Aaron Douglas

"We can go to African life and get a certain amount of form and color, understanding and using this knowledge in development of an expression that interprets our life."

"Your problem dear Langston, my problem, no our problem is to conceive, develop, establish an art era. Not white art painted black."

"Let's bare our arms and plunge them deep through laughter, through pain, through sorrow, through hope, through disappointment, into the very depths of the souls of our people and drag forth material crude, rough, neglected. Then let's sing it, dance it, write it, paint it. Let's do the impossible. Let's create something transcendentally material, mystically objective. Earthy. Spiritually earthy. Dynamic."

"What the Negro artist should paint and how he should paint it can't accurately be determined without reference to specific social conditions . . . Our chief concern has been to establish and maintain recognition of our essential humanity, in other words, complete social and political equality. This has been a difficult fight as we have been the constant object of attack by all manner of propaganda from nursery rhythms to false scientific racial theories. In this struggle the rest of the proletariat almost invariably has been arrayed against us. But the Negro artist, unlike the white artist, has never known the big house. He is essentially a product of the masses and can never take a position above or beyond their level. This simple fact is often overlooked by the Negro artist and almost always by those who in the past have offered what they sincerely considered to be help and friendship."

"No one knows better than a Negro the real power of a smile"

"I have no objection to a pretty face else how could I love you as I do. But I do object to people holding up pretty faces as the acme of beauty, then saying that the business of art is to depict beauty. It is revolting."