Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901), African-American painter of landscapes and pastoral subjects
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/edward-mitchell-bannister-226
Scene along the Connecticut River, Westmoreland / c.1870 / Oil on canvas / 30”x20”
Harriet Powers (1837-1910), African-American folk artist and quilt maker
https://www.civilwarwomenblog.com/harriet-powers/
Jascha Heifetz and Fritz Kreisler were both born on Feb. 2 — Kreisler in 1875 and Heifetz in 1901. But the two men share more than just a birthday. Music commentator Miles Hoffman joins Renee Montagne to discuss the two famous fiddlers and how they each set new standards for the art of playing the violin.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7121113
Loren MacIver
(1909–1998)
Loren MacIver …was essentially a self-taught painter, having attended classes at the Art Students League only briefly at ages ten and eleven. Her work was included in group shows at New York’s Contemporary Arts Gallery in 1933 and 1942…The Museum of Modern Art acquired one of her works in 1935, well before her first one-person exhibition in 1938 at Marian Willard’s East River Gallery. From 1936 to 1939 she worked on the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration.
http://www.phillipscollection.org/research/american_art/bios/maciver-bio.htm
Tracking Loren MacIver~ http://brooklynrail.org/2008/03/artseen/tracking
Collection at The Met~ http://metmuseum.org/art/collection/search#!/search?artist=MacIver,%20Loren$Loren%20MacIver
Robert S. Duncanson (1821-1872), Nineteenth century African-American painter
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/exhibit/NQJyYinFqXw_Lw
Landscape with Rainbow / 1859 / Oil on canvas / 30”x52 1/4”
James Presley “JP” Ball (1825-1904)
African-American photographer, abolitionist, and entrepreneur
https://danishimmigrants.weebly.com/montana.html
February 1, 1964 was the day that a Beatles song hit Number One for the first time in the USA. The song was “I Want To Hold Your Hand”. The Beatles flew into JFK on February 7 and made their first appearance on Ed Sullivan two days later. And we all had a gear time!
https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/beatles
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-beatles-songs-20110919/i-want-to-hold-your-hand-19691231
Prince Demah (c.1745 – March 1778)
African-American painter active in Boston in the late 1700s
https://outofthearchives.org/2015/01/10/prince-demah-portrait-painter
Portrait of William Duguid / 1773 / Oil on canvas / 20 3/4”x15 3/4”x1 1/8”
Joshua Johnson (c.1763-c.1824)
Biracial American painter
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/joshua-johnson-2479
Mrs. Abraham White, Jr., and Daughter Rose / 1808-09 / Oil on canvas / 30”x25 1/2”
[Betty] Parsons’s role as a leading promoter of abstract art is well known. Less well known is that she was an artist.
“Betty led a double life,” a nephew, William P. Rayner, said. “Being an artist was her first priority. That’s why she was such a good dealer and that’s why her artists liked her.”
FROM http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/28/nyregion/betty-parsons-s-2-lives-she-was-artist-too.html?pagewanted=allOnce referred to as “the den mother of Abstract Expressionism,” Betty Parsons was an early advocate of the great Abstract Expressionists, including Pollock,
Rothko, Reinhardt, Still and Newman, long before they all achieved notoriety. Her midtown gallery, which opened in 1946 (and closed every summer so that Parsons could focus on her own art), gave the Abstract Expresionist artists their first large-scale exposure, making it one of the most
prestigious art galleries in New York.
FROM http://www.theartstory.org/gallery-betty-parsons.htm“I’ve learned a great deal about business, but I wasn’t a businesswoman,” Betty Parsons told Grace Lichtenstein in a profile that originally ran in the March 1979 issue of ARTnews, published just three years before Parsons’s death, in 1982.
FROM http://www.artnews.com/2017/06/16/from-the-archives-betty-parsons-gallerist-turned-artist-takes-the-spotlight-in-1979/Throughout her storied career as a gallerist, she maintained a rigorous artistic
practice, painting during weekends in her Long Island studio. Parsons’ eye for innovative talent stemmed from her own training as an artist and guided her commitment to new and emerging artists of her time, impacting the canon of Twentieth-Century art in the United States. Includes slideshow and biography~
FROM http://www.alexandergray.com/artists/betty-parsons?view=slider#2
LIFE With Jackie Robinson: Rare and Classic Photos of an American Icon
When Jack Roosevelt Robinson stepped onto Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, he not only changed the face of professional baseball in America. In ways subtle and profound — ways that have been debated, dissected and celebrated in books, films, popular songs, academic circles and casual conversations in the long decades since — he changed the nation itself.
Here, LIFE.com offers a selection of both classic and, in some cases, rare pictures that paint a portrait of a man whose dignity, competitive fire and grace under pressure set him indelibly and inevitably apart from his peers and his rivals.
http://time.com/3813840/life-with-jackie-robinson-rare-and-classic-photos-of-an-american-icon/
The Misty Miss Christy 