Dating Images

The majority of all images fall into the American Art Deco and Mid-Century time frames: roughly the later 1920’s to the early 1960’s.

Examples:

Chinese restaurants, if not dated by postmarks or by image providers, are assumed to be before the 1960’s if they do not have zip codes or ten-digit phone numbers. Chinese restaurant ware is dated by the manufacturer, Louis Berkeley, Buffalo China and others. Chinese menus, not dated, are dated by the process of the food. Typically, I will use basic food items like soup and main course prices as benchmarks. Restaurant interiors are useful for dating.

For African and Black Americana photographs the supplier of the images will provide a date. If no date is offered, I will use the clothing, hairstyles and backgrounds as indicators. For example, all sepia-colored images pre-date the 1950’s. Most early photos have been enhanced to show the original, usually black and white, coloring.

African American art works, if not explicitly dated, will use the artist’s birth date or the date of the artwork. If an artwork is dated, for example, to the 1970’s I assume that the artist was born before 1950. The artworks with no name or date attached are dated by style and subject. In these cases, they’re tagged as American if stated by the image provider or unknown if no other information is available. They’re not included in the 650 pre 1950 African American artists. The terminology Negro, Black and African American are used by the image dates themselves.

The hundreds of Chinese American fine artworks and their artists are not dated, and many are recent artists. In general, Chinese American art is much later than African American.

African artwork, mostly sculptures, come from the “Natural African” modern period. These are pieces not associated with typical African works like masks and magical totems. They are western art oriented. These include the Maasai, Makonde and other works shown.

HISTORIES

Although the focus of the site is art deco and mid-century periods histories of these areas are included. These include the histories of the Chinese people in America from their first arrival through their early settlements: mostly in California and San Francisco and New York City Chinatowns.

The site started out presenting African and Black American history from the art deco and mid-century periods. It became clear that once I looked at pre-1950 oriented art before art deco artwork from the Civil War onwards was done by white lithographers in magazines like Harper’s Weekly and Leslie’s Weekly. These are powerful anti-slavery portraits: including the work of Thomas Nast and Currier and Ives.

The Civil Rights history is dated previous to 1961 and goes back to portray more than one hundred Abolitionists. The Little Rock schools and segregation in education is portrayed.

The Cuyler Church, its history and restoration, is a dominant factor on the site. The restored building designer and builder Claire Klarewicz-Okser are shown in detail. The art deco, mid-century and Danish modern elements are essential to the site as are her artwork. The price of the building in December 1982 was $57,500 dollars: the site showing the “Building When Bought” shows why it had a low pricing. The historic restoration of the building and the linking to the Mohawk Indians to the church took years to achieve. The more than 3,000 pieces located in the now, Cuyler Mohawk Museum has been acquired over decades of purchases. The furniturist, Michael Smith’s stores, Depression Modern and Adelaide’s, provided many of the high-end art deco and mid-century furniture and lighting.

Many of the outside artists “on-site” in the building are friends of the owners. They include: Alex Sadkowsky, Benjamin Levy, Peter Barger, Gunther Temech, Phyllis Herfield, Jeramy Turner, Rene Dinauer, Hyacinth Idisi and others.