Mixed Media - The Visual Cultures of Racial Integration

Mixed Media investigates Black and white artists' efforts toward racial integration, from the infamous 1931 Scottsboro Boys trial until Brown v. Board's 1954 desegregation of public schools. Each chapter attends to a distinctive visual ecology fostered by institutions and individuals committed to desegregation to varying degrees, including the nationwide public art initiatives of the New Deal, the imagery and cultural programs of the multiracial Popular Front, graphics produced for CIO-member labor unions, Jacob Lawrence's war paintings and other visual propaganda of the armed forces, and the struggle of New York abstract painters of African descent to navigate the criticism, museums, and markets of the mainstream art world. Together, they explore the divergent approaches to conceptualizing and implementing racial integration along the liberal-radical axis.

About the author

John Ott is author of Manufacturing the Modern Patron in Victorian California and coauthor of Muybridge and Mobility.

Product details

• Authors: John Ott, Ott John
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 16.01.2026
• EAN: 9780520417588
• ISBN: 978-0-520-41758-8
• No. of pages: 328
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Art history; DESIGN / Graphic Arts / General, ART / History / General, ART / American / General, History of art / art & design styles, History of Art, Art treatments & subjects, Public Art, United States of America, USA, Ethnic groups and multicultural studies, Other graphic art forms, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Race & Ethnic Relations, Other graphic or visual art forms, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Biracial & Multiracial Studies