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| Vol. 18, No. 16 | Jan. 7, 1999 |
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| Vol. 18, No. 16 | Jan. 7, 1999 |
Marilyn A. Bauman and Edward L. Loper Sr.
Published by Duncan & Duncan Inc., the book will be available in local bookstores next month.
Bauman, the director of the Delaware Institute for the Arts in Education, which is affiliated with UD, is herself a respected artist and has studied with Loper for more than 30 years.
Setting out to write a biography of Loper, Bauman instead has written a book that shows the influence of a teacher on his student while also chronicling the parallels in their respective artistic paths.
In her introduction, Bauman calls Loper the man who "transformed my life by teaching me a new way of seeing."
"Because I wanted the world to know him the way I did," she writes, it was impossible for her to construct an objective narrative biography.
Bauman, who has previously published articles about Loper in local media, was inspired to write the book after attending "Edward L. Loper Sr.: From the Prism's Edge," a retrospective exhibition celebrating Loper's 60 years of painting. The exhibit was held at the Delaware Art Museum in 1996 just prior to Loper's 80th birthday.
"[This] self-taught African-American artist...grew up in the segregated and racially intolerant atmosphere of Wilmington, Del., in the 1920s and 1930s and gave visual meaning to the world he knew (city streets, tenements, railroad trestles and the surrounding marshes, coal yards and pool rooms)," Bauman writes. "He is also the first African-American to have a painting accepted to a juried show at the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts."
During interviews with Loper, several conducted with James E. Newton of UD's Black American Studies Program, Bauman writes that she "traveled through the events of Ed's life-from the all-black Howard High School basketball and football games to the menial jobs he worked to survive during the Depression; from his stepfather's preaching to his young wife's tragic death; from his employment with the Works Progress Administration to his study of art appreciation at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pa."
A high school athlete, Loper told people from a young age that he planned to be an artist some day. Upon graduation from Howard High School, he turned down a sports scholarship to Lincoln University because he and his first love, Vi, already had three young children to support.
Working odd jobs during the Depression, Loper told Bauman he felt headed down a slippery slope of gambling and working as a con artist when his luck took a 360-degree turn.
Desperate for financial help, Vi went to City Hall to apply for relief and happened to overhear someone say the Delaware Division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was hiring artists. She got the name of the contact person, Loper went for an interview and he was hired for the Index of American Design program-a federally funded work program to record American objects in decorative arts.
Painting exact copies of these art objects on paper-recording every scratch, discoloration or dent- challenged Loper and he felt proud to hold his own with the artists in his group. He wasn't, however, allowed to join their parties, held in Wilmington restaurants that did not admit blacks.
Loper began to paint on his own in the afternoons after his WPA job was finished for the day. In 1937, he sent a painting to the Wilmington Society of Fine Arts for its 24th annual Delaware Show. A jury of three eminent American artists, who were not from the area and did not consider Loper's race, awarded him an honorable mention, purchased the painting for the permanent collection and admitted two more of his paintings to the exhibition.
When Loper attended the opening exhibition in his work clothes (all he owned at the time), the tuxedo and evening gown clad crowd shunned him-many refusing to shake his hand. But, his personal hurt was overshadowed by the fact that he had broken the color barrier in the then highly restricted Wilmington Society of Fine Arts.
Bauman writes that neighbors from far and wide came to Loper's home to view the $100 bill he was awarded as a prize and that, as talk of his fame and "fortune" spread, his children's school did not allow them to participate in the free milk program any more.
Loper's life was to be forever changed by the winning of the prize, and soon important African-American intellectuals of the day- such as Alain Leroy Locke, the first black Rhodes Scholar, and Aaron Douglas, the first president of the Harlem Artists Guild-began to court the fledgling artist.
Locally, Loper yearned to visit the Parkway Theatre on Delaware Avenue in Wilmington, where N.C. Wyeth was known to be painting. Once again, the color barrier prohibited Loper from entering the place, but eventually a mutual friend arranged for the two to meet.
By 1939, Loper's talents had been noticed by the WPA and he was moved to the Easel Project. This meant he was free to paint his own subjects every day, turning out at least one painting for the WPA every couple of weeks.
By 1941, Loper had received national recognition, and prominent art galleries in Philadelphia asked to represent him. In his first solo exhibition in that city, he sold 35 paintings on the first day.
In the '50s and '60s, Loper traveled to expand his painting vistas and found a sort of second home and a haven from racism in French-speaking Quebec. He also was taking in many students and his personal style had emerged.
"I no longer painted black, but the different colors black was made of," he explains in the book.
He sought help at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pa., when he realized he needed formal art training to communicate with his students. The classes he took there broadened his knowledge of art and gave him new terms to use in discussions with students. They also increased his ability to evaluate art.
Local art critics sometimes did not respond well to his work, and rumor had it that his students were all painting alike.
Again, he turned to his mentors at the Barnes Foundation. He took examples of his students' work to the foundation and had them evaluated. The outcome was a consensus that Loper and his students had "started a new tradition," no small feat in the world of art.
Bauman describes the Loper tradition as taking "the 20th century's fascination with non-objective abstraction...combined with the visual qualities of very ordinary things, places and people; massiveness, boldness, drama and power."
While much of the book is devoted to explaining Loper's artistic style and his striving for meaningful use of color, Bauman writes extensively about his demanding teaching style and the magnetism that kept pulling students back to him even though many would leave his studio in tears.
Chapters dealing with Loper's personal life explore his upbringing, the influence of religion, his high school athletic career and the women in his life.
A book signing will be scheduled at the University Bookstore during the spring semester, and Bauman also will be having signings at locations throughout the state.
-Beth Thomas
Photo by Jim Graham
About the institute
Various departments work with the Delaware Institute for the Arts in Education (DIAE). Modeled after the Lincoln Center Institute, DIAE takes music, dance, drama and the visual arts into the state's public and private schools.
Through study in a summer institute and follow-up school-year experiences with program-provided teaching artists, classroom teachers across the state acquire the conceptual background, which prepares them to integrate the arts into the school curriculum. During the school year, the teaching artists visit classrooms, providing enriching experiences for both teachers and students.
For more information on DIAE, contact Bauman at (302) 425-4595.
