Street Scene with Family

Artist Raymond Howell (1927 - 2002)

Datec. 1960

MediumAcrylic on Masonite

Dimensions36 x 24 in. (91.4 x 61 cm)

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LineGift of the Hilbert Collection

Object number2019.232

DescriptionRaymond Howell began painting when there was little wide public interest in works by Black artists – but during his lifetime, he served as an inspiration and role model for young artists and was committed to promoting arts education opportunities for Black and Hispanic children.

“My career began at age eight, when I was required to do life-size images of my second-grade classmates on the blackboard, punishment for sketching in class,” Howell wrote. “My formal schooling ended by the fifth grade. After ‘graduating’ from reform school and foster homes, I dedicated myself to art. I am both artistically and academically self-educated.”

By age 30 Howell was supporting himself through the sale of his paintings and he had begun to exhibit his work. Numerous one-man shows were held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and Provincetown. During the mid-1960s, Howell opened Art Associates West, located in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. It was a combination art gallery and art school where he was both exhibitor and teacher.

Howell’s paintings are based in realism, with influences of surrealism, impressionism and modern abstraction. During the 1990s he created a series of paintings depicting dancers and jazz musicians who were innovators, and he experimented with abstraction and painting combined with collage.

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