ABSTRACT
The genesis of a modern market for African American artists starts overseas with Henry Ossawa Tanner in Paris and his influential example. African American owned galleries began to appear—with the first forays into the commercial market led by art administrators. Augusta Savage had been the first director of the Harlem Community Art Center before she opened what many historians consider the first African American owned-art gallery in June 1939. Norman Lewis worked primarily as an art teacher—from the Harlem Community Art Center and Jefferson School of the 1940s to his tenure at the Artists Students League in the 1970s. The rise of the abstract painter Norman Lewis in the New York School is another landmark in the incorporation of African American artists in the art market, just as the rise of the New York School marked the international ascension of American Art.
