HUGHES & LITERARY ART

Collectively, these pieces reveal how the integration of arts into his literature was a clear objective across all genres of his writing. Additionally, one can see clearly that these art pieces provide art that places the African American as the center of focus. In each illustration, the African American acts as the subject - clearly, as seen in Koering's cover illustration for The First Book of Negroes, or more subtly as in Walter Steinhibler's "Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria." Furthermore, the tones of these pieces provide a significant amount of vastness and diversity of the Black experience in America. We the viewers can detect lightheartedness with Bernhard Nast's work in The Best of Simple, whereas dismal fear and horror are detected in Prentiss Taylor's illustrations focusing on the trials of the Scottsboro Boys. 

One must also remember the significance of the time period in which these pieces were born into: a time plagued with Jim Crow laws, prejudice, and segregation, and harsh inequality. Therefore, these visuals can be seen to be possess the same radical-nature as Hughes work. When Whiteness populated and dominated media and culture, these pieces of art worked alongside Hughes to provide instances of African American culture that documented and reflected their experiences.