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Jonathan Green
Gale Contemporary Black Biography:
Jonathan Green
Personal Information
Born on August 9, 1955, in Gardens Corner, SC
Education: School of the Art Institute of Chicago, BFA, 1982.
Memberships: Howard University, board of visitors of the College of Arts and Sciences; African American Research Library and Cultural Center National Advisory Council.

Career
Artist and president, Jonathan Green Studios, Inc., 1985--.

Life's Work
The first individual of Gullah ancestry to train at a professional art school, Jonathan Green has created an acclaimed body of work that documents this rural culture, which emerged among West African slaves who lived on the Sea Islands or along the adjacent coast of South Carolina and Georgia. Descendants of these people have preserved ancestral ways and speak Gullah, a Creole language. Daily chores, activities, and celebrations of Gullah life provide the subject matter for Green's paintings and prints, which have been compared to the work of such major artists as Edward Hopper, Romare Bearden, and Jacob Lawrence. Green's work has been exhibited across the country and internationally, and is included in the permanent collections of several major museums.

The second of seven children, Green was born August 9, 1955, in Gardens Corner, a rural area along South Carolina's southern coast. Though he lived in New York City for a few years with his mother, who had moved there to seek better employment, Green returned to South Carolina before he reached his teens, and was raised there by his maternal grandmother, Eloise Stewart Johnson. At Beaufort High School, Green became interested in studying art, but did not believe he could make a living at it. After graduation he joined the U.S. Air Force, hoping to receive training in illustration. Instead he was assigned the job of cook. Disappointed, he found a technical college in Minnesota, near where he was stationed, where he was able to study illustration. His teachers there, impressed with his talent, encouraged him to consider making art his profession. This led him to apply after his discharge to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), from which he earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1982.

His time at SAIC, according to Ronne Hartfield in Gullah Images: The Art of Jonathan Green, was exciting but also isolating for a black Southerner. "Green found himself in a time of self-questioning and redefinition," Hartfield wrote. Because slaves had been torn forcibly away from Africa and were often denied access to their own history, the cultural traditions that they succeeded in passing on to future generations acquired special significance. For this reason, commemorating the past has been especially important to the African American community, and artists have contributed in a special way to this dynamic. As Hartfield explained, the black community's "understanding of itself is imaged by our artists who, by taking events out of history and giving them form, can help us to create pragmatic formal meanings for living within history."

Gained New Respect for Gullah Heritage

With a renewed appreciation for his heritage after his years away from South Carolina, Green decided to create art that honored the culture in which he grew up. "I wanted to go back to my roots," he explained to Carroll Greene Jr. in an article quoted on the Gallery Chuma Website. "The older people were dying, and I began to see [the Gullahs] differently. I saw them as a people with a strong link, probably the strongest link with Africa of any of the black American people. I had studied African Art, and I began to appreciate a certain uniqueness." In Gullah communities, extended families live close to the land, raising food, catching fish, passing down stories and folktales, and making crafts. Particularly famous are their handwoven sweetgrass baskets, fashioned according to West African traditions. They also weave fishing nets and make other items used in daily life. Nature, family, community, and spirituality provide life with purpose and meaning. "I was always interested in things, in how crafts were done, who everyone's relatives were and the religious functions of the community," added Green.

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