PM MAGAZINE
Volume 1, No. 10: June 1935
WPA Artist/Muralist Aaron Douglas

This volume measures 5.5 x 7.75 with 32 pages featuring a color cover illustration, full-page frontispiece and a two-page article on the noted African-American WPA Artist Aaron Douglas.

Contents:

• Frontispiece: Songs of the Forest & Idyll of the Deep South - Mural paintings by Aaron Douglas for the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library.
• Editorial Notes
• Color V. Color Printing Methods
• Printing at 42nd & 5th
• Aaron Douglas by Robert L. Leslie: 2-page article that includes reproductions of Jungle Dancers and Visions of Liberty.
• What is Diffraction
• Printing Education
• What is Diffraction
• Photo-Gelatin
• PM Shorts
• Photo-Gelatin
• Unmailed letters from a Prod. Mgr.
• Books Reviewed: Process of Graphic Reproduction in Printing by Harold Curwen
• Listing of Advertisements: Reliance Reproduction Co., Walker Engraving Corp., The Composing Room, Collotype Co., Frederick Photogelatine Press, Flower Electrotypes, Fotone Process and Weber - Johnson.

Painter and Muralist Aaron Douglas (1898 - 1979) received a B.A. in art from the University of Nebraska. He taught in Kansas City schools for several years and then began to study with Winold Reiss. The German illustrator encouraged him to look to African art for inspiration in his work. Douglas' use of African design and subject matter in his work brought him to the attention of William Edward Burghardt DuBois and Alain Locke who were pressing for young African-American artists to express their African heritage and African-American folk culture in their art. This was during the "Harlem Renaissance" or New Negro Movement, and Aaron Douglas became a leading visual artist during this time. In fact, he was called the "Dean of African-American painters" at a time when DuBois and others were trying desperately to convince painter Henry O. Tanner to return from Europe and establish a school of Negro painting.

Douglas' work was published regularly in The Crisis, Opportunity and Vanity Fair magazines. His most famous illustrations were for James Weldon Johnson's book of poetic sermons, God's Trombones . Alain Locke called him a "pioneering Africanist" and used his illustrations in his famous anthology, The New Negro, published in 1925 in which his classic essay "The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts" appeared.

In 1934, Douglas was commissioned, under the sponsorship of the WPA, to paint a series of murals for the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library. The library murals attempt to give a symbolic representation to certain aspects of Negro life. Aaron Douglas' style, flat with hard edges and repetitive designs, was heavily influenced by African sculptures, jazz music, dance and geometric forms. The panel shown, "Song of the Towers," depicts a figure fleeing from the hand of serfdom. It is symbolic of the migration of African peoples from the rural South and the Caribbean to the urban industrial centers of the North just after World War I. There is also a saxophonist standing on the wheel of life. The jazz musician in Douglas' work is symbolic of the creativity of the 1920s and the freedom it afforded the "New Negro."

Douglas joined the faculty of Fisk University in 1937 and stayed there until his retirement in 1966. His artistic insight is a lasting influence and a testament to the themes of African heritage and racial pride.

PM magazine was the leading voice of the U. S. Graphic Arts Industry from its inception in 1934 to its end in 1942 (then called AD). As a publication produced by and for professionals, it spotlighted cutting-edge production technology and the highest possible quality reproduction techniques (from engraving to plates). PM and A-D also championed the Modern movement by showcasing work from the vanguard of the European Avant-Garde well before this type of work was known to a wide audience.

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