(1890-1973)
Palmer
Hayden, a name given to the World War I veteran by his White commanding
sergeant who could not pronounce his real name (Peyton Hedgeman), was born
in Wide Water, Virginia. He is often referred to as a self-trained artist.
However, the record reveals he was a student at Cooper Union in New York
and pursued independent studies at Boothbay Art Colony in Maine. He studied
and pained independently in France, where he lived from 1927 to 1932. Hayden's
reputation emanates from his realistic depictions of folklore and Black
historical events. He, like Douglas, was also among the first Black American
artists to use African subjects and designs in his painting (which helped,
in fact, to distinguish between ethnic stylistic differences in the art
of Black Africa). His Fetiche et Fleurs, a composition of 1926, highlights
a Fang mask from Gabon and Bakuba raffia cloth from the Congo (now Zaire),
which have been placed in a traditional still-life setting. Locke praised
the artist for his modernist approach to painting. But Hayden was not a
modernist in his stylistic approach. Instead, he broke with tradition by
depicting African art in his paintings."