Arts & Entertainment
Malone Captures Essence of Buttermilk Bottom Community
Atlanta native James Malone's body of work—spanning 60 years—is on exhibit at the Hammond's House, Feb. 13 through April 10.
Renowned artist James Hiram Malone—considered a pillar in creative arts by many in the Atlanta arts community—celebrates 60 years of work embodying the nuances of the African-American experience that both makes us individuals and a collective whole at the same time.
Malone’s career began in 1947 when he produced a portrait of Dr. Charles L. Gideons, Jr., for an assignment as a student at Booker T. Washington High School.
“I did not have enough money for lunch, so I would paint during lunch time,” Malone recollects of those early years. “Painting allowed me to endure my hunger pains and give me a mental escape from my impoverished reality.”
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Like many of the best artists, Malone often drew inspiration for his creative works from his surroundings and experiences. One particular painting entitled Off Limits depicts a time when Malone worked as a janitor in a facility where he would have to clean the restrooms of each floor but then would have to walk three blocks away to use the nearest "Coloreds Only" toilet. Malone says this painting personifies the black plight of the Jim Crow era.
Malone’s work became popularized when, in the 1960s, he found work as a commercial artist for Federated Department Stores, Kmart International and Montgomery Ward. He also became the first African-American commercial illustrator for the Detroit area as well as one of the first in the country. His work was groundbreaking.
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Over the years Malone’s body of work has grown to include more than 1,000 paintings; yet, throughout his continued success Malone never lost his affinity for his beloved Buttermilk Bottom, the old Grove Park community where the Civic Center now stands. Those images remained a constant presence in his work.
The Buttermilk Bottom -inspired artwork is bold, bodacious, jive and hip filled with juke joints, rummage sales, barbeques and the backbone of the black community – the church. As an illustrator, Malone’s art more often than not had an illustrated, cartoonish feel to it with a “real” edge.
“It’s fitting that we are exhibiting him here [at the ] as an elder artist in our community who has documented an important historical section of Atlanta [Buttermilk Bottom] that no longer stands,” says Hammonds House Executive Director Myrna Anderson.
In offering advice to those following his footsteps Malone says, “I want people to look at the [Career Art Retrospective] book and my body of work and know they can do it too.”
He says young unknown artists need to pool their resources and partner up to create work that can represent them in their best light.
Addressing Malone’s work on exhibit at the Hammonds House, Tina Dukley, Director of Clark Atlanta’s Art Collection and Gallery says, “It’s very refreshing to have James Malone’s work represented here at the Hammonds House Museum, as we [too] have one of his works from the late forties in our collection that was acquired from when he was a young boy.”
Malone’s expansive body of work is an inspiration and testament to a new generation of young artists to persevere against all odds for the sake of developing portfolios they too can one day look back on and smile.
James Malone’s work Career Art Retrospective 1947-2011 is on exhibit Feb. 13 - April 10 at The Hammonds House, 503 Peeples St., Atlanta, Ga. 30310. For more information call 404-612-0500.