Artist Minute #3: The Art and Life of Archibald Motley

Archibald John Motley Jr. (1891–1981) was a bold and highly original modernist and one of the great visual chroniclers of twentieth-century American life. He first came to prominence in the 1920s during the early days of the Harlem Renaissance—the cultural flowering of African American art, music, and literature that extended beyond the New York neighborhood of its name to other cities, notably Chicago, where Motley spent most of his life. Motley had a long career and enjoyed recognition for his work early on, yet went through subsequent periods of struggle and obscurity.