Georgette Seabrooke
| Georgette Seabrooke | |
|---|---|
Seabrooke, 1939
|
|
| Born |
August 2, 1916 Charleston, South Carolina |
| Died | December 27, 2011 |
| Nationality | American |
| Notable work | Recreation in Harlem |
Georgette Seabrooke (aka Georgette Seabrooke Powell; August 2, 1916 – December 27, 2011), was an American muralist, artist, illustrator, art therapist, non-profit chief executive and educator. She is best known for her 1936 mural, Recreation in Harlem at Harlem Hospital in New York City, which was restored and put on public display in 2012 after being hidden from view for many years.
Early Life and Education
Seabrooke was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the only child of George and Anna Seabrooke, and grew up in the New York City neighborhood of Yorkville, Manhattan. George died when Georgette was a young child. Her mother was a domestic housekeeper, and Georgette worked with her while quite young, but she did well in school and graduated from Washington Irving High School. She also studied with James Lesesne Wells at the Harlem Art Workshop, and with Gwendolyn B. Bennett at the Harlem Community Art Center.
In 1933, at the age of 17, she was admitted to the prestigious Cooper Union School of Art in New York, where in 1935 she received the school's Silver Medal, its highest honor, for a painting entitled "Church Scene." Cooper Union denied Seabrooke her diploma in 1937 for what it said at the time was incomplete work, but six decades later, in 1997, it invited Seabrooke back to its campus to honor her achievements. In 2008 Cooper Union presented Seabrooke with a lifetime achievement award, and the school now considers her a member of its class of 1937.
Recreation in Harlem and the WPA
While studying at Cooper Union, Seabrooke was chosen by the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as one of four "master artists" to paint murals at Harlem Hospital. She was the youngest artist so chosen and the only female. The mural she painted, Recreation in Harlem, is nearly 20 feet long and depicts daily life in Harlem in the 1930s, including women chatting through a window and children performing in a choir. The hospital's management was not pleased with her depiction of an all-black Harlem community as they did not want to be known as a "Negro hospital." Seabrooke added eight white characters to the mural, but obscured their race in some cases and turned their face from the viewer in others. (This last piece of information is not verfied on the site and conflicts with information elsewhere). Seabrooke also received a WPA commission to paint a mural at Queens General Hospital, now known as Queens Hospital Center, in Jamaica, Queens, New York.
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