Wells’s Builders celebrates industrial labor and pays particular tribute to African American workers. Working in linocut, a medium for which an artist cuts into a soft linoleum sheet and can create curved and straight lines with equal ease, Wells made effective use of black ink with the white paper, a combination that here resonates with distinct racial implications. Rendered at heroic profile, the central and largest figure recalls the art of ancient Egypt, a frequent touchstone in painting, sculpture, and design in the 1920s. Wells made Builders in 1929, the year when he joined the faculty of Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he taught printmaking for the next forty years.
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Inscription: Inscribed (in pencil, lower left): Builders; signed and dated (lower right): James L Wells 29
the artist (1929–1988; sold on October 1, 1988 to Williams); Reba and Dave Williams, New York (1988–99; their gift to MMA)
Newark Museum, held jointly at the Equitable Gallery, New York. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," December 10, 1992–February 28, 1993, no. 91.
Long Beach Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," June 4–August 8, 1993, no. 91.
Cambridge, England. Fitzwilliam Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," October 5–December 19, 1993, no. 91.
Albany. New York State Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," January 5–March 13, 1994, no. 91.
New Haven. Yale University Art Gallery. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," April 7–June 12, 1994, no. 91.
Louisville. Speed Art Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," July 12–September 4, 1994, no. 91.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," October 9–December 4, 1994, no. 91.
Baltimore Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," January 4–February 26, 1995, no. 91.
Charleston. Gibbes Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," March 26–May 21, 1995, no. 91.
Miami Beach. Bass Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," June 18–August 13, 1995, no. 91.
Little Rock. Arkansas Arts Center. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," September 10–November 5, 1995, no. 91.
Mobile, Ala. Fine Arts Museum of the South. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," December 3, 1995–January 28, 1996, no. 91.
Brooklyn Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," February 25–April 22, 1996, no. 91.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," May 17–July 14, 1996, no. 91.
Dallas Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," August 9–October 6, 1996, no. 91.
Saint Louis Art Museum. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," November 1, 1996–January 2, 1997, no. 91.
Atlanta. High Museum of Art. "Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s–1940s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams," January 31–March 30, 1997, no. 91.
Hamilton, N. Y. Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University. "Life Impressions: 20th-Century African American Prints from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 10–November 4, 2001, no. 33.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "African-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," January 15–May 4, 2003, extended to July 6, 2003, no. 31.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Thomas Hart Benton’s 'America Today' Mural Rediscovered," September 30, 2014–April 19, 2015, no catalogue (see MMA Bulletin 72, Winter 2015).
Alain Locke. Contemporary Negro Art. Exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore, 1939, unpaginated, no. 107 (unknown edition, lent by Alain Locke).
Gail Gelburd. A Blossoming of New Promises: Art in the Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance. Exh. cat., Hofstra University, Emily Lowe Gallery. Hempstead, N. Y., 1984, unpaginated, no. 51, ill. (unknown edition).
Richard J. Powell and Jock Reynolds. James Lesesne Wells: Sixty Years in Art. Exh. cat., Washington Project for the Arts. Washington, D.C., 1986, p. 55, no. 13, ill. p. iii (unknown edition; collection of the artist).
Mary Ann Calo inLife Impressions: 20th-Century African American Prints from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Dewey F. Mosby. Exh. cat., Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University. Hamilton, N. Y., 2001, pp. 10, 13.
Dewey F. Mosby and Jane Seney inLife Impressions: 20th-Century African American Prints from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Dewey F. Mosby. Exh. cat., Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University. Hamilton, N. Y., 2001, pp. 39, 41, 69, no. 33, fig. 18.
Lisa Gail Collins inAfrican-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2003, pp. 62, 66, no. 31, ill.
Lisa Mintz Messinger inAfrican-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2003, p. 59.
James Lesesne Wells (American, Atlanta, Georgia 1902–1993 Washington, D.C.)
ca. 1949
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