atlanta University Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture, and Prints by Negro Artists". In 1936 Woodruff traveled to Mexico to study as an apprentice under the renowned muralist Diego Rivera, learning his fresco technique and becoming interested in portrayal of figures. Keenly aware of the racism and poverty African Americans in the South faced during the Great Depression, the artist turned to painting and printmaking for social advocacy. Woodruff returned to Atlanta later that same year to his teaching position, and began traveling to Talladega College in Alabama to teach and work on a commission for what became his "Amistad Mutiny" murals. In 1946, Woodruff joined the faculty at New York University in Manhattan, where he helped establish the Spiral Group (with fellow artists Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, and Norman Lewis) and taught for more than twenty years before retiring in 1968. Woodruff died in New York City on September 6, 1980. A bright, unfaded, most handsome example of this exceedingly uncommon artwork - identified by the African-American Art department at Swann Auction Galleries as the earliest example located of a graphic work in color by Hale Woodruff - TITLED AND SIGNED "The Travelers" / "H. Woodruff" in pencil along the lower margin, as issued. Inventory Number: 026310