WINSTON-SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA.-A new exhibition, Paper, Leather, Wood: Materials and African American Art of the Twentieth Century, opened at Reynolda House Museum of American Art. Allison Slaby, new assistant curator at Reynolda House, has curated this exhibition of African American masterworks which will inaugurate the new Works on Paper Gallery in the historic house.

African American artists of the twentieth century have frequently explored the potential of materials as both subject and medium. Jacob Lawrence, for example, believed that an engagement with craft and work ennobled people. In his image of builders, the rhythmic arrangement of tools at the top of the picture plane lends the painting an optimistic liveliness. In contrast, Betye Saar’s handkerchief-collage of found objects and images looks to the past, calling to mind the domestic quilting and scrapbook traditions of earlier generations of women. In Romare Bearden’s brightly-colored assemblages, the artist draws attention to his modest materials—paper, glue, and wood—by allowing the edges of the paper to show through the design. The tabletops Horace Pippin scavenged from antique stores to serve as panels for his paintings and the used shoe leather Lloyd Toone collects to fashion his sculptures share a kind of junk-into-art aesthetic that illustrates the resourcefulness of many of these artists. Lorna Simpson’s small, exquisitely crafted sculptural objects communicate complex ideas about black culture and identity. Perhaps more than any other artist in the exhibition, Martin Puryear places himself in the artisanal tradition of stonemasons, carpenters, and printers. Although Puryear is primarily a sculptor, his woodblock prints demonstrate a strong interest in working with natural materials and age-old tools. As Puryear says, “Craft means thinking with (not just about) material.