Modernism, Transnational networks and Pan-Africanist Thought in Early Twentieth Century African American Art

This essay seeks to establish the critical importance of transnational networks within the African Diaspora during the interwar period and their contribution to the complex history of Modernism. It focuses on some of the developments in early -20th-century African American art that hinge on the encounters with several political and cultural groups of the African Diaspora in France and Europe during that time. The end of World War I, the spread of France’s colonial empire, along with its historical reputation as a land of human rights brought different groups of the African Diaspora to the metropole during the interwar period. Their meeting fostered the creation of early Pan-Africanist networks that proved critical to the development of a transnational, multilocated modernism.