Palmer C. Hayden (2)

I first published on artist Palmer C. Hayden four years ago (here), before I learned about the collection at the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles.

Disambiguation: not the California African American Museum in Exposition Park. The Museum of African American Art operates on a nano-budget in a Macy’s department store in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza.

The artist’s widow, Miriam, bequeathed 40 Haydens, several iconic (Below, Midsummer Night in Harlem, 1938, and His Hammer in his Hand,1944-7.)

That was a vote of confidence to an institution founded in 1976 and so-far dependent on a retailer’s largesse. It must have also been a reflection on the disinterest of larger museums in art by blacks.

For the most part MAAA shows local artists. Its Haydens deserve to be better known.