Cliff Joseph: Artist and Activist

CLIFF JOSEPH ARTIST AND ACTIVIST

To Joseph, the “people” mean Black People imprisoned in America, whether in the slums of Harlem, in the back wards of mental hospitals, or behind the high walls of “correctional” institutions.

Fine, Elsa Honig. The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1973: 206.

MY COUNTRY RIGHT OR WRONG 1968 oil on masonite 32” x 48” signed, titled, and dated Exhibited: Afro-American Artists: NY and Boston, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston, 1970 TCB: Taking Care of Business , Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Dorchester, MA, 1971 Tradition and Conflict: Images of a Turbulent Decade, 1963-1973, Studio Museum in Harlem, 1985, p. 70 (Illustrated) In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI (traveled to 5 other venues), 2002-2003.

Illustrated: Fine, Elsa Honig. The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1973: 208.

Lewis, Samella. African American Art and Artists. Berkeley: University of California Press., 1990: 165.

Heyd, Milly. Mutual Reflections: Jews and Blacks in American Art. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999: 145.

Joseph brings the fate of Jews and Christians together in this painting My Country Right or Wrong which was done in opposition of the Vietnam War, or more specifically to oppose supporters of that war. The figures, blindfolded by the American flag, seem to wander around aimlessly in a landscape full of bones of war victims. The bomb-clutching American eagle flies over the symbols of the organized religions, the cross and the Star of David, planted among the bones. Blinded by the force of patriotism, the figures are walking like automatons, unable to see reality. The American flag is flown upside down, conventionally representing extreme distress. The great irony is that the symbols of organized religion represent the cause of war as well as its victims, since they are inserted into the ground as if in a graveyard. The artist sees the importance of protest art also as a way to deal with his feelings, his fears, his anger, when ‘acting out was diverted into art.” …African American artists did not rest content with merely artistic questions (as opposed to Jasper Johns). For Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, and David Hammons the flag signified the disparity between the American constitution and the status of African Americans. Thus these artists share an iconic staging of the flag ‘ as a symbol of America’s unkept promises to, and violence against, African Americans.

Heyd, Milly. Mutual Reflections: Jews and Blacks in American Art. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999: 144-145.

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During the late 1960s, there arose in the United States a reaction on the part of many African American artists against what they viewed as institutional racism. In an effort to focus public attention on this evil, a great number of these artists began to use the national flag as a visual symbol of their disappointment over the country’s lack of social justice.

Joseph is an artist who is highly conscious of the social and political problems of the modern world. His My Country Right or Wrong portrays Americans who, blinded by an inverted flag, stand oblivious to the skeletons of those fallen around them. This eerie, surrealist comment on the destruction committed in the name of patriotism is meant to arouse feelings of indignation and to have a macabre effect on all who view it.

Lewis, Samella. “The Flag: A Symbol of Repression.” African American Art and Artists, University of California Press, 2003, pp. 165–166.

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THE CHILDREN OF BIRMINGHAM c. 1964 offset lithograph 16” x 9 signed in the plate

The Freedom Tree in memory of: The Children of Birmingham Illustrated: Joseph, Cliff. “Art, Politics, and the Life Force.” Forward: Journal of Socialist Thought 9, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 43.

On September 15, 1963 a bomb set by three former KKK members exploded at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four African American girls (ages 11-14) who were there for church services. President Kennedy responds by saying, “If these cruel and tragic events can only awaken that city and state—if they can awaken this entire nation to a realization of the folly of racial injustice and hatred and violence, then it is not too late for all concerned to unite in steps toward peaceful progress before more lives are lost.” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holds a press conference in Birmingham, describing it as “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.” Initially, because witnesses were reluctant to cooperate, the suspects were not charged, but later the cases were re-opened, and in the case of Bob Cherry, it was 2002 before he was charged for murder.

Cliff Joseph wrote to Martin Luther King, Jr. sending him a large quantity of the cards, Children of Birmingham: “this card is an expression of lingering sorrow over the tragic death of the four little Birmingham girls. I am proposing this card be used in a fund-raising project to support the freedom movement. I would like to propose focusing upon the anniversary date of the Birmingham incident as a prelude to concentration on the national election date; leaving Christmas as our final concern.”

Joseph also contributed funds directly to the SCLC. This work depicts the debris of the church formed into a Christmas tree and manger.

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THE BYSTANDERS 1966 oil on masonite 21-1/2” x 30” signed, dated, titled Exhibited: Afro-American Artists 1800-1969, Division of Art Education of the School District of Philadelphia, in cooperation with the Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center, 1969 Cliff Joseph painted The Bystanders in 1966 during the height of desegregation in public schools in the United States.

The painting depicts a young African American mother walking her daughter to school. The girl is tightly clutching her schoolbooks as she is confronted by a white aggressor attempting to block her path. Her mother rests her hand on the girl’s head in an effort to lend comfort and reassurance. Joseph successfully captures the tension of the mother and daughter’s tremendous courage faced with a nightmarish scene. The police officer, whose presence at the scene should have been to offer protection to the student has reversed, as his stance positions himself on the side of the unlawful aggressor and the klansman. There is also a creature reminiscent of the monsters seen in the paintings of Bob Thompson at the feet of the white aggressor. Assumably a dog in real life, it is painted as it might have been seen by the little girl—a black, demonic creature resembling more closely an alligator or dragon.

The real subject, however, is not as much about this standoff as it is about the apathetic faces of the people looking on. The “audience” is comprised of a mixture of black and white people and while the appropriate position on the event taking place is clearly evident—they do nothing. The message Joseph attempts to make is about the crime of inaction. The American flag flown upside down is seen in many of his paintings and represents the anti-logic or backwards state of affairs in the country during the 1960s-70s. Sadly, the scenes depicted in Joseph’s works painted during the Civil Rights era can be seen on the front pages of today’s newspapers.

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THE GAME 1965 oil on board 22” x 30 signed signed, dated, titled, and inscribed verso: Two of these young men are Communists, two are Capitalists, two are racists, and two are integrationists.

Exhibited: TCB: Taking Care of Business, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Dorchester, MA, 1971 (Illustrated) Voices of Color, Purdue University, IN, 1997 (Illustrated) Illustrated: Whatley, JoAnn. “Meeting the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition.” ABA: A Journal of Black Artists, v. 1, 1969: 1–3.

Edmund Barry Gaither curated the exhibition, Taking Care of Business , which opened April 27, 1971 at the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists (Dorchester, MA). He was one of the first highly-influential African American museum curators. His show for the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Afro-American Artists, New York and Boston was ground-breaking. He wrote as an introduction to the catalogue which accompanied TCB: “TCB explores several directions which appear in the socially-oriented art of black people over the last decade. Pulled together under the popular expression ‘takin care of business’, the exhibition presents both leftist political statements and black nationalist expressions. Common to all works in the shows a concern for visual problems, for adjusting form to content, for advancing social and political commentary which ‘tells it like it is.’” Included in the exhibit were works by Cliff Joseph, Benny Andrews, Dana Chandler, Faith Ringgold, Benjamin Jones, Kofi Bailey, and Bill Howell.

Edgar Driscoll, Jr., of The Boston Globe, in his review of the show: Raging—and we do mean raging—around the walls of the attractive center gallery are some 30 paintings by seven prominent artists pointing up how it feels to be black in the US today. Some of these paintings are angry indeed. Yet anguish, compassion and a pride in being black mitigates the fury. As you might expect, most if not all, the works in the new offering…are representational in vein so that there is no question as to what you’re looking at. If ‘Whitey’ feels uncomfortable, so be it. Especially fine and more restrained than most, we thought, are the low-keyed paintings of Cliff Joseph.”

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HEIRS TO THE KISS OF JUDAS 1966 oil on masonite 48” x 72” signed Exhibited: 8+8, Riverside Museum, NY 1969 (Illustrated) TCB: Taking Care of Business, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Dorchester, MA, 1971 Contemporary Black Artists, San Francisco Museum of Art, 1969 Illustrated: Heyd, Milly. Mutual Reflections: Jews and Blacks in American Art. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999.

In her book, Mutual Reflections, Jews and Blacks in American Art , in the chapter titled, Working Together, the Civil Rights Movement, Milly Heyd discusses Heirs to the Kiss of Judas: “We have seen how Cliff Joseph expressed his solidarity with Ben Shahn and with Jewish participation in the political struggle of the 1960s. However, in his painting Heirs to the Kiss of Judas , a different tone is heard, one that raises some questions. Whereas in Justice, Equality, and Freedom the artist endowed the death of the three students with meaning (the breakers of chains), the later [sic] image is highly pessimistic. Instead of joined hands, the body language of the white skeleton and the black shadow image is confrontational. Skeletal Third World children with protruding limbs emerge from the ground only to return to it in a cylindrical pattern. The landscape is ominously desolate and bleak, suggesting Doomsday.

It contains only mounds of paper money, and thirty pieces of silver at the base arranged a cross and a Star of David.

Moreover, the title also evokes somber allusions, referring to the betrayal of Judas. By using the word “Heirs”, the artist is saying that the betrayal did not take place only in the past; it also belongs to the present. He expresses anger and sadness at this continuing process of betrayal. The image has a sad sense of premonition.

How are we to understand this betrayal? Should it be read in the context of the artist’s religious upbringing? Judas found a place in African American spirituals, as in ‘Lord I want to be a Christian’, where the contrast between Jesus and Judas is brought out: Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart, Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart, Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart, I don’t want to be like Judas in my heart, I want to be like Jesus in my heart.

Joseph’s title is not unrelated to the way Judas features in Christian theology. And Joseph speculates on the place of biblical images in our lives, raising the question: ‘Do these biblical figures play a role in our lives? Some we look up to, like Jesus, some are evil like Judas. However, Christ knew what was going to happen, so did Judas have an actual part to play?”

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According to the artist, in spite of these allusions, the fact that there are thirty pieces of silver at the base of the mound in a form that suggests a conflation of the Star of David and a cross, implies that it is a ‘joint’ betrayal.

It is the betrayal of the Black people by organized religions, the Judeo-Christian culture, in their fight over riches….The basic needs of the Black community were not addressed by either.

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HANDS OF FREEDOM 1968 offset lithograph 14” x 20” signed in plate

Illustrated: Joseph, Cliff. “Art, Politics, and the Life Force.” Forward: Journal of Socialist Thought 9, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 42. (A similar work is illustrated in this article, see right) Heyd, Milly. Mutual Reflections: Jews and Blacks in American Art. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999: 134.

Joseph…aligned with Shahn’s commemoration of the death of three students in Mississippi by means of hand imagery: “… power itself without personal identity.”

The original Hands of Freedom, pictured in Forward: Journal of Socialist Thought, p. 42.

In the first pair of hands, titled ‘Michael Schwerner’ and ‘Justice’ the chains are beginning to crack. In the central pair, ‘Andrew Goodman’ and ‘Equality’, the two parts of the chain are separated. It is only in the third pair of hands, those of ‘James Chaney’ that the chains are completely severed. These hands overlap the second pair and are titled ‘Freedom’. An upward movement is created from the first two white Jewish figures to the Black Chaney.

According to Joseph, the “chains represent denial of Justice, Equality and Freedom and that is what the civil rights movement was all about. Blacks and Jews worked together.”

Heyd, Milly. Mutual Reflections: Jews and Blacks in American Art. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999: 134.

The three men were volunteers for the “Freedom Summer” which took place in June of 1964. The project was to help African Americans become registered to vote in Mississippi. Most of the funding for the project came from the SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee). The three were traveling in their car, were pulled over, taken to a remote location and murdered. Ben Shahn produced serigraphs of the three for his Human Relations Portfolio , 1965.

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AN AMERICAN SPEAKS 1966 oil and collage on board 16” x 20 signed signed, titled, and dated verso REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In AfroAmerican Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161.

Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

George Lincoln Rockwell and members of the American Nazi Party attend a Nation of Islam summit in 1961.

Photograph by Eve Arnold

An American Speaks was inspired by an image published in LIFE magazine of George Lincoln Rockwell defending defacto segregation in a speech given in Cicero, Illinois in 1966. Rockwell was the founder the American Nazi Party in 1959, after pursuing a long and successful career in the US Navy. Rockwell claimed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a tool for Jewish Communists and that integration was a Jewish plot to rule the white community. He believed 90% of the Jewish population in the United States were traitors and Communists, and was also a Holocaust denier. Originally, Rockwell sided with the Ku Klux Klan in opposition to Freedom Riders and the March on Washington, but soon decided the Klan was outdated and ineffective. After hearing the slogan, “Black power”, he used an alternate version, “White power” for the name of his party’s newspaper. Rockwell attempted to make alliances with the Nation of Islam, claiming that both groups wanted racial separation. Famously, Rockwell even attended a NOI rally in Washington, DC in 1961, sitting in the front row to hear Malcolm X’s speech. A year later, Rockwell was invited to speak with Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X in Chicago. Rockwell was eventually murdered in 1967 by a former member of his party.

It is unclear if Cliff Joseph knew Rockwell personally, but Rockwell had attended Pratt Institute as a commercial artist from 1946-49, assumably on the G.I. Bill, in between his service in WWII and his recall to duty in the Korean War (1950).

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RISE PEOPLE RISE 1970 oil on canvas 48” x 60” signed and dated Joseph incorporates painted and sgraffito images of black figures into the overall background image of the Black Nationalist flag.

Marcus Garvey (Jamaican/American, 1887-1940) was a proponent of Black nationalism and leader of the Pan-African Movement. He also founded the UNIA in Jamaica in 1914, and in Harlem in 1917. The Black Nationalist flag was created in 1920 by members of the UNIA in response to a popular song, Every Race has a Flag but the Coon. Garvey was quoted in Negro World (weekly newspaper) in 1921 as saying: Show me the race or the nation without a flag, and I will show you a race of people without any pride. Aye! In song and mimicry they have said, ‘Every race has a flag but the coon.’ How true! Aye! But that was said of us four years ago. They can’t say it now…

In a recent response, the UNIA described the meaning of the colors: RED: the blood that unites all people of Black African ancestry , and shed for liberation BLACK: black people whose existence as a nation, though not a nation-state, is affirmed by the existence of the flag; and GREEN: the abundant natural wealth of Africa.

Following a refusal of a grand jury to indict a police officer in the August 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a Howard University student replaced the American flag on the school’s flagpole with the Black Nationalist flag (or Pan-African flag), flying at half-mast.

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THE SUPERMAN 1966 oil and mixed media (pennies) on board 48” x 24” signed and dated Exhibited: Afro American Artists New York and Boston, The Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, The Museum of Fine Arts, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, May 19-June 23, 1970 Counter Currents: The New Humanism, The Humanist Center at Aida Hernandez Gallery, NY, 1974 Rebuttal to Whitney Museum Exhibition, Acts of Art Gallery, NY, 1971 (illustrated) Illustrated: Stromberg, Robert. “Artist Finds Black Beautiful.” The Jersey Journal, 8 Jan. 1969.

In the years leading to the US Bicentennial (1976), Chandler, Joseph, Charles White (1918-1979), Ringgold, Hammons, and many other black artists pursued similarly politicized representations of the American flag. As Ringgold remarked, ‘The flag is the only truly subversive and revolutionary abstraction one can paint.’

Doss, Erika. “Feminist and Black Art: Black Protest.” Oxford History of Art, Twentieth-Century American Art, Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 196.

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(Below) The artist and his family pictured with his work (from The Jersey Journal)

(Above) Installation view of Rebuttal to Whitney Exhibition at Acts of Art Gallery, 1971 with director Nigel Jackson. (from Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power, Susan E. Cahan, p. 167)

Superman is an important image for Joseph. It was the work he chose to include in the Rebuttal to Whitney Exhibition in 1971. It is a difficult image for most people: the spectral figure of a Klansman and his props: a cross, matches and gasoline; a whip, shackles, his sheet and a gun. He stands before the Confederate flag on top, with the stars constructed of abstracted hooded figures, and the American flag on the bottom, upside down. The stars of this flag made of Lincoln pennies glued on to the surface and painted white, each (also) upside down.

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Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006), American Gothic, Washington D.C., 1942; gelatin silver print; Collection of Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942), American Gothic, 1930; oil on beaver board; Collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection, 1930.934.

The composition is remarkably similar to Gordon Parks’ photograph from 1942, American Gothic, Washington, D.C. Parks was given a fellowship by the FSA to document black lives in the region, and photographed government cleaning woman, Ella Watson. Parks took the image to his supervisor, Roy Stryker, who “told me I’d gotten the right idea but was going to get all the FSA photogs fired, that my image of Ella was ‘an indictment of America.’ Parks’ image was done as a parody of Grant Wood’s famous painting from 1930, American Gothic , and Joseph’s Superman acknowledges both earlier works, and was without a doubt, “an indictment of America.”

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RECLAIMING THE SYMBOLISM Contemporary artists utilize the appropriation of the Confederate flag in various ways, but consistently with a sense of empowerment. By taking ownership of the image rather than avoiding it or hiding from it, they overcome the symbolism.

Leo Twiggs, a contemporary artist working in South Carolina says: The Confederate Flag is an icon that Whites in the South love to remember, and most Blacks would like to forget; yet, within the dichotomy of these two views is the passion within us all to remember the past and to hold on to some special moment of triumph.

Sonya Clark, a fiber artist and professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, recently staged her performance art piece Unraveling (2015) in several museum venues, including the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and the Speed Museum in Louisville, KY. The project involves literally unraveling a woven Confederate flag by hand. The artist invites members of the audience to assist her.

In 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a guest speaker at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. His purpose was to encourage blacks to register to vote. Before him, Booker T. Washington spoke there, in 1909. On June 17, 2015, a 21 year-old white supremacist named Dylan Roof shot and killed nine people inside the church in an act of racism and hatred. After the killings, Stereo Williams addressed in a blog post for The Daily Beast some of the issues being discussed throughout the country regarding certain aspects of Southern white culture, specifically the continued flying of the Confederate flag at the state capitol in South Carolina. He also addressed the current appropriation of the flag by black rappers, citing examples: OutKast’s Andre 3000 wore a Confederate flag emblem on his belt buckle in the video for Ms. Jackson; Lil Jon & the Eastside Boyz featured the rapper draped in the Confederate flag on their album cover for Put Yo Hood Up; and Ludacris performed his hit, Georgia at the VIBE Awards wearing a Confederate flag outfit. He points to Kanye West wearing a jacket of his own design and a line of couture he offered bearing Confederate flag motifs.

Williams cited Ludacris’ explanation: Racism is just as prevalent now and if we are not constantly mindful of our history and take charge of it, history is destined to repeat itself because of ignorance. In order to move forward, we must never forget where we were. I hope people continue to question and challenge authority, media and themselves because questioning and challenging can only lead to enlightenment.

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SOUTHERN COMFORT 1965 oil on board 16” x 16” signed signed, dated, and titled verso

Lint Shaw, killed by a mob near Royston, Georgia, April 28, 1936, eight hours before he was to go on trial for attempted assault; NYPL.

Illustrated: Stromberg, Robert. “Artist Finds Black Beautiful.” The Jersey Journal, 8 Jan. 1969.

REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In AfroAmerican Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161.

Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

It has been debated whether depictions of lynchings in art create or exacerbate racial hatred. Editors of The Crisis (Feb, 1937) discussed readers’ letters in response to a published picture of the lynching of Lint Shaw at Royston, Georgia (April, 1936), and the general opinion of the readers was that it did. The magazine’s stance was the opposite, declaring, “very often the sheer horror of lynching serves to rouse ordinarily lethargic people into action.” The Crisis, Opportunity, and The AfroAmerican regularly illustrated both photographs and cartoons of lynchings using various strategies to denounce the crime.

The prominent imagery in Southern Comfort, however, is not the lynching, but the central abstract compositional element in the foreground, namely the cross of the Confederate flag and the hooded icons substituting for stars. The flag depicted by Joseph is the Second National Flag of the Confederacy, also known as the Stainless Banner, used from May of 1863- March of 1865. This flag is square, with a red field, a wide blue saltire (St. Andrew’s Cross), bordered in white and thirteen mullets, or five-pointed stars representing the number of Confederate states.

The perpetrators of this crime have no power as individuals without the support of institutional racism, symbolized by the Confederate flag. Their faces are cartoon ghouls, owning no human identity. Anonymity is vital to their success and that is maintained only by the tolerance of institutional racism. People do not fear “Joe” or “Bob”; they fear faceless symbols that appear to be greater than human, and those symbols, such as a flag or a white triangular hood have only the power which is allowed them—thus, the “comfort” alluded to in the title is a sham.

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STAMP FOR SNCC felt pen and pencil drawing on paper 8-3/4” x 7-1/2” signed label verso, The Jewish Museum, NY Illustrated: Joseph, Cliff. “Art, Politics, and the Life Force.” Forward: Journal of Socialist Thought 9, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 41.

This work was done for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to be made into a stamp used by SNCC workers all over the country. The SNCC was formed in 1960 by Ella Baker at Shaw University with an initial grant of $800 from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SNCC organized sit-ins, protests, freedom rides and aided in black voter registration in the South. The SNCC played a significant role in the March on Washington in 1963. After the Watts riots of 1965, many members of the SNCC were becoming disillusioned by working within the system and felt that blacks needed to develop power independently; also migrating from the philosophy of non-violence. Marion Barry, who later became the mayor of Washington, DC was an early chairman of the SNCC, and Stokely Carmichael, a more militant black power figure acted as chair in 1966-67. In 1969, the organization formally changed its name to the Student National Coordinating Committee. Jacob Lawrence, Benny Andrews, Cliff Joseph, and Phillip Evergood all donated works to raise funds for this organization.

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THE SEPARATISTS

Racial Hatred Keeps All Imprisoned 1966 oil on board 16” x 20” signed signed, dated, and titled verso Illustrated: Farrington, Lisa E. African-American Art: A Visual and Cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017: 255.

Stromberg, Robert. “Artist Finds Black Beautiful.” The Jersey Journal, 8 Jan. 1969.

REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In Afro-American Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

Joseph’s 1966 painting The Separatists is typical of his political art. The image imprisons two monstrous figures within a square cage, separated from each other by blood red bars. Teeth bared, eyes aglow with hatred, and fists tearing at their prison bars, these two naked men—one black and one white—are reduced to their most bestial selves. Using expressive brushwork, a limited but bold palette, and ghastly caricature, Joseph makes his point, which is underscored in the painting’s subtitle: ‘Racial Hatred Keeps All Imprisoned’.

Farrington, Lisa E. African-American Art: A Visual and Cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017: 255.

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THE WINDOW c. 1960 oil on canvas 20” x 16” signed titled verso

Charles Alston (1907-1977),The Family, 1955, oil on canvas; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY

REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.”

In Afro-American Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

The Window is a transitional work by Joseph, painted roughly five years before the bulk of his civil rights-related imagery, in 1960. The majority of his work places the subject figure on the precipice of catastrophe and demands an urgent response from the viewer, but from time to time, he allows for a brief respite, a small ledge on the cliff face. The Window is such a painting. The work depicts an extended African American family comprised of the grandmother, mother and father, and five children. A comparison of this work to a similarly-structured depiction of an African American family, Charles Alston’s The Family, 1955 offers an insight into the possible differences in how the two artists’ view the scene.

Alston wrote that (his) painting was “. . . an attempt to express the security, stability, and human fulfillment which the ideal family represents. Artistically my problem was to find the painterly equivalents for these qualities, as well as tell the story. Such a theme calls for a compact, well-organized design with subtle harmonies and discords and a certain solid, monumental quality.”

Joseph’s image shares characteristics of Alston’s: the composition is compact and well-organized; the representation of three generations indicates a closeness and time-proven connection of stability; the posture of the individuals is friendly and open, indicating loyalty to the group. There are also elements of Joseph’s version of a family that are different: in Alston’s composition, the space devoted to the group is comfortable and allows them to be seen in entirety, while Joseph’s family is pushed into a tighter space—restricted even more by the fact that the window is allowed only a little more than half the composition. There is no barrier between Alston’s family and the viewer, but the window and curtains partially separate the subject and viewer in Joseph’s. The concept of a window suggests only partial accessibility, and that goes both ways: the subject has limited accessibility to the world. Joseph’s family lives in a Harlem tenement, and the restricted space afforded them in the painting symbolizes the restrictions they battle in all areas of their lives. The single green plant in the window sill and the curious upward gazes of the smallest children indicate hope and the possibility of a brighter future.

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PALM SUNDAY 1960 oil on masonite 24” x 18” signed REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In Afro-American Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

In Palm Sunday, Joseph uses his wife Ann as a model, and she is holding a palm frond and a typical small cross made of palm. The artist’s choice of his wife as the model is a tribute to her spiritualism and its influence on both he and his art.

Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. Symbolically, the donkey is an animal of peace, versus a horse, which is the animal of war.

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!

Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!

See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

-Zechariah 9:9, The Coming of Zion’s King

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THE FIRE NEXT TIME 1965 oil on canvasboard 21-1/2” x 30” signed signed, dated, and titled verso REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In Afro-American Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161-62. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

God gave Noah the rainbow sign/No more water the fire next time. (words from a Negro spiritual)

Based upon James Baldwin’s book of the same title written two years earlier. Baldwin’s book is comprised of two essays exploring religion and racial injustice, written in the form of letters. The first, entitled, My Dungeon Shook , is a fictional letter to the author’s 14 year-old nephew written on the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The letter is a plea to the nephew, and by extension, all black youth to transcend their immediate anger and adopt a broader, more compassionate perspective. He argues that a deeper understanding of the true source of the “Negro problem”, as he calls it, would derive power and mobility. This places the responsibility on the African American to help the sadly insecure white “countrymen” come to terms with a history they do not understand. Until that happens, they are incapable of understanding or relating to the African American, or correcting the existing (illogical) structures of inequality. In the second essay, (originally titled, Region in My Mind) Down at the Cross , Baldwin addresses his initial joy of finding Christianity and the eventual disillusionment with the church and its teachings, finding them oppressive and deeply flawed.

Baldwin writes, White people were, and are, astounded by the Holocaust in Germany. They did not know that they could act that way.

But, I very much doubt whether black people were astounded – at least, in the same way. For my part, the fate of the Jews, and the world’s indifference to it, frightened me very much. I could not but feel, in those sorrowful years, that this human indifference, concerning which I knew so much already, would be my portion on the day that the United States decided to murder its Negroes systematically, instead of little by little and catch-as-catch-can. I was, of course, authoritatively assured that what had happened to the Jews in Germany could not happen to the Negroes in America, but I thought, bleakly, that the German Jews had probably believed similar counselors. …

Joseph addresses these issues by way of illustration of the words of the slave song; the white man, the black man, the Christian, the Jew and the Muslim all occupy the same world, and the current path, if continued to be guided by hate and oppression, will only lead to an all-encompassing hell-fire.

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THE PLAYPEN

The pathological immaturity of those who celebrate war.

-Cliff Joseph

1967 oil on masonite 32” x 48” signed, dated, titled Exhibited: As Seen by Both Sides: American and Vietnamese Artists Look at War, C. David Thomas, 1991. Indochina Art Project and the William Joiner Foundation, Boston, 1991 (University of Massachusetts) (Illustrated) Illustrated: Stromberg, Robert. “Artist Finds Black Beautiful.” The Jersey Journal, 8 Jan. 1969.

CJ After taking part in the demonstrations against the Vietnam War, I felt the next place to take my protest was my easel.

LT Everything Cliff Joseph paints grows out of his deep concern for the state of the world, be it the possibility of nuclear war, the destruction of the environment, or the abuses wrought by apartheid. It was natural that during the Vietnam War Joseph’s paintings would reflect his deep opposition.

LT The Playpen and Isaiah II:4 are very disturbing. When did you start doing paintings in response to the Vietnam War? CJ During the protests, I also joined marches and demonstrations. These pieces are inspired by the war in Vietnam, but they speak about war in general.

CJ I feel personally that I should be involved in trying to find solutions to these problems. But I also feel that this is an undertaking for all artists. I believe there should be an international organization of artists, writers, and performers for these global problems. It must be a continuous, consistent effort.

Excerpt from Lois Tarlow’s interview with Cliff Joseph, re-printed in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, As Seen By Both Sides: American and Vietnamese Artists Look at War.

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JUSTICE PEACE SHALOM 1997 offset lithograph 9” x 16” signed and dated in the plate

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THE LONG STRONG ARM OF THE LAW offset lithograph 10” x 10” signed

CHOOSE 1982 charcoal and pencil on paper 27” x 18-1/2” signed and dated

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ISAIAH 2:4

He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

1966 oil and collage on canvas 30” x 40” signed

Isaiah 2:4

Exhibited: TCB: Taking Care of Business, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Dorchester, MA, 1971 Illustrated: Thomas, C. David. As Seen by Both Sides: American and Vietnamese Artists Look at the War. Indochina Arts Project, William Joiner Foundation, 1991, p. 45.

In 1966, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee announces its opposition to the Vietnam War, and sympathies begin to build for the Vietnamese people, comparing the indiscriminate bombing of Vietnam to racial violence in the United States. In the same year, mounting frustration by the ineffectiveness of the conventional bombing campaign against North Vietnam led to a serious discussion and official analysis of the possibility of using nuclear weapons by members of JASON during the summer of 1966.

Joseph’s Isaiah 2:4 is both an anti-war and anti-imperialist work. The composition is presented as a bomb-blast, but it is unclear if it depicts the aftermath of the Rolling Thunder-type campaign of conventional explosives that was being deployed in Vietnam, or a Doomsday result of nuclear Armageddon. In the center of the explosion are the remnants of the American flag, and directly below that is a skeletal hand clutching paper money. Disembodied hands clutch keys, toys, books, telephones; there are objects of everyday life such as bottle caps, frying pans, steering wheels and baseballs mixed in with human and animal parts. There is a reference to Picasso’s powerful, anti-war painting, Guernica , depicted by a small head to the left of center, balanced on the right by a mushroom cloud. It is simultaneously a tribute to Picasso’s cause and also a symbol of the destruction of all art. In the upper left, there is a skull with a cross piercing the cranium, shackled by a chain.

There is a skeletal mother, her dead baby still attached by the umbilical cord, and the dead father nearby. There is a dice and a clock, symbolizing possibilities and fleeting time. In the lower right there is a skull with a broken crown—a false “king”.

The Bible verse Isaiah 2:4 states God’s condemnation of war and its futility. Joseph warns that this type of aggression and greed can only lead to self-destruction and the end of all things good.

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THE MILITANT 1966 oil and collage on board 20” x 16” signed Illustrated: Joseph, Cliff. “Art, Politics, and the Life Force.” Forward: Journal of Socialist Thought 9, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 39.

REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In Afro-American Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

According to Joseph, The Militant shows the unity that developed between black and white civil rights workers. In 1966, James Meredith embarks on a “March Against Fear” from Memphis, TN to Jackson, MS to encourage black Mississippians to vote, and Meredith is shot while on the march. Martin Luther King, Jr. joins the march in spots, but during the last days, Stokely Carmichael and other SNCC members clash with King and encourage the adoption of the slogan “black power.” On October 15th of the same year, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale found the Black Panther Party.

Joseph uses a collage element, reflected in the eyes of the subject—the word, “NOW”. While Joseph acknowledges and respects the cooperative effort, he is not oblivious to the changing climate of the civil rights movement. By 1966, the year this was painted, the posture had become less concerned with a strict coherence to non-violence.

Carmichael was arrested during the “ March Against Fear” and upon his release gave his first “Black Power” speech: “It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.”

The Militant illustrates the duality of this simultaneous cooperation and distinction. The artist paints a dove-tail joint at the top center, holding the two distinct elements together, but inherently makes the point that, in fact, the materials bound together were originally separate.

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EGG FROM THE EAGLE’S NEST 1966 oil and collage on board 20” x 16” signed signed, titled, and dated verso Exhibited: TCB: Taking Care of Business, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Dorchester, MA, 1971 Joseph depicts the transformation of the peaceful African into the angry African American, raised by the United States. The imagery of the flag and the symbolism of the eagle represent the country responsible for the individual’s upbringing. The divided images within the egg reveal that the outcome could go either way, but it is the eagle’s talon, it’s imagery closely related to war and violence, which divides the embryonic individual into disconcerted halves. The war in Vietnam and the violence against blacks during the civil rights movement surrounded the African American with hostility.

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BLACKBOARD 1969 oil on canvas 26” x 36” signed and dated titled Exhibited: Black Motion, SCLC Black Expo 72, Los Angeles, CA, 1972 (illustrated) TCB: Taking Care of Business, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Dorchester, MA, 1971 Afro-American Artists 1800-1969, Division of Art Education of the School District of Philadelphia, in cooperation with the Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center , 1969 (Illustrated).

Afro-American Artists, New York and Boston, The Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1970 (Illustrated) Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, Tate Modern, London, UK, 2017; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR, 2018; Brooklyn Museum, 2018 (Illustrated) Illustrated: Lewis, Samella S., and Ruth G. Waddy. Black Artists on Art. Los Angeles: Contemporary Crafts, 1976.

Fine, Elsa Honig. The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1973.

[Blackboard] is Joseph’s conception of what American Schools should be, as opposed to what they actually are, for the Black child. A gentle and lovely Black woman stands behind a Black child, and the alphabet of the Black Revolution is scrawled on the blackboard...

Fine, Elsa Honig. The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1973.

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ASHANTI — a nation and ethnic group in the Ashanti Region of modern day Ghana.

BLACK POWER— a politicized term for ideologies aimed at achieving equality and self-determination for people of African descent.

COMMUNITY CONTROL— a general concept of self-determination and representation within the community in which one lives.

OLATUNJI - Babatunde OLATUNJI — (Nigerian, 1927-2003), drummer, activist; studied at Morehouse College (ATL) and gave political speeches before his concerts; toured the South with MLK, Jr and joined King for the March on Washington.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE—cultural expression and political slogan as a form of rebellion.

QUALITY EDUCATION

DUBOIS — W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963), sociologist, historian, civil rights activist; co-founded the NAACP, edited The Crisis, and wrote Souls of Black Folks.

EVERS — Medgar Evers (1925-1963), Mississippi integrationist and activist, murdered for his activism outside of his home.

FREEDOM GHANA — West African nation along the Gulf of Guinea with strong ties to the United States.

HUEY NEWTON — (1942-1989), political activist and co-founder of the Black Panther Party (1966).

IBO — English language misnomer for Igbo, and ethnic group native to present day Nigeria.

REVOLUTION SOJOURNER TRUTH - (1797-1893) African American slave, abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Won an unprecedented court case to win her son, who had been sold, back.

TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE - (Haitian, 1742-1843) Leader of the Haitian Revolution, 1791-1804; influenced John Brown to invade Harper’s Ferry.

UGANDA — nation in central-east Africa VICTORY WATUSI — a former name of the Tutsi people of Africa. The Tutsi people of central Africa, in the Republic of Rwanda suffered horrible atrocities at the hands of then President Gregoiré Kayibanda during the 1960s.

JUSTICE KENYATTA — Jomo Kenyatta (Kenyan, 1897-1978), anti-colonial activist and former President of Kenya.

LUMUMBA —Patrice Lumumba (Congolese, 1925-1961), African Nationalist, Pan-Africanist, first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; significant figure in transforming DRC from Belgian Colony into an independent democracy.

MASAI — (Maasai) ethnic group inhabiting southern Kenya and northern Tanzania.

X — MALCOLM X (1925-1965) human rights activist, African American Muslim minister. Highly influential and controversial figure, Malcolm X was a central figure to the Civil Rights movement. Largely responsible for the spread of Islam in the U.S. Many African Americans believed that Malcolm X voiced their beliefs more accurately than more mainstream leaders. He epitomized the Black Power Movement and held White America accountable for the crimes against African Americans.

YORUBA — ethnic group in southwestern and north central Nigeria.

ZULU — ethnic group in South Africa

NAT TURNER - (1800-1831) African American slave who led an uprising in Virginia in 1831.

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BLACKBOARD

c. 1972 offset lithograph signed and titled in pencil verso Illustrated: Attica Book, Black Emergency Cultural Coalition and Artists and Writers Protest Against the War in Vietnam, p. 22

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ANCESTRAL AFFIRMATION 1987 oil on canvas 52” x 60” Illustrated: Joseph, Cliff. “Art, Politics, and the Life Force.” Forward: Journal of Socialist Thought 9, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 44.

Alain Locke believed that African Americans could produce a self-reliant, authentic art if they understood and used a reclaimed African heritage. He referred to this as “their own racial milieu as a special province.” (The American Negro Artist, p. 214). He referred to artists who explored these themes as Africanists or Neo-Primitives.

Joseph echoed this in his essay, Art, Politics, and the Life Force , and warned, “The incessant corruption of the ruling culture, however, makes it difficult to maintain.”

Concerned about the interruption, and ultimate alienation, of the ethnic artist (he mentions Chicanos and Native Americans as well as African Americans) from his or her cultural heritage, Joseph warns, “With this same urgency many Black painters produce works indistinguishable from those of their white colleagues.” (p 41) Photo Credit: Michael Tsukahara

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FREEDOM 1970 oil on canvasboard 16” x 19” Exhibited: Promise of Progress: Present Conditions, 1989; Aljira : a Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ. Mostly, it is in ‘Freedom’, a small painting of black, green and yellow [the color of the third is actually red, not yellow] balloons held aloft by a disembodied black hand, that Mr. Joseph conveys his attachment to (Ben) Shahn. Otherwise, he is his own man—an odd mixture of reticence, militancy and humor Excerpt from Vivien Raynor’s review of the exhibit for The New York Times Joseph represents the colors of the Black Nationalist Flag (also known as the Pan-African flag or UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) flag in the balloons—red, black, green.

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MOTHERS OF ARMAGEDDON oil on masonite 48” x 60” signed Exhibited: Afro-American Artists 1800-1969, Division of Art Education of the School District of Philadelphia, in cooperation with the Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center, 1969 TCB: Taking Care of Business, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Dorchester, MA, 1971 REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In Afro-American Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, 50,000 women marched in 60 cities across the US to demonstrate against the testing of nuclear weapons. In another demonstration, 1,500 women gathered at the Washington Monument while President Kennedy watched from the White House. These protests helped influence the signing of a nuclear test-ban treaty between the US and the Soviet Union two years later. Additionally, they pushed the power of a concerned mother to the forefront of American politics, transforming the mother from a “passive victim of war to an active fighter for peace.” Women Strike for Peace (WSP) was founded by Bella Abzug and Dagmar Wilson in 1961. Their cause was to ban nuclear testing and end the Vietnam War. They used various tactics such as petitions, demonstrations, mass lobbies, and lawsuits to forward their agenda. “End the Arms Race not the Human Race” was their slogan.

In protesting atmospheric nuclear testing, they emphasized that Strontium-90 from nuclear fallout was being found in mother’s milk and commercially sold cow’s milk, presenting their opposition to testing as a motherhood issue.

Image Info: Women Strike for Peace, 1962; New York SANE, 1964, Courtesy Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Women Strike for Peace Records and SANE, Inc. Records.

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The other issue was the killing of Vietnamese mothers and children in the war.

Joseph depicts mothers of various races holding their dead babies, illustrating that it was greater than one specific issue—it was the entire aggressive agenda of the United States government that would, left unchecked, leave the world in such a horrific state.

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PTERODACTYL 1966 oil on masonite 46” x 46” signed, titled, and dated on stretcher Illustrated: Stromberg, Robert. “Artist Finds Black Beautiful.” The Jersey Journal, 8 Jan. 1969.

REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In AfroAmerican Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161.

Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

PTERODACTYL (Directed towards the U.S. of A.) Pterodactyl, Pterodactyl, fly away home Your house is on fire, your children will burn!

The last sad Pterodactyl sat with palsied claws hooked in the lowest limb of a tall dead evergreen; with drooping leatherwings he watched the steaming swamp, he watched his rippled image blinking through the steam.

Around the Pterodactyl leafy cycads fluttered with chattering feathered mutants watching him alone in his dead tree.

The last sad Pterodactyl sat with cloudy memories of when he ruled the sky, his batwings beating terror, breaking through the mists and beaking living food from volatile swamps of Mesozoica.

No bird of any nation, Pterodactyl roosted high and noble in the awesome unlit nights, alone, and alone the last sad Pterodactyl say and slowly folded up his manlong wingspan, his snakeeyes filmed and closing, he fell, sucked into the mud of man’s beginning.

In Bear Mountain State Park Zoo, New York U.S.A. a great Bald Eagle, carrion eater,

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Pterodactyl was inspired by a poem of the same title, by Gary Youree, first published in Kauri , the seminal poetry newsletter published by Will Inman as part of the Mimeo Revolution in the mid-1960s. It was included in the book of poetry, Birds You Should Know.

According to Youree’s son, this book was created during the “holding” of a church during an anti-war protest in 1967.

Youree also held a poetry reading accompanying an art exhibit by Joseph in 1970 at the First Congregational Church.

Joseph’s painting, like the poem is an anti-war statement.

The eagle drops the olive branch in favor of the arrows, and the sky is blood red.

sits in his wire mesh cage, tired talons hooked in the limb of a sawed off whiteoak tree, his dusty feathers frayed and hosting mites-he ruffles and blinks at the proud American people.

(A small sign says he has a broken wing or he’d be free) Great Bald Eagle sits and waits with broken wing, Five hundred millennia drug his tiny brain, he feels no pride, nor wisdom, nor immortality that he sits a caged and broken symbol of a mighty nation.

Great Bald Eagle, carrion eater, sits and broods alone like the last sad Pterodactyl.

Eagle, Eagle, Fly away home Your house is on fire, your children will burn!

Pterodactyl, Pterodactyl of Mesozoic Nightmare spanning five hundred thousand years to haunt the eagles sleep from deep in the bonechoked mud of man’s beginning, your bones still moist from five hundred millenia of seeping blood -unmemoried Phoenix from the ash of man’s demise?

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THE DEAD NEGOTIATE THE PEACE 1966 oil on board 20” x 16” signed signed, titled, and dated verso REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In Afro-American Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

In The Dead Negotiate the Peace , the artist creates a compositional pinwheel of four ghostly figures, three white and one black. In the center of the painting is an olive leaf, the universal symbol for peace. It is unclear what the content of the specific negotiations are, or the identity of the negotiators, but the concept falls in line with many of Joseph’s themes throughout his body of work: enlightenment, if it comes at all, comes to us on the graves of past souls.

By eliminating the possibility of orientation within the composition, Joseph makes the statement that all ways are equal: race, religion, gender, nationality… The artist understands that the solution, as well as its antithesis present themselves as equals: we either all live together or we will certainly all die together. Similarly to his message in the Baldwin-inspired, The Fire Next Time , the artist encourages taking responsibility for the effort needed to live in harmony and equality, but also warns that without that effort, we will all lose equally and the peace will only come to us in death.

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NO MAN IS FREE UNTIL ALL MEN ARE FREE 1972 offset lithograph 11” x 8” Illustrated: Joseph, Cliff. “Art, Politics, and the Life Force.”

Forward: Journal of Socialist Thought 9, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 45.

In 1971, the B.E.C.C. grew to include the creation of an Arts Exchange program in correctional facilities (“Prison Art Programs”) . This was greatly due to the prison takeover at Attica prison and the refusal to acknowledge the demands of the prisoners. Three different types of teaching arrangements were developed within the program: some classes were taught by members of the B.E.C.C.; sometimes artists made visits to the prison on a monthly basis, while inmates taught the classes; and in a third variation, visiting artists taught classes once or twice a month.

Joseph and Benny Andrews volunteered to teach programs at various prisons in the early 70s at “The Tombs” (Manhattan House of Detention), Brooklyn House of Detention, Bronx House of Detention and Rikers Island.

They obtained funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to expand to programs in 39 prisons in 14 states.

In 1972, the BECC and the Artists and Writers Protest Against the War in Vietnam published The Attica Book in solidarity with the prison uprising that occurred in upstate New York a year earlier. The book featured the work of contemporary artists and poets who were politically active in support of the Peace movement and the Civil Rights movement. A major inspiration for the book came from interaction that BECC co-founder Benny Andrews had with a young inmate at the Manhattan House of Detention. The young man had expressed apathy at the criminal justice system because society is skewed for those with offending records. In disenfranchised communities this discourse is sadly commonplace.

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THE ATTICA CRUCIFIXION 1972 oil/canvas 16” x 20” signed signed, dated, and titled verso

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THE LIBERATORS 1972 oil on canvas 48” x 72” signed, titled, and dated verso Joseph offers a choice in The Liberators , and like many of his works, the choice centers around human potential. It’s also a painting about alliances.

The men frame the composition, one African (possibly African American) and the other Asian (specifically, Vietnamese). The women are placed counterposed, so that the assumed partner is with the opposing male. The center is occupied by Death and a baby (or, “Birth”). The palette is very restrictive, dominated by red, black, green, the colors of the Black Nationalist (or Pan-African) flag. The male figures only bear arms, and share a resemblance in stature and the pants they wear. The women are topless; one wears green pants, the other a green skirt. The absence of tops for the women has a dual meaning: a statement of equality to the men, and also one of nurture. This characteristic differentiates the women from the men. The women have the potential to bring life into the world, and are nurturers by nature; but, like the men, they have the potential to take life. They each offer a choice. The Vietnamese woman offers a bowl of fruit and/or a grenade; the African woman offers a book and/or a gun.

The black grapes, red apple and pear, like the book and the gun, echo the colors of the Black Nationalist flag. Joseph frequently uses this device—not solely in support of a Pan-Africanist agenda, but to make the point that this type of choice (or dilemma) is constantly forced into the mind of the African American (or any oppressed people): to peacefully work within the existing system to make revisionist changes, or to become militant and revolutionary, in an attempt to create a new or independent system. The micro-composition of the baby and Death repeat both the palette device and the message: Death wears red, the color of blood; the baby offers a small green branch, again offering a choice between two paths. These types of choices are relevant to individuals, races, and nations. In the end, all of the figures in the painting are liberators, but the path and the resulting brand of liberation is determined by our choices.

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IMPERIALISM IS WAR END IT! c. 1960 offset lithograph signed in plate

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NO MONEY FOR WAR ON POVERTY? c. 1966 offset lithograph 9” x 13” signed in plate

NUCLEAR STOCKPILE offset lithograph 7-1/2” x 15” signed

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UNTITLED (REVOLUTIONARY) 1972 oil on canvas 30” x 24” signed, titled, and dated The original title of this work is unknown and it is not documented specifically (by title) in an exhibition listing, but there is a remnant of a tag and thumbtack on the stretcher verso, which is typical procedure for identifying a work that is included in an exhibition (the tag affixed to the work corresponds to a written receipt retained by the artist).

Once again, the palette is unique and highly limited by the artist: red, black, and green; a muted sun and a denim jacket are the only deviances. Here, the young rebel is confronted by the possibility of his own death. Many of Joseph’s work feature a red sky, but this one in particular evokes a sense of time, specifically that a conclusion is at hand. The symbols rising from the earth denote Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but instead of offering any reassurance to the young man, they mark the head of the grave like a tombstone.

The subject sits erect and he faces the viewer directly, but the work is slowly tragic and sad. The possibility of the death of the young man, whether he is fighting for a cause he believes in, or if he is enlisted to fight for a cause he does not support, is tragic.

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SOMETHING FOR THE CENSORS 1966 oil on board 11-3/4” x 17-3/4” signed and dated

FUCK WAR

REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In Afro-American Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161-62. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

In 1967, the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (informally known as “the Mobe”) organized three large demonstrations to protest the war. The first was in April, and included a massive march from Central Park to the United Nations building in New York. Notable participants were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Harry Belafonte, and Dr. Benjamin Spock. The second planned demonstration was the March on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. in October, 1967. Joseph had created this work toward the end of the previous year and had attached a vertical board to the verso so that it doubled as a protest placard (this board was later removed by the artist, but it’s previous attachment is evident when viewing the verso). He attended the demonstration at the Pentagon, carrying this work. Joseph recalled that it’s message attracted considerable attention from inside a window of the Pentagon. Notable participants in this demonstration were Norman Mailer (who was arrested), Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin.

The final planned demonstration was at the Chicago Democratic National Convention, where President Johnson was expected to be nominated for a second term.

Both photos: Charles Trainor and the Associated Press, October 21, 1967

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AFRICAN PRINCESS c. 1970 oil on masonite 32” x 48” In December 1968, Black women in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee formed a liberation committee, and then in early 1970, decided to expand their membership beyond the SNCC and renamed their group the Black Women’s Alliance.

Later that year, the Black Women’s Alliance joined Puerto Rican women’s activists and created the Third World Women’s Alliance.

The newspaper of the Third World Women’s Alliance, Triple Jeopardy, proclaimed in 1971, “the struggle against racism and imperialism must be waged simultaneously with the struggle for women’s liberation” by “a strong independent socialist women’s group.”

Christina Greene, in her online article, Women in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements , wrote about the roles of women in the Black Panther Party: “women predominated in some of the party’s most important achievements, such as the Free Breakfast Programs and People’s Free Medical Clinics. One of the longest-lasting BPP projects was the Oakland Community School, headed by Panther leader Erika Huggins. These and other “survival programs” provided vital services and political education to impoverished residents in scores of urban black communities.”

Joseph’s subject in African Princess is a strong, nude, black female figure, placed centrally and symmetrically. Her body creates the third color of the Black Nationalist (or Pan-Africanist) flag, and her perfect symmetry represents the balance of beauty and power. She returns the viewer’s gaze directly.

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BARRY GOLDWATER c. 1964 felt pen illustration with elements of collage 19” x 8” signed

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INTEGRATE OUR SCHOOLS NOW

PORTRAIT OF JESSE JACKSON

offset lithograph 13” x 10-1/2” label verso, The Jewish Museum, NY

offset lithograph 20” x 16”

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UNTITLED

FREEDOM

c. 1970 mixed media ( ink and watercolor) on paper 14” x 10” Joseph revisited the theme of balloons several times in the 1960s-70s. The symbolism of the balloon: it’s inherent, seemingly contradictory characteristics of surface strength and fragility; it’s potential to rise to great height and the (unknown) appeal to hold it down, paralleled some of the characteristics of the African American people at the time. In this example, the balloon’s surface is reflective—calling for self-reflection. It is held by by a black hand, and the weight tied to the string is colored in red, green and black—the colors of the Pan-African (or Black Nationalist) flag.

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KING’S THING 1968 offset lithograph signed Illustrated: Joseph, Cliff. “Art, Politics, and the Life Force.” Forward: Journal of Socialist Thought 9, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 46.

Cliff Joseph and his wife Ann traveled to Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963 to see Martin Luther King speak. They started out at the back of the crowd, but moved forward until eventually they were directly in front of the podium. King spoke about marching ahead and not turning back and Joseph was inspired, and he knew that his aspirations in art lie ahead. In King’s Thing, Joseph denies the murderer of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a name, referring to him as “Thatman” and “Sir Siety” (society) because his cause—his actions, are directionless and irrelevant, and he just “dies another dumb-ass death.”

Mick Jagger sang five years later (three months following King’s death) in Sympathy for the Devil about the assassination of John and Robert Kennedy; I shouted out, Who killed the Kennedys?

When after all It was you and me In King’s Thing , Martin Luther King marches on, supported by the people, his people. His words live on in the minds of his people and in Joseph’s art—he’s still out there, “doing his thing.”

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Thatman stood ‘cross the way in a window.

He looked out at Martin Luther King. and he say: “There go that violent non-violent Nigger now.”

Thatman drew his rifle up to his shoulder and took dead aim and squeezed his trigger and bang! and Thatman— I believe his name was Sir Siety--He fell back and died another dumb-ass death.

And Martin Luther King stepped off on his manymillion proudblack feet and Marched on home to Georgia.

Last time I seen King.

He was still out there doing his thing.

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MAMA IFE c. 1970 oil on canvas 19� x 16�

Exhibited: Cliff Joseph: Art Therapist and Artist, Caldwell College (Visceglia Gallery), Caldwell, NJ, March 5-29, 1999; (image used as the announcement for the exhibition).

Cliff Joseph Retrospective, Westbeth Gallery, New York, NY, January 23-February 20, 1999; (image used as the announcement for the exhibition).

Inspired by Ife sculptures. Ife is an ancient Yoruba city in southwestern Nigeria. The city was a settlement of substantial size between the 12th and 14th centuries. The area is known worldwide for its ancient and naturalistic bronze, stone and terracotta sculptures, which reached their peak of artistic expression between 1200 and 1400 A.D. In the period around 1300 A.D. the artists at Ife developed a refined and naturalistic sculptural tradition in terracotta, stone and copper alloy - copper, brass, and bronze many of which appear to have been created under the patronage of King Obalufon II, the man who today is identified as the Yoruba patron deity of brass casting, weaving and regalia.

Several sculptures of heads were unearthed by accident in 1938 in Ife, and the realism and craftsmanship challenged Western conceptions of African art at the time. The influence of this aesthetic may be seen in the work of African American sculptors, such as William Artis and Sargent Johnson.

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HUMPTY DUMPTY c. 1970 oil on canvas 18” x 24” signed titled verso The mask depicted in the painting is a representation of traditional vejigante masks worn in Puerto Rican festival celebrations.

Colors of the vejigantes were black, red, white, and yellow.

St. James Day is celebrated in Puerto Rico with the use of the vejigantes. In today’s festivals, some believe that the vejigante is a figure of resistance to colonialism and imperialism. The festivals have four main characters: El Caballero (the knight), los vejigantes, los viejos (the elders), and las locas (the crazy women).

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SOUTH AFRICA c. 1965 oil on masonite 72” x 48” signed and titled The central composition of South Africa depicts a white leg from the knee down. The image of the leg doubles as a kind of specter. The garter is made of the American flag placed horizontally and the ribbon of the medal is the South African flag used from 1928-1994, which would have been in use in 1965 (officially, it was the flag of the Union of South Africa and its successor, the Republic of South Africa). This flag became associated with apartheid and was rejected by the African National Congress (ANC) and the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK; the latter being the militant branch of the ANC, led by Nelson Mandela). The medal itself is the American silver dollar.

The garter holds up the canvas gaiter (which is the protective wrap typically worn by infantrymen between the knee and ankle) and super-imposed on the gaiter by the artist using collage, is an “article” taken from The New York Times, March 26, 1965, titled, “A Mirage of Chicago or Los Angeles”. The so-called article was really a paid ad from the Information Service of South Africa.

The ad pictures the skyline of Johannesburg ( “A real-life Eldorado”), and talks about the city is built on gold and is a financial center of the world; that it’s a nation of prosperity and growth—“an economic miracle”. It goes on to praise the financial relationship between America and South Africa, and how the country is quickly developing in “a peaceful and orderly” way.

Joseph has edited the text of the ad using white-out and a red marker. (see detail) A letter to the editor published in The New York Times, April 24, 1965, written by Rev. Alton Stivers refutes the ad: “Please allow me to take strong issue with the full-page advertisement sponsored by the Information Service of South Africa.” “The advertisement…is an attempt to obtain popular support from the United States for its present oppressive policies.” The true aim of the three and one half million white citizens…is to maintain and strengthen the political, economic and social control over the 14 million non-whites through unilateral legislation and military might.”

The arrow that pierces the boot bears the colors of the flag of the ANC, and symbolizes the armed wing of the ANC, uMkhonto we Sizwe, aka, Spear of a Nation. Mandela co-founded MK shortly after the massacre in Sharpeville where 69 peaceful protestors were killed, saying, “The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices – submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom.”

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Left: Poster designed by Joseph for Art Against Apartheid.

Art Against Apartheid was an independent, multiracial and politically diverse coalition of artists working in the United States who were committed to democratic ideals and racial equality specifically in regards to South Africa. It was their hope that a free South Africa would be won.

Joseph’s portrait of Nelson Mandela (below), was carried in Mandela’s funeral procession through the streets of Pretoria in 2013.

Below: Joseph shakes hands with Nelson Mandela as Winnie Mandela looks on.

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BOYS WITH COCONUTS c. 1970 oil on masonite 32” x 48” signed and titled This work references the “secret societies” of young boys of the Igbo people of south-central and southeastern Nigeria.

Traditionally, young boys (known as nwa enna , or “un-initiated”) from about 5-7 years old joined a peer-group, called a secret society and spent a great deal of their life in participation with the group until they were initiated into adulthood. There were typically three stages the boys passed through as they advanced through the ranks. These groups emulated the adult social groups and prepared the youth for adulthood. These societies had decreased significantly by the late 1950s.

The coconut is used in several rituals within the societies. In Mgbom village, each member of the group would eat coconut and also give some to the men. Coconut shells were placed on the group’s compound house, which was burned at the end of each “season”. This was repeated four times to represent the four days of the week. “Coconuts are associated with boys; they are a kind of metaphor for them..The coconut is an ambiguous symbol. It is gathered by males at Afikpo only from tall objects which have a phallic quality, yet it is breast-shaped and its liquid content symbolizes breast milk. Its association with boys, rather than men, suggests the continuation of an unconscious attachment to the mother.”

Joseph depicts the boy on the right as having achieved a certain sexual maturity and social advancement, and by association, a level of power. The secret societies promote rituals and activities exclusive to others, especially females, that can lead to an oppressive environment. It is reasonable that the artist suggests a certain mindfulness regarding an appropriately equal level of responsibility and compassion from those of privilege and power.

Boyhood Rituals in an African Society, Simon Ottenberg; University of Washington Press, 1989.

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HAVE MORE FUN IN A WATERBED 1989 oil and acrylic on canvas 20” x 44” signed and dated Exhibited: Promise of Progress: Present Conditions, Aljira : a Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ, 1989 Homeless, 1989; Maria Feliz Gallery, Jim Thorpe, PA. The painting of a black family bivouacked on the sidewalk outside a waterbed store, ''Have More Fun in a Waterbed,'' is not the average comment on homelessness. But then the family isn't exactly typical either. Cradling an adolescent boy in her lap, the woman sits staring into the store that is advertising the fun, while her man lies sleeping with one hand on the back of a bright-eyed white terrier Excerpt from Vivien Raynor’s review of the exhibit for The New York Times The composition juxtaposes the sleeping conditions of the black family on the sidewalk, specifically the father, who is positioned as if he could be in the waterbed in the window, but instead, is sleeping on the concrete, with an (absent) fantasized family comfortably sleeping in a similar waterbed they bought with a credit card from the store. The mother is left to wonder what it would be like to switch places with the fantasized family. How this divide occurred to begin with or how it could possibly be overcome, she has no idea, but accepts her predicament. There is a sign indicating a 50% off sale and there are small stickers posted in the door indicating what credit cards are accepted: MasterCard, Visa, and American Express. The signs are factual in content, but the information presented evokes two entirely different responses—from the woman staring in the window and a more privileged person driving by the window in his or her car.

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OH SAY CAN YOU SEE 1987 mixed media on masonite 48” x 36” The dawn’s early light of Oh Say Can You See rises over the modern city, pictured in a sliver of the background, but the vast majority of the painting resides in the shadows. The whitewashing over the brick walls of the “Opulent Tower Condominiums” represents the gentrification of housing on the outskirts of prospering cities. The “renovation” included discarding the single mother and her infant, as well as her African heritage, symbolized by the sculpture, in the shiny wastebasket out in back.

The graffiti flag flies upside down, and the stars have been replaced by dollar signs. Joseph uses a combination of media in this work, including collage.

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UNTITLED

IMPERIALISM

1999 acrylic and collage on canvas 20” x 24” signed and dated In this untitled multi-media work, Joseph depicts the eagle, tethered by its own bad policy, between the American flag, flown upside-down (a device used by Joseph to symbolize the anti-logic of the nation) and a flag of money. It is wearing a costume of camo and paper money like a college team sweatshirt, identifying its loyalty. The structure on the right represents the White House, and it bears photos of President Clinton and Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright; as well as an image of Mobutu Sese Seko, the military dictator and President of the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1965-1997, and a generic military figure (these are presented as if the viewer is peering in through windows). In the foreground is a starving, suffering Congolese child. The eagle cannot help the child because it is restricted by its own purpose. Bodies of dead children have been swept under the house in an attempt to hide them.

Belgian Congo achieved independence in 1960, and Patrice Lumumba was its first elected Prime Minister. While having gained independence, the newly formed Republic of Congo still had many serious internal problems (this became known as the Congo Crisis), and after failing to get help from the U.S. or Belgium, Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union, who eventually sent military advisors and other support. Alarmed by what the C.I.A. described was a “classic communist takeover”, the United States supported a coup by army chief of staff, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu (who later renamed himself, Mobutu Sese Seko). Lumumba was eventually executed in 1961. Mobutu seized power in 1965, supported by the US. In 1971, he renamed the country Zaire, which was run as a one party totalitarian state. Mobutu, who was notorious for corruption, nepotism and embezzlement, greatly increased his personal wealth, while committing untold human rights violations, but was supported by the US government until shortly before his death for his opposition to Communism.

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DAVID AND GOLIATH MAKE THE PEACE 1989 acrylic on canvas 50” x 36” signed and dated In David and Goliath Make the Peace, Joseph has confused the traditional roles. In his version, the giant is David (absent from the painting, but symbolized by the giant helmet bearing the flag of Israel and rifle) and the smaller of the combatants, unnamed (it would be absurd to refer to him as “Goliath”), wears a shirt in the image of the Palestinian flag. The figure drops the stone instead of using it as a weapon, and lays his hand on the helmet in a gesture of friendship.

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PORTRAIT OF A SOUTH AFRICAN WOMAN 1990 oil on canvas 24” x 18” signed Last year I did a painting of a young South African woman. People see her beauty and her rose before they see her gun. She is saying to the Apartheid regime, “You can choose my rose or my gun.” It all depends on whether she gets the system of one person, one vote.

Cliff Joseph [Thomas, C. David. As Seen by Both Sides: American and Vietnamese Artists Look at the War. Boston, MA: Indochina Arts Project, William Joiner Foundation, 1991.]

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FREEDOM CHILD 1989 oil on canvasboard 20” x 16” signed and dated artist’s label verso

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A BLACK PRINCE DREAMS OF AFRICA acrylic on canvas 24” x 30” signed

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FREE MUMIA 1999 pencil drawing with collage on paper 20” x 17” signed and dated

Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook) was born in 1954. Cook adopted a Muslim name while still in high school. He dropped out of school at 14, and helped form the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party in 1968. Abu-Jamal spent 1969 in New York City and 1970 in Oakland, working with the BPP. He returned to Philadelphia and his former high school and eventually earned his GED. Abu-Jamal, while not having tremendous success in conventional schools, was highly literate and pursued a career in radio newscasting. He scored a number of high profile interviews with Julius Erving (Dr. J), Bob Marley and Alex Haley, and was elected president of the Association of Black Journalists. In 1981, he was working two nights a week to supplement his income as a taxicab driver.

On December 9. 1981, at 3:55 am, his younger brother, William Cook was pulled over by Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner. The two became engaged in a physical confrontation. Abu-Jamal, who happened to be driving his cab in the vicinity, observed the incident and ran to the scene. In the end, Faulkner was shot from behind and in the face and AbuJamal was shot in the stomach. When Abu-Jamal was arrested he was wearing his shoulder holster, and his revolver, which had five spent cartridges, was beside him. The outcome of the trial was that Abu-Jamal was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to death. After numerous appeals, the death sentence was repealed. The trial and its proceedings were poorly handled, and while it could be argued that the evidence was fairly clear cut against Mumia, there is also little doubt that the entire process of justice was riddled with errors and problems.

Since being in prison, Abu-Jamal has continued to deliver radio commentaries through Prison Radio, he has also delivered commencement speeches, and taught economics via correspondence to other prisoners. An HBO documentary, Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt? aired in 1996.

In early 2014, President Barack Obama nominated Debo P. Adegbile, a former lawyer for the NAACP who worked on AbuJamal’s case, to head the civil rights division of the Justice Department, but the nomination was rejected by the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan basis because of Adegbile’s prior public support of Abu-Jamal.

Cliff Joseph is an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, and is an advocate for rights of the incarcerated.

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BALLET (THE RED SHOES) 1953 oil on board 37” x 10” signed Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In Afro-American Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161-62. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

The Red Shoes is an early work by the artist, and based on the British movie of the same title from 1948. Within the storyline of the film, there is a ballet production centered around the red shoes. The plot of the ballet is based upon a fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen of the same title, in which a demonic shoemaker offers a ballerina a pair of shoes she sees in his shop window. When she puts them on, she enters a surrealist existence, possessed by the shoes. Mentally and physically exhausted because the shoes will not let her stop dancing, she eventually gets them off, but dies. When she is carried to the church for her funeral, the shoemaker appears to retrieve the shoes and wait for his next victim.

Joseph mostly abandoned surrealism in his civil rights art, although he did include non-realistic devices as symbols in a more figurative expressionist style.

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TECHNYE 1952 charcoal and pencil drawing on paper 10” x 21” signed and dated

UNTITLED c. 1980 mixed media, ink and watercolor on paper 8” x 4” signed

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PORTRAIT OF ANN JOSEPH c. 1967 acrylic on canvas 36” x 24” Illustrated: Stromberg, Robert. “Artist Finds Black Beautiful.” The Jersey Journal, 8 Jan. 1969.

My relationships have always been determined by my need to define myself, and my desire to support someone who had a vision for a better world.

- Ann Joseph Cliff and Ann met in 1962 and were married the next year. They have been partners in life, love, art and activism for more than 50 years. Ann was born in Iowa and studied at the University of Texas and briefly in Wisconsin before moving to New York City. She worked at the Welfare Department, where she received her first “political education”, supporting a progressive union. This is where she met Cliff, who came there seeking employment. Ann taught in public schools having earned degrees in special education and art therapy.

Ann was raised in a conservative Christian family, but had no interest in religion until she was introduced to the faith of Martin Luther King, Jr. She entered the Chicago Theological Seminary and became active in the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (founded in 1967). The two traveled to Cuba to challenge the U.S. embargo. After graduation, they moved back to New York and attended the church of Lucius Walker, the leader of IFCO. While committed to personal relationships, I believe there can be no salvation under capitalism.

-Ann Joseph

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SELF PORTRAIT 1952 oil on canvasboard 20” x 16” signed REF: Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Cliff Joseph.” In Afro-American Artists; a Bio-bibliographical Directory, 161. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.

This early self-portrait was Joseph’s attempt at a more classic surrealism.

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PORTRAIT OF A YOUTH c. 1975 charcoal and watercolor on paper 10’ x 8” signed

PORTRAIT OF A YOUTH 1975 pencil drawing on paper 9” x 8” signed and dated Black Studies, illustration for the cover of Freedomways: A Quarterly Review of the Freedom Movement, v. 12, n. 4, 1972.

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FRIENDLY ARGUMENTS Friendly arguments are good because They help us to explore Another’s point of view and pause To think of ours some more.

Top: Cliff Joseph, International Review of African American Art, v.

15, n. 1: 58 Below: Cliff Joseph, Black Artists on Art, v. 1: 48.

Opinions are essential And must be widely shared.

They could prove most eventful When skillfully compared.

Let us continue speaking, Carefully hear each other’s words, For solutions we are seeking To world problems so absurd.

Friendly arguments are best to make.

They help us to decide To choose the wisest path to take With justice as our guide.

Should socialism be our goal?

Is capitalism fair, When poverty takes such a toll On those who need more care?

Let us hope to soon envision Friendly arguments that lead To imperative decisions We who seek God’s plan will heed.

--Cliff Joseph

SELF PORTRAIT c. 1950 pen and ink wash on paper 10-1/4” x 7-3/4” signed

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The following passages are excerpts from the forthcoming print catalog that will accompany this exhibition.

The Early Years Cliff Joseph was born in Panama in 1922. His father, Samuel Joseph, was Antiguan, and worked on the Panama Canal, and his mother, Leontine Ellis, was Jamaican. When Cliff was 18 months old, his family immigrated to the United States, traveling through Ellis Island, and settled in Harlem.

As a teen, Cliff took day trips down to 57th Street to look around at “art shops”. He had a natural ability to draw, and was already making drawings to either give to people in his neighborhood or sell. One owner of an art shop gave Cliff restoration projects, repairing artworks that were damaged.

He was also commissioned by small business owners in Harlem to make signs for advertisement.

Cliff’s older brother wanted to become a police officer, and Cliff looked up to him because he was always looking out for the people of the neighborhood, especially the ladies. Cliff noticed how hard his brother worked, studying to get into the police academy. On the day he was accepted, his brother was murdered standing up for his girlfriend, who was being disrespected by another man.

The death of his brother made Cliff the oldest boy of the family. After trying for some time to find work in the neighborhood, Cliff decided to join the army: “not because I wanted to be a soldier, but my family needed money, and they were paying something like $24 a month.”

In 1942, while Joseph was still training stateside, boxer Joe Louis crossed paths with Cliff’s unit. Louis had enlisted as a private in the army at Camp Upton, Long Island. Joseph recalled the champ bringing in some boxing gloves one day and telling he (Joseph) and another man to put them on

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and spar a little. The army eventually realized Louis’ value in raising the morale of the troops and instead of sending him into combat, he was placed in a Special Services Division, traveling and staging exhibition bouts. Louis became the focus of a media recruitment campaign encouraging African American men to enlist, despite the military’s segregation.

When he was asked about it, Louis replied, “Lots of things wrong with America, but Hitler ain’t going to fix them.” The boxer also appeared in a musical, The Well-Dressed Man in Harlem, which emphasized the importance of African American soldiers and promoted their enlistment.

Joseph traveled overseas to England, France and Belgium with a field artillery unit. He saw the war as a terrible, frightening experience. He told a story of guarding some German soldiers while in Belgium: “One day a prisoner asked me for an orange because he was very hungry. I obliged the man and he was so grateful he gave me his Leica camera!”

Joseph realized “the people we were trying to defeat were human beings just like us.” It is likely that much of Joseph’s experiences in wartime influenced his later convictions toward helping create better conditions for people at a disadvantage—whether it was inequality due to race, religion or gender; or the treatment of those who were incarcerated.

After serving 7 years in the army, Joseph boarded a ship to return home to the United States. He said the journey home was difficult, and he wasn’t convinced they would make it through the stormy seas. On the worst night, he believes he was visited by the spirit of his older brother, who left him reassured.

After World War II Upon returning from the war, Joseph wanted to pursue his interest in art, and enrolled at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, to study commercial art. When he graduated in 1953, he found odd jobs in design and a job doing photo re-touching for a firm on Madison Avenue. Eventually, he left that company to start his own business, designing and printing greeting cards, which he named, Chromatone.

Joseph’s idea was to use traditional African design motifs as an alternative to what was offered by large commercial card companies, such as Hallmark. He had spoken with the manager of Woolworth’s on 125th Street in Harlem, and the man agreed to carry Joseph’s designs. Surprisingly to Joseph, the cards did not sell, because the African American customers in that less affluent area wanted traditional images, like white Santa Claus. “The funny thing about it is that it didn’t go over in the black ghetto areas of Brooklyn and Harlem, but it did do well in some white and black middle class areas.” Joseph offered an explanation in an interview for the Jersey Journal in 1969: “The year was 1962, and Joseph feels that the people in poor black communities did not have enough self-esteem. ‘Their image of themselves was so poor that they just couldn’t conceive of something like this’.” According to Joseph, students from NYU in the city found the cards appealing.

cases and typed up reports.”

Cliff introduced Ann to a progressive church where they read scripture from a literary and socio-historical perspective. In August of 1963, they went to Washington, DC to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. speak. That event was an epiphany to the Josephs, and a call to activism. For Cliff, that was, to a great extent, accomplished through his art. The next decade was a whirlwind of activity for Joseph. In addition to his painting, activism, and extensive exhibition schedule, he became very interested in the concept of art therapy.

Joseph had begun making (non-commercial) “easel” paintings while at Pratt, and had continued to do so while trying to make a living selling commercial art by day through the early 1960s. Discouraged by his lack of success at Woolworth’s and needing desperately to increase his income, Joseph applied and qualified for a city job at the welfare center in Harlem. It was there he met Ann, his future wife, who was working “downstairs, where they investigated

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Art Therapy Joseph met Edith Kramer around 1964. Kramer was working at the Abraham Jacobi Hospital in New York in their child psychiatric ward. Kramer was born in Austria-Hungary in 1916, and studied painting with Friedl Dicker, a Bauhaus graduate, in the early 1930s. In 1938, to escape the Nazis, Kramer came to the United States. She grew up in a family interested in psychoanalysis, and she herself was a follower of Freud. Kramer was offered a job in 1949 at the Wiltwyck School for Boys, a school and residential facility for children with behavior and emotional needs. The job was set up by psychoanalyst, Dr Viola Bernard, and Kramer was given the title “Art Therapist”. In 1958, Kramer published the book, Art Therapy in a Children’s Community.

Kramer was a great influence on Joseph’s own ideas about the power of transformation through art, and specifically in a clinical setting. Kramer was a proponent of Freud’s concept of sublimation . Freud described this as the process of primitive urges coming from the id that are transformed into socially productive activities that lead to gratification of the original urge. Kramer believed through art, negative and destructive emotions and urges may be transformed into useful products. Joseph believed that the process of sublimation could help individuals build tools for personal resolution of initial problems.

Joseph attended the formational meeting of the American Art Therapy Association at Kramer’s invitation in 1969.

He was the first African American member. Joseph was instrumental in forming the first college program focusing on art therapy in the state of New York, and he taught at Pratt Institute for 11 years. He also worked as Director of Art Therapy in the psychiatric unit of Albert Einstein College

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of Medicine Hospital, and was part of the staff of Lincoln Community Mental Health Center.

In 1973, Joseph co-authored the book, Murals of the Mind, Image of a Psychiatric Community, with Jay Harris. The book documented the findings of group mural projects in art therapy. Joseph argued that the group mural technique “reveals the presence of the self—and object representations within the context of the group’s common representation of itself.” He believed the mural projects established a group consciousness through a “non directive” approach to the creation of an art object. His findings revealed a process that was validated through repetition:

1. Realism 2. Statement of problem in a disguised form.

3. Defense against the problem.

4. Unconscious response to the problem.

5. Recombination of symbols to approach reality.

6. Resolution.

In practical terms, what Joseph had confirmed was that the process of creating art, especially in coordination with other individuals, was an act of discovery and transformation. It was substantively a positive experience for individuals who truly needed help, and the process of creation allowed the individual to work through issues rather than simply being told they were wrong and needed to change. In a sense, art had unique inherent qualities that could be used as tools of resolution for the individual, for groups, for nations. Art is a tool of communication, of expression, to both one’s self

and to others. The “messages” discovered in creating and observing art are emancipatory—in a practical and powerful way.

The same year, Joseph led a panel discussion and published, Art Therapy and the Third World . A major concern of Joseph’s was that art therapists could fall unintentionally into the trap of being racist or sexist, and in doing so, be entirely ineffective in helping their patient. What he meant was that it was crucial that the therapist attempt to relate to such things as the client’s sex, race, economic background, and cultural identity. He feared the “application of glib diagnostic assumptions which ignore cultural differences.”

While he was addressing specifically an individual art therapy process here, his logic might easily be applied to an audience of any particular artwork. Only if this effort is put forth will there be an accurate understanding of what the art is intended to communicate. In 1981, Joseph was elected President of New York Art Therapy Association.

Cliff Joseph, Benny Andrews, and the B.E.C.C The earliest incarnation of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, twelve people to be exact, appeared at the entrance of the Whitney Museum of American Art and set up a picket line at 12:20 pm, November 17, 1968. What prompted the action was the ongoing exhibit, The 1930s: Painting and Sculpture in America. The protesters did not take issue with what was included in the exhibit, but what was left out: artwork by an African American artist. Although Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden had, in fact, exhibited at the Whitney in the 1930s, and were already included in

the museum’s permanent collection, they were snubbed.

Two days later, the group helped stage a counter-exhibition with Henri Ghent, the director of the Brooklyn Community Museum (and B.E.C.C. member) at the Studio Museum of Harlem under the title Invisible Americans: Black Art of the ‘30s. The show included Bearden and Lawrence, but also lesser-known artists at the time like Archibald Motley, Eldzier Cortor, and Joseph Delaney. The slogan of the show was “Ignored in the ‘30s, ignored in the ’60s”.

Greater in numbers and organization, the B.E.C.C. gathered in response to an exhibition being held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, titled, Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900-1968 on January 9, 1969. The Met’s director, Thomas Hoving, had planned a three-month long multimedia exhibition intended to highlight the history of Harlem since 1900. The exhibition featured floor-to-ceiling “photo murals” and photographs of various sizes depicting life in Harlem, as well as videos, slide projections, music and recorded interviews. The designer and curator of the exhibit, Allon Schoener, conceived a revolutionary museum experience, which contrasted the traditional presentation of hanging paintings on flat walls. Artists Norman Lewis and Romare Bearden had met with Schoener in the months preceding the exhibition to present their dissatisfaction with the exclusion of actual artwork in the exhibit, but their objections were dismissed. To be clear, works by at least two well-known African American photographers, James Van Der Zee and Gordon Parks, were included in the exhibit.

While it could be argued that Schoener never conceived as this exhibit as an “art show”, and that some amount of credit should be given to the Metropolitan for presenting a major exhibit focusing on the history and culture of a

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predominantly black community at all, for many it just wasn’t enough. The idea that the time had finally come for a major New York museum to dedicate its time, space and resources for an exhibit focusing on the people of Harlem—and then not include any artwork by the many talented artists of that very community was just too much to take. When you consider what Cliff Joseph had said about the responsibility of the (in his specific example) therapist to relate to the racial, gender, and cultural differences of the “patient”, or in this case, the museum audience, the objection becomes much more clear. It’s understandable that Hoving and Schoener did not understand the urgency—the crucial significance—of including African American artists’ work, after all, there had been long history of exhibiting art by white people. Maybe we could do another show…NO!!! maybe next time…NO!!! In fact, Schoener gained Hoving’s approval to mount a “satellite” exhibit of African American art, but then Hoving placed an unqualified museum staff member in charge of the project and it fizzled before it ever got started. Even if it had taken place, it would have served only to emphasize the marginalization of the artists and their artwork. This dynamic (and result) is manifested in the negotiations with the Whitney Museum a year later. The primary (initial) goal of the B.E.C.C. was to agitate for change in major art museums in New York City, so that there would be greater representation of African American artists and their work in these museums, and that an African American curatorial presence would be established. The B.E.C.C. described itself as an action-oriented watchdog group that strived to develop the legitimate rights and aspirations of African American artists and the total art community.

On April 24, 1969, representatives of the B.E.C.C. met with

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Whitney director, John I. H. Bauer, to present five demands for future exhibitions at the museum:

1. Stage a major exhibition of “Black Art Works” 2. Establish a fund to buy more works by black artists 3. Show at least five annual one man exhibitions, in the small gallery off the lobby, of black artists.

4. Have more black artists represented in the “Whitney Annual”.

5. Consult with black art experts.

Between 1970 and 1975, artists Al Loving, Betye Saar, Mel Edwards, and Alma Thomas had solo exhibitions in the Whitney’s ground floor “off-the-lobby” gallery, which was a notable shift from previous programming, designed to satisfy the B.E.C.C.’s demand #3. However, this turned out to be a double-edged sword: the gallery was broken off from the main gallery spaces of the upper floors and therefore the artwork displayed there was both physically and psychologically marginalized. According to critic Lawrence Alloway, by 1975 this gallery was known as the “Nigger Room”, a “coinage of black artists who are accustomed to being shown in this small area at the Whitney.” Benny Andrews, while being responsible for making this original demand upon the Whitney , quickly realized the diminished nature of the space: “the concept of a one-person show certainly gets qualified” and the reduced status of the gallery devalued the accomplishment of these solo museum shows and retained the white privilege of the main Whitney space.”

In April, 1971, Robert Doty organized the exhibition Contemporary Black Artists in America (April 6-May 16, 1971). A statement issued from Cliff Joseph of the B.E.C.C. regarding the choice of Doty to curate the Whitney exhibit said in part that in order for the show to have authenticity, “it is essential that it be selected by one whose wisdom, strength and depth of sensitivity regarding black art is drawn from the well of his own black experience.” Bauer said he disagreed with Joseph: “It’s more than a matter of our wanting to take full charge of our show,” he noted. “The Coalition stands for the kind of separatism I don’t believe in. The black artists don’t have backgrounds in tribal art— they’re part of the American experience. They should be judged by the same yardstick as other American artists.”

Remembering the criticism that the Harlem on My Mind show was a white man’s view of Harlem, Joseph warned Bauer not to make the same mistake. In a later interview discussing the effectiveness of art therapy, Joseph explained that it was not a requirement that a black therapist work with a black patient, but it was required that the therapist (regardless of race or socio-economic background) make every attempt at his or her disposal to relate to the patient’s possible cultural differences, and if this did not occur, the treatment would likely be non genuine .

Joseph claims the “American experience” is a misnomer, as surely the differences in race, gender and social status alone would lead to a multitude of different experiences.

“The Coalition, which claims an active membership of over 150, charges that the Whitney reneged on ’two fundamental points of agreement’—that the exhibition would be selected with the assistance of black art specialists, and that it would

be presented ‘during the most prestigious period of the 197071 art season’.” (15 of 75 Black Artists Leave As Whitney Exhibition Opens, NY Times, April 6, 1971, Grace Glueck) Other artists whom chose to withdraw from the show were Richard Hunt, Sam Gilliam, Daniel LaRue Johnson, and Roy de Carava.

Cliff Joseph, Benny Andrews, Norman Lewis, Felrath Hines, and James Denmark, among several others, had earlier refused for their work to be considered, and alternatively chose to exhibit at the Rebuttal to the Whitney Museum Exhibition, comprising 50 black artists opposed to the Whitney show at the Acts of Art Galleries, owned by black artist Nigel Jackson.

Joseph’s Superman was included in the exhibit, Counter Currents, the New Humanism in 1974, curated by Barry Schwartz, at the Aida Hernandez Gallery, 99 Spring Street, SoHo. Adam Zucker, a curator and writer focusing on the work of the Figurative Expressionist Movement, wrote about the artists of Counter Currents : “The ‘New Humanists’ that Schwartz writes about are relatively under-known. During their heyday, the art market and society at large during the 1950s and 60s was fixated on mass media imagery and trendy phenomena . Renowned art historian and proponent of post-WWII Action Painting, Harold Rosenberg wrote that ‘Pop (art) glad-handed Madison Avenue as if it were looking for campaign funds.’ (from Bull by the Horns published in 1974). Like the direct election, where the most popular, richest, and mainstream political candidates typically win, so did the artists who conformed to the hipness and attitudes of the times.”

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Cliff Joseph was not formally a member of the Rhino Horn group of artists, but his approach, style, and imagery is consistent with the group. Benny Andrews, Joseph’s friend and long-time co-conspirator, was a member. The group was formed in New York in 1969. Zucker wrote in his blog, ReIntroducing The Rhino Horn Group, Evolved from Figurative Expressionism (July 24, 2014): “Although each of the artists in the group had their own personal expression in their work, there was a collective emphasis on depicting the human condition as subject matter, criticizing social ills and cultural myopia, and encouraging a range of emotional responses.

Over and above the use of figuration, these groups shared an assertive and confrontational approach to art, in which they sought to expose the darker side of humanity, the complacency, coarseness and banality of contemporary life through poignant and often grotesque imagery.” “Rhino Horn members regarded themselves as a humanist art collective. This aspect of their work was even more central to their identity than the use of expressionism….A number of recurring themes can be traced across many of the works of the Rhino Horn artists. One example is the trope of poverty and social class. Andrew’s work reflected his perspective as an African American on such themes as war, racial segregation, and the experiences of the common people..” It is in this way that Joseph’s work is closely tied to this group.

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Cliff Joseph protesting Harlem on My Mind at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1969

EXHIBITIONS

[INDIVIDUAL]

Aspects Gallery, NY, 1966 Fuld Neighborhood House, NJ, 1967 Union Presbyterian Church, Schnectady, NY, 1967 First Congregational Church, Williamstown, MA (sponsored by the Afro-American Society of Williams College and the Social Action Committee of the FCC) Christ Congregational Church, Silver Springs, MD, 1967 Church of the Redeemer, Washington D.C., 1967 Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, 1967, 1975 Church of the Pilgrims, Washington D.C., 1967 Spencer Memorial Church, NY, 1969 University Ecumenical Ministry, Oregon State University, 1970 Corvallis, Washington Morgan State University, 1974, Baltimore, MD Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY, 1976 Univeristy of Maryland, College Park, 1978 Agape House, University of Illinois, Chicago, 1993 Westbeth Gallery, NY, 1972 Retrospective, Westbeth Gallery, NY, 1999

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EXHIBITIONS

[GROUP]

Good Shepherd Faith Presbyterian Church, NY, 1964 Armonk Methodist Church, Armonk, NY First Presbyterian Church, Franklin Lakes and Rutherford, 1964 Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY, 1966 Harlem on Canvas, NY, 1967 Central Atlantic Conference, Hood College, MD, 1968 North Avenue Presbyterian, New Rochelle, NY, 1968 The Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY, 1969 Hunter College, NY, 1969 8+8, Riverside Museum of Art, NY, 1969 Afro-American Artists, 1800-1969, School District and Museum of Philadelphia Civic Center, PA, 1969 Contemporary Black Artists, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1969 Bernard W. Baruch College, NY, 1970 Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, 1970 New York State Museum, 1970 Roberson Center for the Arts and Sciences, Binghampton, NY, 1970 The Art Galleries, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 1970 Afro-American Artists: New York and Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, 1970 Rebuttal to Whitney Museum Exhibition: Black Artists in Rebuttal at Acts of Art Gallery, Acts of Art, NY, 1971 TCB: Takin’ Care of Business, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston, 1971 The Currier Gallery, Manchester, NH, 1971 The University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, 1971 Black Motion, SCLC Black Expo ‘72, Los Angeles, CA, 1972 Manhattan Country School, NY, 1972 NYPL, Countee Cullen Branch, NY, 1972 Pratt Institute, NY, 1972 The Afro-American Studios for Acting and Speech, NY, 1972

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[GROUP] Artemis East Gallery, NY, 1973 City University, NY, 1973 New York Cultural Center, NY, 1973 District 1199 Gallery, NY, 1973 Counter Currents: The New Humanism, Humanist Center at Aida Hernandez Gallery, NY, 1974 Jefferson Community College, Watertown, NY, 1974 The Attica Defense Exhibition, NY, 1974 Museum of Modern Art, Paris, 1974 Smithsonian Institute Bicentennial Exhibition, Washington D.C., 1974 Cayman Gallery, NY, 1974 La Galleria, Museo el Barrio, NY, 1974 North Avenue Presbyterian Church, New Rochelle, NY, 1974 San Francisco Museum of Art, CA, 1978 Contemporary Crafts Gallery, CA, 1978 Westbeth Gallery, NY, 1978, 1980-82, 1984-1991 Just Above Midtown, 1981 Philadelphia Center Hotel, PA, 1982 Parsons School of Design, NY, 1982 Art Against Apartheid Exhibitions, NY, 1984-1985 12th World Festival of Youth and Students, Moscow, USSR, 1985 Tradition and Conflict: Images of a Turbulent Decade, 1963-1973, Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Alfred and David Smart Galleries, University of Chicago, IL; Galleries of the Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA; Museum of Art & Archaeology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO; 1985-87 Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY, 1986 The Museum of the National Center for Afro-American Art, Boston, MA, 1986 Minor Injury Gallery, NY, 1987, 1989 Bronx River Art Gallery, NY, 1987

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EXHIBITIONS

[GROUP]

Goddard Riverside Community Center, NY, 1987 Exit/Art, NY, 1987 New York State Museum, Albany, 1987 Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, Ar, 1987 Tower Fine Arts Gallery, State University of New York, Brockport, NY, 1987 Up South B.A.C.A., Downtown Gallery, NY, 1987 Baruch College, NY, 1988 Food Stamp Gallery, NY, 1988 Aljira Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 1989 Bronx River Art Center, NY, 1989 Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, WA, 1989 Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 1990 De Cordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln Massachusetts, 1990 Akron Art Museum, OH, 1990 Madison Art Center, Madison, OH, 1990 Jamaica Arts Center, NY, 1990 Maria Feliz Gallery, Jim Thorpe, PA, 1990 As Seen By Both Sides: American and Vietnamese Artists Look at War, Arvada Center for Arts and Humanities, CO, 1991 Boston University Art Gallery, MA, 1991 Wight Art Gallery, UCLA, 1991 CU Art Galleries, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1991 Water Works Visual Arts Center, Salisbury, NC, 1991 Art Center of Battle Creek, MI, 1991 Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, FL, 1992 The Baxter Gallery, Portland School of Art, ME, 1992 Richard F. Brush Art Gallery, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY, 1992 Lehigh University Art Galleries, Bethlehem, PA, 1992

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[GROUP] Museum of Art, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, 1992 The Jewish Museum, NY, 1992 The Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA, 1992 The Strong Museum, Rochester, NY, 1992 Atlanta College of Art Gallery, GA, 1993 Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, MN, 1993 Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO, 1993 Southwest Asia-Ozark Project, Springfield, MO, 1993 Jamaica Arts Center, NY, 1993 John Jay College Gallery, NY, 1993 The Jewish Historical Society of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, 1993 Eubie Blake National Museum and Cultural Center, Wilberforce, OH, 1993 National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, Wilberforce, OH, 1994 California Afro-American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, 1994 Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum, Philadelphia, PA, 1994 National Museum of Fine Arts, Hanoi, Vietnam; Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam, 1994 National Gallery of Vietnam, Hai Pong City, Vietnam, 1994, 1995 National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, PA, 1995 Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, IL, 1995 Voices of Color: Art and Society in the Americas, Union Gallery, Purdue University, IN, 1997 Visceglia Gallery, Caldwell College, NY, 1999 In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI; The Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, FL; Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN; Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, AL, 2002-2004 Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, Tate Modern, London, UK; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR; Brooklyn Museum, NY; 2017-2018

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