Negro Drawings

Miguel Covarrubias is best remembered as a celebrity caricaturist. He came to the United States from Mexico at the age of nineteen and was an immediate sensation. Soon after his arrival in New York in 1923, Covarrubias through Carl Van Vechten, became involved with the writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance, both personally and professionally. He illustrated The Weary Blues for Langston Hughes, who declared that Covarrubias was "the only artist I know whose Negro things have a 'Blues touch about them.' " In 1927 Covarrubias published Negro Drawings, which drew on his observations of Harlem and its residents. The book contained a number of images the artist termed "type sketches" of African Americans of the jazz age. Although exaggeration of form and behavior is one of the hallmarks of caricature, these images seem to be also about dance and movement as racial behaviors. Critics of the time celebrated the images for being free of caricature, despite some obvious references to ideas of black rhythm. Covarrubias himself declared, "I don't consider my drawings caricatures. They are - well - they are drawings. A caricature is the exaggerated character of an individual for satirical purpose. These drawings are more from a serious point of view." - From Enter the New Negroes: Images of Race in American Culture by Martha Jane NadellThe reprint of this book consists of fifty-six full-page plates divided into four sections: Varia, The Theatre, The Cabarets, Three Cuban Women. It maintains the exact formatting and text of the original.