South Side, Chicago - Arts

Arts

Chicago's African American community, concentrated on the South Side, experienced an artistic movement following the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. From the 1930s until the 1950s, the movement was concentrated in and around the Hyde Park community area. Prominent writers and artists included Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor, Gordon Parks and Richard Wright.

South Shore Cultural Center

Other Chicago Black Renaissance artists included Willard Motley, William Attaway, Frank Marshall Davis and Margaret Walker. St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton represented the new wave of intellectual expression in literature by depicting the culture of the urban ghetto rather than the culture of blacks in the South in the monograph Black Metropolis. In 1961, Burroughs founded the DuSable Museum of African American History. By the late 1960s the South Side had a resurgent art movement led by Jim Nutt, Gladys Nilsson and Karl Wirsum, who became known as the Chicago Imagists.

Music in Chicago flourished, with musicians bringing blues and gospel influences up from Mississippi and stops along the way and creating a Chicago sound in blues and jazz. There was opportunity for independent companies because labels with studios in New York City or Los Angeles only kept regional distribution offices in Chicago. In 1948, Blues was introduced by Aristocrat Records (later Chess Records). Muddy Waters and Chess Records quickly followed with Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers and Howlin' Wolf.

Bronzeville Children's Museum

Vee-Jay, the largest black-owned label before Motown Records, was among the post-World War II companies that formed "Record Row" on Cottage Grove between 47th and 50th Streets. In the 1960s, it was located along South Michigan Avenue. Rhythm and blues continued to thrive after Record Row became the hub of gospelized rhythm and blues, known as soul. Chicago continues as a prominent musical city.

Many other artists have left their mark on Chicago's South Side. These include Upton Sinclair and James Farrell via fiction, Archibald Motley, Jr. via painting, Henry Moore and Lorado Taft via sculpture and Thomas Dorsey and Mahalia Jackson via gospel music. The South Side has numerous art museums and galleries such as the DuSable Museum of African American History, National Museum of Mexican Art, National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum, and the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art (known as the Smart Museum). In addition, cultural centers such as the South Shore Cultural Center, South Side Community Art Center, Harold Washington Cultural Center and Hyde Park Art Center bring art and culture to the public while fostering opportunities for artists. The Bronzeville Children's Museum is the only African American Children's museum in the U.S.