Herman Bailey

Herman "Kofi" Bailey (also known as Kofi X) (1931–1981) was an African-American artist. He was best known for his conté and charcoal drawings reflecting of the African-American experience.

Personal life

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Bailey grew up in Los Angeles, California. He received his education from Alabama State College and then attended Howard University where he studied under Alain Locke, Sterling Brown and James A. Porter. At Alabama he received commissions for large paintings and murals as a student. He was described as a "black bohemian" at the time, often seen wearing a beret, talking jive, carrying a bottle "in one pocket" and talking about music and art. Herman "Kofi" Bailey died in 1981 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Professional career

halign = left Kofi Bailey's art revealed the historical antecedents of black freedom struggles and emphasized the people-centered force of the black political and cultural movements of that period. While living in Ghana he served as an art teacher and the artist-in-residence to Nkrumah until the leader was deposed in 1966. After the Six-Day War, which Israel won, SNCC launched an anti-Zionist campaign featuring anti-Semitic images. Bailey created an illustration featuring an Israeli firing squad shooting a group of Arabs with a caption reading: "This is the Gaza Strip, Palestine, not Dachau, Germany". While some SNCC officers distanced themselves from the article and image, SNCC's pro-Palestinian stand cut support from many Jewish organizations.

Bailey continued to create at times controversial comics for SNCC including depictions of Moshe Dayan, generally believed to be stereotyping of Jewish financial dominance and by others as showing the financial dependencies between the US and Israeli military's. The Palestine Problem, another comic by Bailey during this time, connects United States racial violence, military imperialism in Vietnam and the Arab world, and the Afro-Arab freedom struggle.

Reception

James Early cites Kofi's work as a major influence, describing the illustrations by Bailey as "among the great, energizing artistic expressions created in the crucible of social justice activism and organizing that was Atlanta in the 1960s." Artist and art historian Floyd Coleman described Bailey as a rule breaker: "Although he didn't follow the rules he was committed to the struggle of African Americans and set a standard in his work that many of us tried to emulate." National Museum of African American History and Culture National Civil Rights Museum Spelman College University Museums at the University of Delaware

Notable exhibitions Black Power/Black Art: and the struggle continues: Political Imagery from the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, 1994, San Francisco State University, San Francisco African American Art in Atlanta: Public and Corporate Collections, 1984, High Museum of Art, Atlanta TCB, 1971, National Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston