Eldzier cortor biography sample

Eldzier Cortor was an African-American artist and printmaker. His work typically features elongated nude figures in intimate settings, influenced by both traditional African art and European surrealism.

Early life

Cortor was born in Richmond, Virginia, to John and Ophelia Cortor.

His family moved to Chicago when Cortor was about a year old, eventually settling in that city’s South Side, where Cortor attended Englewood High School.

Eldzier cortor biography sample pdf

Fellow students at Englewood included the African-American artists Charles Wilbert White and Margaret Burroughs. Cortor attended the Art Institute of Chicago, along with artist Gus Nall, gaining a degree in 1936. In 1940 he worked with the Works Progress Administration (WPA), where he drew scenes of Depression-era Bronzeville, a neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.

In 1949, he studied in Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti on a Guggenheim Fellowship, and taught at the Centre d’Art in Port-au-Prince from 1949 to 1951.

Growing up, he was an avid r