Reframing Illustration

Due to biases and lacunae in the discipline of art history, the importance of illustrating to the work of artists of color, particularly African American artists, has been understudied. Consequently, we will only change existing art-historical narratives by more fully incorporating material like illustrations into our broader histories of art. Illustrating was a crucial outlet for many artists: it provided a source of income when other means of financial support were limited, and offered a way to communicate important stories in the face of modernism’s general dismissal of narrative. The continuing lack of robust attention to practices like illustration, still often framed as a mere prelude or addendum to an artist’s oeuvre, deprives us of a richer sense of the contributions of artists of color to the history of art.