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Elba Lightfoot

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Elba A. Lightfoot[1]
Elba Lightfoot working on Mother Goose Rhymes, 1938 WPA mural at Harlem Hospital, New York, NY. From the collection of the Archives of American Art.
Born
Elba Ansaloise Lightfoot

1906 (1906)
Evanston, Illinois
Died1989 (1990)
NationalityAmerican
Known forMuralist
Notable workFederal Art Project murals at Harlem Hospital

Elba Lightfoot (1906-1989[2]) was an African-American artist known for her work on the Works Progress Administration (WPA) murals at Harlem Hospital.[3][4][5]

She was born in Evanston, Illinois to Isaac Lightfoot and Carrie Jones.[6] She grew up in Evanston and lived there until at least 1930.[7][8][9] She was educated at Northwestern University in Evanston and Art Students' League in New York.[2] In 1936, she married Nicaraguan immigrant Alberto Reyes in New York.[10]

In 1935, together with Charles Alston, Augusta Savage (who had experienced discrimination in her artistic career), others artists and bibliophile Arthur Schomburg, Lightfoot founded the Harlem Artists Guild[11] to work towards equality in WPA art programs in New York.[12][13] In 1936, a group of African American artists, including Charles Alston, Georgette Seabrook, Vertis Hayes, Sara Murrell, Selma Day, and Lightfoot submitted mural designs for Harlem Hospital in New York City. The murals were approved by the WPA's Federal Art Project (FPA), but the hospital superintendent, L.T. Dermody, initially rejected four of the designs.[14][15]

She was among the artists who took part in the Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851-1940) (July 4–September 2, 1940), connected with the American Negro Exposition, at the Tanner Art Galleries in Chicago.[16] She also featured in American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Centuries (December 9, 1941 – January 3, 1942) at New York's Downtown Gallery, the first exhibition of African-American art to have been held at a mainstream commercial gallery; curated by Edith Halpert, owner of the gallery. The exhibition counted among its sponsors such prominent white patrons as Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Archibald MacLeish, A. Philip Randolph, and Eleanor Roosevelt.[17]

Elba Lightfoot appears in a group photograph of the artists of the WPA Art Center at 306 W. 141st St., New York.[18]

A 1988 oral history interview of Elba Lightfoot is in the Camille Billops and James V. Hatch Archives at Emory University.[19]

A gravestone with her name at Trinity Church in Manhattan indicates that she died in 1989.[20]

References

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  1. ^ "Elba Lightfoot in New York". The New York Age. 19 September 1931. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  2. ^ a b "In Celebration of the Life of Elba Lightfoot DeReyes". NYPL Digital Collections. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
  3. ^ "Elba Lightfoot". askART. Retrieved 2012-02-02.
  4. ^ Kalfatovic, Martin R. (1994). Full text of 'The New Deal fine arts projects : a bibliography, 1933-1992'. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810827493. Retrieved 2012-02-02. Berman, Greta. "Walls of Harlem." Arts 52 (October 1977): 122-26. "Account of six African-American artists (Charles Alston, Vertis Hayes, Georgette Seabrooke, Sara Murrell, Selma Day, and Elba Lightfoot) who worked on murals at the Harlem Hospital in 1936.
  5. ^ "Harlem Hospital WPA Murals - The Artists: Introduction". Retrieved 2012-02-02.
  6. ^ "Illinois, Cook County, Birth Certificates, 1871-1949", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q239-B8MR  : 5 October 2022), Elba Ansaloise Lightfoot, 1942.
  7. ^ "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKH2-61L  : accessed 24 April 2023), Elba Lightfoot in household of Izaih [sic] Lightfoot, Evanston, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 100, sheet , family , NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll ; FHL microfilm.
  8. ^ "United States Census, 1920", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MJW7-7SJ  : 1 February 2021), Elbe Lightfoot in entry for Isaac Lightfoot, 1920.
  9. ^ "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XSRS-MH1  : accessed 24 April 2023), Elba Lightfoot in household of Isoc Lightfoot, Evanston, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 2135, sheet 15B, line 65, family 319, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 500; FHL microfilm 2,340,235.
  10. ^ "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1938", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24DR-VTV  : 21 August 2022), Alberto Reyes and Elba Ansoloise Lightfoot, 1934.
  11. ^ Sharon F. Patton, "Negro art organizations", African-American Art, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 147.
  12. ^ Lemoine Deleaver Pierce (2004). "Charles Alston – An Appreciation". The International Review of African American Art (4): 33–38.
  13. ^ Wintz, Carrie D.; Paul Finkelman, eds. (2004). "Second Harlem Renaissance". Encyclopedia of the Harlem Rennassance. Vol. 1. New York: Routledge. p. 1100. ISBN 0-203-31930-3. Retrieved February 2, 2012.
  14. ^ Perry, Regenia; Knight, Christina; Jegede, Dele; Cooks, Bridget R.; Holloway, Camara Dia; Borum, Jenifer P. (2003). "African American art". Grove Art Online. doi:10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T001094. ISBN 978-1-884446-05-4. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  15. ^ "RACE BIAS CHARGED BY NEGRO ARTISTS; L.T. Dermody, Harlem Hospital Head, Accused of Rejecting 4 of 6 Murals". The New York Times. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  16. ^ "DeReyes, Elba Lightfoot. (Evanston, IL, 1910-New York, NY, 1989)", Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851-1940). AAVAD.com.
  17. ^ "Lightfoot, Elba (De Reyes)", American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Centuries. AAVAD.com.
  18. ^ "The artists of the 306 W. 141st Street WPA Art Center". Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University.
  19. ^ "Elba Lightfoot interview, 1988, in Emory FindingAids : Camille Billops and James V. Hatch Archives at Emory University : Series 3: Artist and Influence oral history interviews". Retrieved 2012-02-02.
  20. ^ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/50673077/elba-reyes : accessed 24 April 2023), memorial page for Elba Reyes (1907–1989), Find a Grave Memorial ID 50673077, citing Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, Manhattan, New York County (Manhattan), New York, USA; Maintained by recordagrave.org (contributor 46960600).
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Public Domain This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Works Progress Administration.

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