Thelma Johnson Streat
Encyclopedia
Honors & Accomplishments
- Gained national recognition at age 18, when her painting titled “A Priest” won honorable mention at the Harmon Foundation exhibit in New York City. (1929)
- First African-American woman to have a painting exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. (1942)
- Headed the Children’s Education Project to introduce American kids to the contributions of African Americans through a series of colorful murals.
- Was threatened by the KKK for exhibiting a painting honoring a Black American sailor’s sacrifice.
- Performed a dance recital at Buckingham PalaceBuckingham PalaceBuckingham Palace, in London, is the principal residence and office of the British monarch. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is a setting for state occasions and royal hospitality...
for the King and Queen of EnglandQueen consortA queen consort is the wife of a reigning king. A queen consort usually shares her husband's rank and holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles. Historically, queens consort do not share the king regnant's political and military powers. Most queens in history were queens consort...
. (1950) - First American woman to have her own television program in France. (1949)
- Worked with Mexican muralist Diego RiveraDiego RiveraDiego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
on his Pan American Unity mural in San Francisco in 1939. - By 1947, one of only four African American abstract painters to have had solo shows in New York. The other three were Romare BeardenRomare BeardenRomare Bearden was an African American artist and writer. He worked in several media including cartoons, oils, and collage.-Education:...
, Rose Piper, and Norman LewisNorman Lewis (artist)Norman W. Lewis was an African-American painter, scholar, and teacher. He is associated with Abstract Expressionism. Lewis was African-American, of Caribbean descent.-Early life and career:...
.
The Painter, Illustrator, Muralist & Textile Designer
Ms. Streat was a talented artist, seeking to express herself through a multitude of creative avenues, including oil and watercolor paintings, pen and ink drawings, charcoal sketches, mixed media murals, and textile design.Her paintings have appeared in exhibits at such prestigious museums and galleries as:
- Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
(MoMA) - American Contemporary Art Gallery
- Honolulu Academy of Art
- San Francisco Museum of Art
- (Vincent Price’s) The Little Gallery
- DeYoung Memorial Museum
- City of Paris Gallery
- Art Institute of ChicagoArt Institute of ChicagoThe School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
- Albany Institute of the History of Art
- Kenkeleba Gallery
- Portland Art MuseumPortland Art MuseumThe Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it the oldest art museum on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the United States. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum became one of the twenty-five largest art museums in...
Her most famous painting, “Rabbit Man,” is part of the MoMA’s permanent collection.
World personalities who have owned Ms. Streat’s work include actor Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
, singer Roland Hayes
Roland Hayes
Roland Hayes was a lyric tenor and is considered the first African American male concert artist to receive wide international acclaim as well as at home...
, artist Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
, actress Fanny Brice
Fanny Brice
Fanny Brice was a popular and influential American illustrated song "model," comedienne, singer, theatre and film actress, who made many stage, radio and film appearances and is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show...
, dancer Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham
Katherine Mary Dunham was an American dancer, choreographer, songwriter, author, educator, and activist...
, and actress Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard was an American film and theatre actress. A former child fashion model and in several Broadway productions as Ziegfeld Girl, she was a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. She was married to several notable men, including Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich...
.
The Dancer, Singer, Folklorist
In addition to being a prolific artist, Ms. Streat traveled to Haiti, Mexico and Canada to study the traditional dance and culture of indigenous people.She realized that prejudice and bigotry are learned and usually during childhood. So, throughout the 1940s and 50s, she tirelessly performed dances, songs, and folk tales from many cultures to thousands of youngsters across Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the United States in an effort to introduce them to the beauty and value of all cultures.
The Teacher, Activist & Visionary
With her second husband, John Edgar Kline, Ms. Streat founded Children’s City near Honolulu to introduce children to art and to the value of cultural diversity.Ms. Streat’s portraits present men, women, girls, and boys of every color, age, shape, and size with dignity.
Her work was sometimes controversial. The Los Angeles Times reported that Ms. Streat was threatened by the klan for her painting called “Death of a Negro Sailor,” portraying an African American sailor dying after risking his life abroad to protect the democratic rights he was denied at home.
The threat only made Ms. Streat believe that a program showing, not only the Negro’s tribulations, but also the Negro’s contributions to the nation’s wealth was needed . . . and so, she initiated a visual education program called “The Negro in History.”
Through a series of murals depicting the contributions of people of African descent, panels showed black Americans in industry, agriculture, medicine, science, meat packing, and transportation. There was even a panel on the contributions of black women. (Remember this was back in 1947.)
Ms. Streat’s work often portrayed important figures in history. Along with images of well-known Americans like Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
, she painted a series of portraits of famous people of African ancestry, including concert singer Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...
, singer/actor/activist Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, Toussaint L’Overture, and Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Harriet Ross; (1820 – 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made thirteen missions to rescue more than 70 slaves...
, etc.
Ms. Streat’s impact on contemporary American art is still being researched and assessed. As a pioneer in modern African American art, her work influenced and was influenced by Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence was an American painter; he was married to fellow artist Gwendolyn Knight. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", though by his own account the primary influence was not so much French art as the shapes and colors of Harlem.Lawrence is among the best-known twentieth...
, Sargent Johnson, Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden was an African American artist and writer. He worked in several media including cartoons, oils, and collage.-Education:...
, William H. Johnson, and the other artistic leaders of her time. Her ability to integrate dance, song and folklore from a variety of cultures into a presentation package and utilize it to educate and inspire an appreciation across ethnic lines was revolutionary for her time.
Quick Facts
Born: Thelma Johnson in Yakima, Washington in 1911Early: She started painting at 9 year of age.
Grew up in Boise, Idaho, Pendleton, Oregon and Portland, Oregon
Graduated from Washington High School (Portland, Oregon)
Married: Romaine Streat in Portland in 1935. (kept the name Streat after their divorce)
Talents: painting, textile design, book illustration, interpretive and ethnic dance, singing, folklore, teaching art and multi-culturalism.
Died: May 1959 in Los Angeles, California
Books
- Who Was Who In American Art, 1898-1947.
Edited by Peter Hastings Falk. Sound View Press, Connecticut, 1985. p. 602.
- Afro-American Artists: A Bio-Bibliographical Directory. Trustees of the Boston Public Library, Boston, 1973. p. 270.
- African-American Art by Sharon F. Patton. Oxford University Press, 1998, New York. P. 161
- Dictionary Catalog of the Dance Collection. The New York Public Library. Volume 9. 1974. p. 6129
- Museum of Modern Art: Library Inventory List, Part iv. (S-Z). 1984. p. 318.
- Abstract Expressionism: Other Politicsby Ann Eden Gibson, Yale University Press, 1999
- Oregon Painters: The First Hundred Years, 1859-1959
by Ginny Allen & Jody Klevit, 1999, Oregon Historical Society.
- Reference Library of Black America. Volume 4. New York University, 1971. p. 93.
- The Negro Almanac: A Reference Work on the African-American. Edited & compiled by Harry A. Ploski and James Williams. The Black Artist. p. 1076.
- The Negro Handbook. Editors of Ebony. Johnson Publishing Co., Chicago, 1966. p. 355.
Periodicals
- “American Art,” Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
. Summer 2005. - "African-American Abstraction,' an Exploration," The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. Jun 28, 1991. - "Treasures from Reed's Collection," Reed College Magazine. By Aaron Jones. Reed CollegeReed CollegeReed College is a private, independent, liberal arts college located in southeast Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus located in Portland's Eastmoreland neighborhood, featuring architecture based on the Tudor-Gothic style, and a forested canyon wilderness...
, Portland, May 1998. - Obituary—Mrs. John Edgar. Oregon Journal. May 14, 1959. p. 11.
- Obituary—Famed Painter-Dancer Dies After Heart Attack. The Oregonian. May 24, 1959.
- "Famed Painter-Dancer is Eulogized in Los Angeles," Baltimore Afro-AmericanBaltimore Afro-AmericanThe Baltimore Afro-American, commonly known as The Afro, is a weekly newspaper published in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It is the flagship newspaper of the Afro-American chain and the longest-running African-American family-owned newspaper in the United States.-History:The newspaper was founded in...
. Jun. 6, 1959. p. 15 - "Couple from Hawaii Show Folklore Paintings, Curios," Bellingham Herald. May 16, 1958.
- "Hills Folklore Collected By Husband-Wife Team," Rapid City, S.D. Daily Journal. June 18, 1958.
- "Visiting Hawaii Child Welfare Leaders See Folklore as Link for All Children," Sioux City Sentinel. Sept. 18, 1958. A-3.
- "The Londoner's Diary: Two Yellow Moons," Evening StandardEvening StandardThe Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
, UK. March 7, 1950. - The News That's Going Around, The Irish Press. Ireland. May 6, 1950.
- "Art and Artists: Thelma Johnson Streat at S.F. Museum of Art," Oakland Tribune. March 17, 1946.
Artifacts
- Letter to Marian AndersonMarian AndersonMarian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...
(dated Dec. 19, 1938). Special Collections (Marian Anderson archives), Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, University of Pennsylvania. - Photographs, personal applications and letters of reference. The Harmon Collection (The Harmon Foundation). National Archives.
External links
- Explore the life and work of Thelma Johnson Streat at http://www.ThelmaJohnsonStreat.net/
- Actor Vincent PriceVincent PriceVincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
owned the Little Gallery in Beverly Hills and mentions Streat in an interview with the Smithsonian at http://www.aaa.si.edu/oralhist/price92.htm - Ms. Streat worked with Diego Rivera on the Pan American Unity mural in San Francisco in 1939. Find out more at http://www.riveramural.org/article.asp?section=overview&key=1169&language=english
- Ms. Streat knew and visited with former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Ms. Roosevelt mentions a 1951 visit from Ms. Streat in her daily journal at
- http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1951&_f=md001950
- The book Art * Women * California, 1950-2000: Parallels and Intersectionsedited by Diana Burgess Fuller and Daniela Salvioni includes a wonderful section on Ms. Streat. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press/San Jose Museum of Art, 2002, 388 pp.,
- http://www.wellesley.edu/WomensReview/archive/2002/11/highlt.html
- inIVA: Library - The search for freedom: African American abstract... Rose Piper; Robert Reid; Haywood Bill Rivers; Thomas Sills; Thelma Johnson Streat; Alma W. Thomas; Mildred ThompsonMildred ThompsonMildred Thompson was an African American artist who worked in the media of painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and photography. She was also a writer and, beginning in 1987, was an associate editor for the magazine Art Papers in Atlanta, Georgia...
; William White; etc. http://www.iniva.org/library/resource/1975