Humbert Howard (1905/15 - 1990)

Untitled Box, 1972, mixed media wood panels forming a box, signed and dated on one of the interior panels, 6 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches (closed), 6 1/2 x 12 3/8 inches (open)

$3250

This unique box comes from one of Humbert Howard's most productive and important periods, just a few short years after his time at the International Academy of Arts and Letters in Rome. Despite its unusual format (a box), the paintings on each panel depict classic Howard figures, quickly composed with little detail and bright, playful colors. Each interior and exterior panel depicts a single figure. Some are engaged in identifiable tasks, such as tending to a chicken, serving food and drinks, brushing one's hair, and jumping rope, while others are more ambiguous, even mysterious. We are left to wonder what the figures in the brown, blue and pink robes are doing or why the figure in yellow is bent at the waist. That the panels can be opened and closed, seen and obscured, and put into different relationships to one another or no relationship at all, adds to the mystery, and evokes consideration of what we show to the world and what we hide.

Humbert Howard was a Black American artist. Born in Philadelphia in 1905 (or 1915), he attended Howard University on an athletic scholarship, but turned his attention to art, studying under James A. Porter, before transferring his senior year to the University of Pennsylvania.  He later studied at the Barnes Foundation and at the International Academy of Arts and Letters in Rome, where he was awarded an honorary degree.

During the 1930's, Howard participated in the Federal Art Project of the Work Progress Administration, when one of his landscapes was selected for the 1939 New York World's Fair.  In 1940, Howard became the Chair of the annual art exhibitions of the Pyramid Club, a prominent African-American cultural center in Philadelphia. In this capacity, he conducted studio visits along the East Coast—primarily in Philadelphia and New York—and selected work for inclusion in the Club's shows. Although Howard consistently pursued a career as a professional painter, in 1941, he took a position at the US Post Office sorting mail to pay for his living expenses, as well as his studio and art supplies. In 1962, Howard became involved with the John A. Lee Memorial Adult Cultural Center, where he taught painting, and in 1967, his work was included in the exhibition, The Evolution of Afro-American Artists, organized by Romare Bearden and Carroll Greene, Jr., for the City College of New York. Howard retired from the US Post Office in 1979.

Howard was a member of the Artists Equity Association, the Peale Club, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Fine Arts.  He exhibited extensively, including at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Philadelphia Sketch Club, the Philadelphia Pyramid Club, Temple University, the Free Public Library of Philadelphia, Howard University, the William Penn Memorial Museum, and the International Academy of Arts and Letters, where he won a Silver Medal. Howard's works are in numerous public and private collections, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Delaware Art Museum, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and Howard University. He is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and all other standard references.