20 Facts About Hale Woodruff

Hale Aspacio Woodruff was an American artist known for his murals, paintings, and prints.

Hale Woodruff grew up in a black family in Nashville, Tennessee, where he attended the local segregated schools.

Hale Woodruff studied at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, Art Institute of Chicago, and the Harvard Fogg Art Museum.

Hale Woodruff learned in the city's museums as well, while getting to know other expatriates, including Henry Ossawa Tanner, the leading African-American artist.

Hale Woodruff met leading figures of the French avant-garde and began collecting African art, which was a source of inspiration for many other modernists, including Pablo Picasso.

Hale Woodruff returned to the US in 1931 and married Theresa Ada Baker that year.

Hale Woodruff reluctantly returned to the US due to financial strains from the Great Depression.

Hale Woodruff worked as an art teacher to support himself.

Hale Woodruff taught classes at the university's Laboratory High School, as well as for students at Morehouse and Spelman, a related college for black women.

Hale Woodruff founded the annual competition, Atlanta University Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture, and Prints by Negro Artists, which featured many African-American artists.

In 1936 Hale Woodruff went to Mexico to study as an apprentice under the famed muralist Diego Rivera, learning his fresco technique and becoming interested in portrayal of figures.

Hale Woodruff began traveling to Talladega College in Alabama to teach and work on a commission for a series of murals.

Hale Woodruff was inspired by the racism and poverty African Americans in the South faced during the Great Depression.

The library has another series of three Hale Woodruff murals exploring events related to the black college's role in African-American history, including freedmen enrolling after the American Civil War and the construction of campus buildings.

Hale Woodruff painted two other surviving murals, though these were not frescoes but oil on canvas of monumental size.

In 1942, even with World War II raging, Hale Woodruff initiated the Atlanta University Art Annuals, an exhibit and competition that was conducted until 1970.

In 1946, Hale Woodruff joined the faculty at New York University in Manhattan.

Hale Woodruff taught there for more than 20 years before retiring in 1968.

Hale Woodruff died in New York City on September 6,1980.

In 2012 the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia organized an exhibition of Hale Woodruff's murals created for Talladega College.