Eldzier Cortor was an African-American artist and printmaker. His work typically features elongated nude figures in intimate settings, influenced by both traditional African art and European surrealism. Cortor is known for his style of realism that makes accurate depictions of poor, Black living conditions look fantastic as he distorts perspective.
Cortor was born in Richmond, Virginia, to John and Ophelia Cortor. His family moved to Chicago when Cortor was about a year old, eventually settling in that city's South Side, where Cortor attended Englewood High School. His family was a part of the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the industrial North. Fellow students at Englewood included the African-American artists Charles Wilbert White and Margaret Burroughs. Cortor attended the Art Institute of Chicago, along with artist Gus Nall, gaining a degree in 1936. While at the Art Institute, Cortor studied its collections extensively and grew an appreciation for traditions of Western Painting. Studying the African sculptures at an exhibit at the Field Museum transformed his work. He said "That was the most important influence in all my work, for to this day you will find in my handling of the human figure that cylindrical and lyrical quality I was taught...to appreciate in African art."
Growing up, he was an avid reader of the Chicago Defender, which was a popular newspaper that focused on celebrating the successes of African Americans. He also had success in white publications and was featured in the Chicago Tribune in 1939 due to his involvement in the South Side Community Art Center. This is ultimately translated into the main thematic focus of his artwork, which is to portray African Americans in a positive light and highlight their beauty and achievements. For the majority of his career, Cortor played with different representations of the black female figure and how to represent her strength and beauty. Cortor saw Black women as the carriers of Black culture. His style is often described as experimenting with black physiognomy while infusing it with surrealism.
In 1940 he worked with the Works Progress Administration (WPA), where he drew scenes of Depression-era Bronzeville, a neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. Cortor often painted intimate scenes of the home. These surreal works emphasis the subject's role in society and relationship to the outer world. In 1949, he studied in Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti on a Guggenheim Fellowship, and taught at the Centre d'Art in Port-au-Prince from 1949 to 1951.
In 1944 and in 1945, Cortor won the Julius Rosenwald Foundation Fellowships consecutively, which allowed him to travel to the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. The Gullah people resided in these islands and Cortor was particularly interested in this area because of how untouched their culture had been by white people and American culture. In this regard, Cortor decided to explore a different African diasporic culture that had more African elements prevalent overall in their culture. He spent two years living on the islands and immersed himself into the Gullah culture. "As a Negro artist I have been particularly concerned with painting Negro racial types not only as such but in connection with particular problems in color, design and composition…I have felt an especial interest in…painting Negroes whose cultural traditions had been only slightly influenced by whites…I should like to…paint a series of pictures which would reflect the particular physical and racial characteristics of the Gullahs." Cortor incorporated hints of traditional Africanisms within his art during his stay at the Gullah Islands. He would paint individuals with elongated necks, arms, legs, and faces. This elongation was a tribute to traditional African sculptures which often incorporated this elongation. Cortor through his time with the Gullah people, became passionate about the beauty of African Women, which he referenced in many of his paintings. He painted black women in a way to encapsulate their beauty, he wanted to bring light to the beauty of black women. He went against the beauty standards of his, as white, Eurocentric standards were the standard. Cortor rebelled against this standard, as he painted black women in a surrealistic style, surrealism being very common is Europe, this showed deep skin tones are just as beautiful as white skin tones. He painted black woman as he believed the black woman represented the black race as a whole he once stated, "“The Black woman represents the Black race. She is the Black spirit. She conveys a feeling of eternity and a continuance of life.”"
Through Cortor's life his style varied wildly, he shifted from surrealism to print making and many other mediums. This changed in style could be attributed to the many places he traveled to and the vastly differing experiences he had. As well as to his desire to always learn new techniques and styles from the places he visited. Cortor expressed in an interview through Bomb Magazine, that he often enjoyed changing his art style, and that he was proud of how his art style had evolved and shifted over the course of his very lengthy career. When an artists begins creating works in childhood and continues through their entire life it is highly likely the art style would change.
Eldzier Cortor died on November 26, 2015, at the age of 99 years, 10 months.