Gwendolyn Bennett
Gwendolyn Bennett was a notable African American artist and poet, recognized for her contributions during the Harlem Renaissance. Born to Joshua and Maime Bennett, she experienced a tumultuous childhood that included a parental divorce and a kidnapping by her father. After completing her education at Pratt Institute in 1924, she began teaching art at Howard University, where she eventually reunited with her mother. Bennett's artistic journey included studying in Paris and contributing to significant literary and artistic publications of her time, such as Crisis and Opportunity, where her poetry and artwork gained prominence.
Her work often reflected themes of pride in her Black identity, and she published over twenty poems in various African American periodicals. Notable pieces include "Hatred," "Heritage," and "To a Dark Girl." Despite facing personal challenges, including the loss of her artwork in a fire and the death of her first husband, Bennett continued to impact the arts through her roles in journalism and community arts organizations. Later in life, she transitioned to a more domestic role but remained influential through her earlier artistic achievements. Today, she is chiefly remembered for her poetry, underscoring her lasting legacy in African American literature and art.
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Subject Terms
Gwendolyn Bennett
- Born: July 8, 1902
- Birthplace: Giddings, Texas
- Died: May 30, 1981
- Place of death: Kutztown, Pennsylvania
Biography
Gwendolyn Bennett was the only child of Joshua and Maime Bennett. Her parents moved to Nevada and taught on a Native American reservation prior to the family’s relocation to Washington, D.C., and the Bennetts’ subsequent divorce. Although Maime Bennett was awarded custody of young Gwendolyn, her father kidnapped her when she was seven years old. After graduating from Girls’ High School in Brooklyn in 1921, Bennett attended Columbia University and then transferred to Pratt Institute where she received a B.A. in 1924. After graduating from college, Bennett taught art at Howard University. During Bennett’s tenure at Howard, she was reunited with her mother. She studied in Paris at the Julian and Colarossi academies as well as the École du Pantheon in 1925 before returning to Howard in 1927.
Bennett was an accomplished artist. However, in 1927, a fire at her stepmother’s home destroyed most of her paintings. In 1927, Bennett was one of two African American artists selected to study the Barnes Foundation collection of modern and primitive art. In 1928, Bennett married Dr. Alfred Jackson, a Morehouse College graduate and an intern at Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, and consequently Bennett resigned from Howard. The couple lived in Eustis, Florida, before they eventually moved to Hempstead, New York; Jackson died in 1936, and four years later, Bennett married Richard Crosscup, who was white, a graduate of Harvard University, and an English teacher.
From 1932 to 1960, Bennett held a variety of jobs. She was a journalist with the Welfare Council of New York’s Department of Information and Education, and her feature articles appeared in newspapers including the Amsterdam News and the Baltimore Afro-American. Bennett then worked at the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts Project as director of the Harlem Community Arts Center prior to accepting a position with the Consumers Union in Mount Vernon, New York, where Bennett’s fellow Harlem Renaissance contemporary Helene Johnson was employed. When Bennett retired, she moved with her husband to Kutztown, Pennsylvania, where Bennett was a housewife and an antiques dealer.
During the Harlem Renaissance, Bennett illustrated the December, 1923, and March, 1924, covers of Crisis magazine, contributed artwork to other journals, wrote a number of articles about African American art, wrote “The Ebony Flute” column for Opportunity from August, 1926, to May, 1928, served as an assistant editor of Opportunity, wrote several short stories, and created verse. As early as 1923, Bennett’s poetry began appearing in print, and by 1931, at least twenty-two of her poems appeared in African American periodicals such as Crisis and Opportunity. Her verse was included in such anthologies as The New Negro (1925), edited by Alain Locke; Caroling Dusk (1927), edited by Countee Cullen; Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1927, edited by William Stanley Braithwaithe; and The Book of American Negro Poetry (1931), edited by James Weldon Johnson.
Among Bennett’s poems are “Hatred,” “Heritage,” “To Usward,” a commemorative work in honor of the publication of Jessie Fauset’s novel There Is Confusion (1924); “To a Dark Girl,” and “Lines Written at the Grave of Alexander Dumas”; these poems announce one of Bennett’s major themes in her verse—pride in her identity as a black person. Although Bennett was an accomplished visual artist, she is primarily remembered today for her poetry.