MARIE JOHNSON CALLOWAY (1920 - 2018) Untitled

MARIE JOHNSON CALLOWAY (1920 - 2018)

Untitled (Abstracted Choir Singers) .

Mixed media on illustration board, circa 1965. 457x356 mm; 18x14 inches. Signed in pencil, lower left.Provenance: private collection, Florida.This is an fascinating early figurativework by Marie Johnson Calloway, the California artist and professor known for her use of collage and mixed-media in assemblages depicting everyday African Americans. Born and raised in Balitmore, she taught in public schools and earned a degree in art eduction from Morgan State College in 1952. Two years later Calloway moved to San Jose, California and earned a Master's Degree at San Jose State University, and a doctoral's equivalency from San Fransisco University. Active in the Civil Rights movement, Calloway became president of the San Jose chapter of the NCAAP, and was a participant in the historic 1965 march in Selma, Alabama. At this time, her work changed from abstraction to the figurative, and she began a body of work in collage, showing at the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles.