Palmer Hayden: An Artist and Social Commentator during the Harlem Renaissance

Biography, Significant Works, and Cultural Contributions

Palmer C. Hayden (January 15’th 1890 – February 18, 1973) was a prolific American artist of the early 20th century. He sketched and painted in watercolour and oils, and was famous for his seascapes, landscapes, and depictions of African American life.

He was born as Peyton Cole Hedgeman in 1890 in Widewater, Virginia. His older brother loved drawing, and introduced Heyden to art. However, despite his fondness for artistic expression, Heyden’s initial dream was to become a fiddle player. He was unable to pursue a life as a musician due to his shy character and financial hardships in his family, but music was an ambition he would regret not pursuing for the remainder of his life, despite his great success as an artist. His frustration over this inability to follow his dream is shown in his painting Midnight at the Crossroad, which depicts him being forced to make a decision using a metaphor of a fork in a road. The direction of his face and feet show his true desire to follow the path of a musician, but he eventually takes the other road.

 

As a teenager, Hayden moved to Washington D.C., searching for any job that would provide him with a living wage. He eventually found work as a porter and an errand boy, and would produce a multitude of sketches depicting objects and scenes he encountered on a daily basis, such as sailboats and fishermen. The first move he made toward pursuing an artistic career, an ad he placed in the local newspaper advertising himself as an artist’s assistant, would lead to his first experience with racism: he was turned down multiple times based solely on his race. He would eventually enroll in the army. While in the army, he found himself a tutor, Arthur Boetscher, who would give Hayden his first taste of artistic education.

 

It is worth noting that a controversy exists regarding the origin of Palmer Hayden’s name. One theory states that Hayden’s birth name was taken from him when he entered the army, and that he was renamed as Palmer Hayden by a commanding sergeant in World War I. Another theory assumes that his name was misspelled as Palmer Hayden in a recommendation letter from one of his jobs, and that he was too embarrassed to ask for a corrected version. Lastly, it is possible that the change to his name occurred after a commanding officer initially mispronounced his name, and Hayden stuck with the name. Regardless, he would come to legally change his name to Palmer Hayden, indicating that he accepted whatever had occurred.

 

After being discharged from the army, Hayden moved to Greenwich Village. While pursuing his new dream of becoming an artist, he would hold many odd jobs. Eventually, he was able to study at Cooper Union, and later Columbia University. His major breakthrough came when a woman named Alice Dike, for whom he was moving furniture, handed him a brochure, urging him to enter his work in a competition for the Harmon Foundation’s Award for Distinguished Achievement. Hayden entered, and in 1926, his painting Schooners won a gold medal, and earned him an award of Distinguished Achievement in Visual Arts. Although pleased by winning the award, Hayden was furious when the New York Times essentially humiliated him with the racist headline “$400 Awarded to Man who Washes Windows to Have Time to Paint.”

 

One of his most-recognized early works is his painting Fetiche et Fleurs, which shows his connection to the African- Cubist movement flourishing in Paris and Harlem at the time. This painting was actually one of the earliest examples of an African American artist using African imagery, and would win the Rockefeller Prize for Painting in the Harmon show of 1933.

He would soon travel to Paris, France to further develop his artistic style and to improve his legitimacy as an artist. While in France, he painted many landscapes and seascapes, but also created many images in a primitive style, capturing the integration of Afro-European culture into upscale European society.  He would come to develop a great love and admiration for African art, and would use African designs, patterns and forms in his work for decades to come. He returned to the United States in 1932, and became an artist with the WPA, a large New Deal employment agency, in New York City. During this time, Hayden became known for depicting African American life during the Harlem Renaissance, and bringing to light many racial stereotypes and hardships faced by blacks in New York City. However, his work was often chastised by critics as demeaning and primitive, and he was blamed for using xenophobic stereotypes of African Americans by painting them with catroonishly enlarged lips, bosoms, and nostrils and portraying cultural cliches, such as consumption of watermelon and fried chicken, such as in The Watermelon Race.

 

As time went on, Hayden gained confidence and began to incorporate his political views into his works creating paintings such as The Execution of Nira. One of his most famous works would come to be The Janitor who Paints, an allusion to the odd jobs he had to work in his early life on his way to becoming an artist. Despite the fact that he was a successful artist, he was still often seen as a second-class citizen. The Janitor Who Paints depicts an African American woman, man, and child in a simple, crowded home. All three people are depicted with exaggerated physical characteristics associated with African Americans, and a portrait of Abraham Lincoln hangs on the wall. The painting is said to symbolize the contradiction present in Hayden’s life between the recognition he got for his work as an artist and the disrespect he got for his race. This painting also received criticism for promoting racist stereotypes about African Americans.

 

 

Late in his life, at age 50, Hayden would marry Miriam Huffman. In 1944, he began a new major project, the John Henry Series. This series of paintings attempted to recreate a legend about an African American folk hero, John Henry, who has a ballad named after him. This series included the painting Hammer in His Hand, and is said to be the work he found most fulfilling. Lastly, Hayden died in 1973.

 

Seminar Themes

 

The works of Palmer Hayden make one consider the seminar theme of Morals and Norms. Palmer Hayden had a great admiration for African art and African American culture, and he indicated this pride in much of his work, incorporating African images and motifs into many of his paintings. He was also very intent on using his art to provide commentary on the massive amount of stereotyping and racism African Americans faced during the Harlem Renaissance, and incorporated many stereotypes about African physical appearance and lifestyle into his work. While he stated that he did this to blatantly acknowledge the existence of these stereotypes, his work was widely criticized for promoting these stereotypes and was often deemed racist and offensive. This relates to the seminar theme because it shows that there exist boundaries concerning what can be considered social commentary and illumination of present social issues, and what is simply offensive and stereotypical. While Hayden may have been willing to, in a way, poke fun at his culture to make a point about racism in 1930’s New York City, other African Americans felt betrayed by him, as they felt that his cartoonish depictions of their lifestyle did nothing but promote already prominent stereotypes surrounding black culture.

 

Works Cited:

 

Blumberg, Naomi. “Palmer Hayden.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 12 Sept. 2017, www.britannica.com/biography/Palmer-Hayden.

 

  1. Hanks Gallery, Palmer Hayden Article Titled “Journey From The Crossroads: Palmer Hayden’s Right Turn” by Eric Hanks, www.mhanksgallery.com/hayart.html.

 

“Palmer Hayden.” Smithsonian American Art Museum, americanart.si.edu/artist/palmer-hayden-2130.