David C. Driskell’s Kansas City Convergence: The one, the true, the beautiful.
Sunday, March 02, 2014
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Artist, black art historian, curator, author and 83-year “prodigy,” David C. Driskell, enchanted and regaled an overflow audience at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, on February 27, 2014, with anecdotes, observations, and inner feelings, spanning from his native Georgia/North Carolina to Howard University, his alma mater, to Europe where he studied, to Bill and Camille Cosby, for whom he collects.
“Prodigy” signifies that this 1955 graduate of Howard University, 1957 Catholic University MFA degree, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Maryland, looks amazingly young for his age; his mind is still sharp; his diction crisp, and his spirit is boundless, generous, even spiced with humor!
Interviewed by Greg Carroll, Executive Director, of the Jazz Museum at 18th and Vine Streets, on an elevated platform, the riches of David Driskell’s experience and wisdom, more than compensated for any shortfalls in this format which, for me at least, almost-miscarried short of its best possible outcome.
Nina Simone, a famous soul-singer, grew up in and played piano for, one his father’s two North Carolina Baptist churches in which he preached, on alternate Sundays. A son of sharecroppers, Driskell often accompanied his mother into the forests and swamps, where he acquired knowledge of medicinal plants from her, a local “herbalist.” He rode a school bus 35 miles to a 4-room country school, past several white segregated schools in that Jim Crow-era, but he had excellent black teachers who loved and inspired him to be the best that he could be, whatever that may be. His father also told him that he should get an education, if he did not wish to be a sharecropper, too. He followed his father’s advice literally. One day, unannounced, Driskell showed up at Howard University in Washington, D.C., after the semester had already begun, without ever having applied, and with no tuition money, seeking to be educated. Such brazen audacity piqued by his genuine sincerity touched the hearts of the admission’s office’s staff, which facilitated his admission into college the following semester.
Anecdotally, his Howard experiences especially resonated with me, a two-time Howard University graduate in Print Journalism and in Law in the 1970s. Legendary artist, Dr. James Porter, convinced him to change his major at Howard from history to art, after seeing his pencil drawings. He described how he heard Alain Locke, Leo Hansberry, E. Franklin Frazier, John Hope Franklin, and other legends were part of the Howard academic mix to which he was beneficiary, until integration opened other opportunities for some of them at white universities, whose path he would later follow. “I was in the presence of greatness.” he said.
Another legendary theology professor was the mystical Howard Thurman, former Dean of Rankin Chapel, whose rhetorical rapture and gospel gleanings were revealing. Some of these spiritual enzymes were shared with his audience:
“Realize why you are here,” he said. “Commit yourself to yourself.”
“Learn your craft; do it well! Don’t use color as a crutch.”
“Define yourself. Don’t sit around waiting for someone else to define you.”
“Counter the not-being-smart -is -‘black’ culture that is out there, in too many cases,” he said. “Counter it with goodness. Police it at home. The little bit that I had took me from a sharecropper’s house to the White House,” he said
“Creativity is the only thing that distinguishes us from other living creatures. If you have a calling, pursue it!” He spoke of “Convergence,” and the spirit of convergence, as: “The one, the true, and the beautiful.”
His influences were many. Among them were Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Aaron Douglas, Matisse, Charles White, and Rembrandt.
He advised would-be art collectors to “Buy it now! Don’t delay until later, when it will be much too expensive.” Right on cue, at the conclusion of the lecture, I encountered and shared a laugh with very noted Kansas City artist, Anthony High; I had purchased his first piece, a beautiful portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1990s, while he was still teaching art at Northeast Jr. High School, and I was still in private law practice with a few bucks to spare. So, I know David Driskell’s words to be true, indeed.
Driskell also gamboled with Langston Hughes, who brought books to Driskell’s Washington, D.C. home as gifts for his daughters. Driskell’s epic encounter with famed artist and patron Georgia O’Keeffe, from whom he acquired $50,000 to secure and protect some expensive art that she had donated to Fisk University, among which was at least one Picasso. Of course, his ongoing collaboration with the Cosby’s as collectors, and as friends, was both fascinating and fruitful, involving venues like Sotheby’s and straw bidders and intrigue to acquire Henry O. Tanner’s “The Banjo Lesson” for $250,000. Such friendship was tapped by Johnetta B.Cole, former Spelman President, now at the Smithsonian, who prevailed upon Driskell to put together such artists as Joshua Johnson, Tanner and Martin Perrier. He was successful in assembling this collection of African American artist, including 60 pieces from Cosby and 100 pieces from other sources.
“In 1976, Driskell curated the groundbreaking exhibition “Two Centuries of Black American Art: 1750-1950” which has been the foundation for the field of African American Art History.” He was wonderful!
David C. Driskell’s Kansas City convergence was indeed: “The one, the true, and the beautiful.”
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