Elba Lightfoot
{{Short description|American painter (1906–1989)}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Elba A. Lightfoot{{cite news |title=Elba Lightfoot in New York |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/112651198/the-new-york-age/ |access-date=6 November 2022 |work=The New York Age |date=19 September 1931}}
| image = Archives of American Art - Elba Lightfoot - 2232.jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Elba Lightfoot working on Mother Goose Rhymes, 1938 WPA mural at Harlem Hospital, New York, NY. From the collection of the Archives of American Art.
| birth_name = Elba Ansaloise Lightfoot
| birth_date = {{birth date text|1906}}
| birth_place = Evanston, Illinois
| death_date = {{death date text|1989}}
| nationality = American
| known_for = Muralist
| training =
| movement =
| notable_works = Federal Art Project murals at Harlem Hospital
| patrons =
| awards =
}}
Elba Lightfoot (1906-1989){{cite web |title=In Celebration of the Life of Elba Lightfoot DeReyes |url=https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/6509d980-f013-013a-47b3-0242ac110003 |website=NYPL Digital Collections |access-date=4 January 2023}} was an African-American artist known for her work on the Works Progress Administration (WPA) murals at Harlem Hospital.{{Cite web |title=Elba Lightfoot |publisher=askART |access-date=2012-02-02|url = http://www.askart.com/artist_keywords/Elba_Lightfoot/10032704/Elba_Lightfoot.aspx }}{{Cite book | title = Full text of 'The New Deal fine arts projects : a bibliography, 1933-1992'| year = 1994 | isbn = 9780810827493 | access-date = 2012-02-02 | url = https://archive.org/stream/newdealfineartsp00kalf/newdealfineartsp00kalf_djvu.txt| last1 = Kalfatovic | first1 = Martin R. | publisher = Scarecrow Press }} Berman, Greta. "Walls of Harlem." Arts 52 (October 1977): 122-26. "Account of six African-American artists (Charles Alston, Vertis Hayes, Georgette Seabrooke, Sara Murrell, Selma Day, and Elba Lightfoot) who worked on murals at the Harlem Hospital in 1936.{{Cite web | title = Harlem Hospital WPA Murals - The Artists: Introduction | access-date = 2012-02-02 | url =http://iraas.columbia.edu/wpa/introartists.html}}
Early life and education
Elba Ansoloise Lightfoot was born in Evanston, Illinois to Isaac Lightfoot and Carrie Jones."Illinois, Cook County, Birth Certificates, 1871-1949", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q239-B8MR : 5 October 2022), Elba Ansaloise Lightfoot, 1942. She grew up in Evanston and lived there until at least 1930."United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKH2-61L : accessed 24 April 2023), Elba Lightfoot in household of Izaih [sic] Lightfoot, Evanston, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 100, sheet , family , NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll ; FHL microfilm."United States Census, 1920", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MJW7-7SJ : 1 February 2021), Elbe Lightfoot in entry for Isaac Lightfoot, 1920."United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XSRS-MH1 : accessed 24 April 2023), Elba Lightfoot in household of Isoc Lightfoot, Evanston, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 2135, sheet 15B, line 65, family 319, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 500; FHL microfilm 2,340,235. She was educated at Northwestern University in Evanston and Art Students' League in New York. In 1936, she married Nicaraguan immigrant Alberto Reyes in New York."New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1938", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24DR-VTV : 21 August 2022), Alberto Reyes and Elba Ansoloise Lightfoot, 1934. She was sometimes known as Elba DeReyes or Reyes after her marriage.{{Cite web |title=Postcard of Elba Lightfoot DeReyes in celebration of her life |url=https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/64ade6d0-f013-013a-bbfc-0242ac110003 |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=NYPL Digital Collections |language=en}}
Harlem Artists Guild
In 1935, together with Charles Alston, Augusta Savage (who had experienced discrimination in her artistic career), others artists and bibliophile Arthur Schomburg, Lightfoot founded the Harlem Artists GuildSharon F. Patton, [https://books.google.com/books?id=2598QQgoRP8C&pg=PA147 "Negro art organizations"], African-American Art, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 147. to work towards equality in WPA art programs in New York.{{cite journal|author=Lemoine Deleaver Pierce |year=2004 |title=Charles Alston – An Appreciation |journal=The International Review of African American Art |issue=4 |pages=33–38 }}{{cite encyclopedia |title=Second Harlem Renaissance |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of the Harlem Rennassance |publisher=Routledge |access-date=February 2, 2012 |editor=Wintz, Carrie D. |editor2=Paul Finkelman |year=2004 |volume=1 |location=New York |page=1100 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=NgIYlUbaoAoC&pg=PA1100 |isbn = 0-203-31930-3 }} In 1936, a group of African American artists, including Charles Alston, Georgette Seabrook, Vertis Hayes, Sara Murrell, Selma Day, and Lightfoot submitted mural designs for Harlem Hospital in New York City. The murals were approved by the WPA's Federal Art Project (FPA), but the hospital superintendent, L.T. Dermody, initially rejected four of the designs.{{Cite web|title=African American art|url=https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000001094|access-date=2021-04-10|website=Grove Art Online|year=2003|language=en|doi=10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T001094|isbn=978-1-884446-05-4|last1=Perry|first1=Regenia|last2=Knight|first2=Christina|last3=Jegede|first3=Dele|last4=Cooks|first4=Bridget R.|last5=Holloway|first5=Camara Dia|last6=Borum|first6=Jenifer P.}}{{Cite news|title=RACE BIAS CHARGED BY NEGRO ARTISTS; L.T. Dermody, Harlem Hospital Head, Accused of Rejecting 4 of 6 Murals.| work=The New York Times |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1936/02/22/88636072.html?pageNumber=13|access-date=2021-04-10|language=en}}
Lightfoot was among the artists who took part in the Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851-1940) (July 4 – September 2, 1940), connected with the American Negro Exposition at the Tanner Art Galleries in Chicago.[http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=1645 "DeReyes, Elba Lightfoot. (Evanston, IL, 1910-New York, NY, 1989)"], Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851-1940). AAVAD.com. She also featured in American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Centuries (December 9, 1941 – January 3, 1942) at New York's Downtown Gallery, the first exhibition of African-American art to have been held at a mainstream commercial gallery; curated by Edith Halpert, owner of the gallery. The exhibition counted among its sponsors such prominent white patrons as Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Archibald MacLeish, A. Philip Randolph, and Eleanor Roosevelt.[http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=4079 "Lightfoot, Elba (De Reyes)"], American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Centuries. AAVAD.com.
Elba Lightfoot appears in a group photograph of the artists of the WPA Art Center at 306 W. 141st St., New York.[http://www.columbia.edu/cu/iraas/wpa/photos/groupartists-large.html "The artists of the 306 W. 141st Street WPA Art Center"]. Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University.
Later life
A 1988 oral history interview of Elba Lightfoot is in the Camille Billops and James V. Hatch Archives at Emory University.{{Cite web| title = Elba Lightfoot interview, 1988, in Emory FindingAids : Camille Billops and James V. Hatch Archives at Emory University : Series 3: Artist and Influence oral history interviews| access-date = 2012-02-02| url = http://findingaids.library.emory.edu/documents/billopshatch927/series3/}}
A gravestone with her name at Trinity Church in Manhattan indicates that she died in 1989.Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/50673077/elba-reyes : accessed 24 April 2023), memorial page for Elba Reyes (1907–1989), Find a Grave Memorial ID 50673077, citing Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, Manhattan, New York County (Manhattan), New York, USA; Maintained by recordagrave.org (contributor 46960600). A postcard sent out in 1990 in celebration of Lightfoot's life is held in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture collections.{{Cite web |title=NYPL Digital Collections |url=https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/64ade6d0-f013-013a-bbfc-0242ac110003/book?parent=7d10f150-e9c8-013a-8b28-0242ac110003#page/11/mode/2up |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=digitalcollections.nypl.org}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- [http://www.negroartist.com/negro%20artist/ELBA%20LIGHTFOOT/pages/TOY%20PARADE_gif.htm Toy Parade by Elba Lightfoot]
- {{Cite web| title = Hatch, James V. and Leo Hamalian, eds. Artist and Influence Vol. 8: The Cornucopia (1989). New York: Hatch-Billops Collection, Inc., 1989. Elba Lightfoot interview| access-date = 2012-02-02| url = http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=1206| archive-date = 2016-03-04| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160304090308/http://aavad.com/artistbibliog.cfm?id=1206| url-status = dead}}
{{Include-USGov|agency=Works Progress Administration}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lightfoot, Elba}}
Category:Artists from Evanston, Illinois
Category:Painters from New York City
Category:Artists from Manhattan
Category:Federal Art Project artists
Category:American women muralists
Category:20th-century African-American painters
Category:20th-century African-American women artists
Category:20th-century American women painters
Category:20th-century American painters