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"Looking Heavenward, " Ink Drawing with Male Nude by Harlem Renaissance Artist

About the Item

This extraordinary drawing produced by one of the great artists associated with the Harlem Renaissance depicts a nude male figure leaning against an icy slope and looking heavenward. The artist was Charles Cullen, who played a very important role in illustrating several volumes associated with Black writers in the 1920s and 1930s, most especially Countee Cullen (no relation to Charles). Countee was a writer and poet who produced several important works, including "The Black Christ and Other Poems," "Copper Sun" and "Color," and was probably one of the more prominent gay members of the Renaissance. Charles Cullen produced a masterful series of gorgeous Art Deco drawings that depicted the male figure in a sensuous, sometimes homoerotic manner for Countee's books and later went further, depicting nude males for a 1933 edition of "Leaves of Grass" and the scandalous publication of "Mimes of the Courtsans" in 1928. (Dimensions include matte).
  • Creator:
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 28 in (71.12 cm)Width: 19.5 in (49.53 cm)Depth: 0.1 in (2.54 mm)
  • Style:
    Art Deco (Of the Period)
  • Place of Origin:
  • Period:
  • Date of Manufacture:
    circa Late 1920s
  • Condition:
  • Seller Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU86516859243
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