From Emperors to Hoi Polloi: Portraits of an Era, 1851–1945

Drawing, A College Lad [Harold Jackman], 1924   
Winold Reiss (American, b. Germany, 1886–1953)
New York
Pastel, Conté crayon on paper
Credit: The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection, The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, Miami Beach
XX1990.4474
Photo: Silvia Ros

In 1924 when Harold Jackman (American, b. England, 1901–61) sat for the German émigré artist, Winold Reiss, he had just received his bachelor of arts degree from New York University and would soon go on to earn a master's degree from Columbia University. This talented and ambitious "college lad" represented what the scholar W.E.B. Dubois called the "talented tenth," percentage of African Americans that Dubois believed could disprove the idea of black inferiority and thus elevate blacks socially, politically, and economically. Jackman embodied Dubois's elitist label. He circulated among the upper echelon of Harlem society with poets such as Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, pursuing a career as an educator while continuing to be an active member of the arts community, which included occasionally directing stage productions.

This beautifully rendered portrait appeared in Alaine Locke's publication Survey Graphic in a volume entitled Harlem Mecca of the New Negro. Reiss was commissioned by Locke to portray "Harlem types," including blacks of all social strata. Contrary to the caricatured portrayals of blacks in the media at the time, Locke praised Reiss as "a folk-lorist of the brush and palette, seeking always the folk character back of the individual, the psychology behind the physiognomy."

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