Palmer Hayden

"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."
- from "Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America" . The Studio Museum in Harlem. Abradale Press, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers.