Joseph, Cliff

JOSEPH, CLIFF (1922-2020). An artist and art therapist, Joseph Cliff was a consummate activist throughout his long life. He was both a precursor and participant in the Black Arts Movement that highlighted the political militancy of the Black Power Movement of the late 1960s and early and mid 1970s. His work, with those of scores of other African American artists, was memorialized in the iconic exhibition “Soul of a Nation.” That exhibition, originating at the Tate Modern in London in 2017, toured the United States in 2017-2018 and was a transformative contribution to American art and cultural history.

Born in Panama, Joseph emigrated with his parents as an infant and settled in Harlem. After military service in World War II, he received his art training at the Pratt Institute and graduated with a BFA in illustration. An early leader in art therapy, he was among the first African Americans in the field. In that work, he recognized the linkage between individual and group therapy and social justice and multicultural concerns. He added the crucial dimension of systemic change and political focus in his focus on art therapy.

Joseph was not as widely known as many of his contemporaries, but he created a remarkable body of politically-conscious artworks. He was already producing art, but when he heard Dr Martin Luther King at the historic 1963 March on Washington, he felt transformed. Topical and socially-conscious art became his chief focus. He determined to express his commitment to Black pride and to opposing multiple forms of injustice through his visual work.

For several decades, he focused on attacking racism, sexism, and war. This perspective placed him both within the broad tradition of American radical political artists as well as African American artists for whom critical antiracist and triumphant pro-Black commentary was a paramount priority. Like such celebrated visual contemporaries as Jacob Lawrence, Charles White, Elizabeth Catlett, and others, Cliff Joseph stands at the pinnacle of this engaged visual tradition.

Joseph’s paintings against lynching, his posters advancing the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), his visual treatment of topical issues like the revolt at Attica Prison, his opposition to the Vietnam War, and the struggle against South African apartheid all reflect his deepest artistic values. His most iconic painting is his 1972 “Blackboard,” which provides an alternative Black Power education, especially for young people. Ranging from A to Z, the blackboard highlights such names and concepts as Community Control, Du Bois, Evers, Lumumba, Power to the People, Quality Education, Sojourner Truth, Toussaint L’Ouverture, and many others.

Cliff Joseph also took his artistic activism to the streets. He co-founded in 1968 the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC), which included many other notable Black artists. Its goal was to call attention––and rectify––the lack of representation of Black artists in New York museums and galleries.
In 1969, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened the show “Harlem on My Mind.” It supposedly documented the history and culture of Harlem, but included no paintings and sculptures by Black artists. Joseph and other activists formed picket lines reading “Harlem on Whose Mind?” The protest was successful; the museum issued a formal apology.

In 1971, the Whitney Museum of Art exhibited “Contemporary Black Artists in America.” Joseph and other protestors criticized the selection of a white curator. Fifteen Black artists withdrew from the show and BECC organized a rebuttal exhibition. They held “Rebuttal to Whitney Museum” at the Black-owned Acts of Art Gallery in Manhattan, but the Whitney refused to postpone its own exhibition.

Cliff Joseph died at age ninety-eight. His life was extremely well lived––one of immense artistic creativity and engaged public activism.

Godfrey, Mark, and Zoé Whitley, editors. Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power. London: Tate Publishing, 2017.

Leverett, Tru, editor. With Fists Raised: Radical Art. Contemporary Activism, and the Iconoclasm of the Black Arts Movement. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2021.

Lewis, Samella. African American Art and Artists. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003.

Lewis, Samella, and Ruth Waddy, editors. Black Artists on Art, Volume 1. Pittsburgh: Contemporary Crafts, 1969.