Hale Aspacio Woodruff
Born in Cairo, Illinois, Hale Woodruff studied at the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis, before going to Paris in 1927 thanks to a grant from the philanthropic William E. Harmon Foundation, which assisted African Americans for distinguished achievements in the fine arts. After four years in Paris, which provided him with the foundation for what he would call his "semiabstract symbolic painting" style, he accepted an art instructorship at the newly formed Atlanta University Center (comprising Atlanta University, Morehouse and Spelman Colleges), where he remained until 1945, when he joined the faculty at NYU. Before he retired in 1967, Woodruff co-founded the civil rights-inspired artists' collective Spiral with Romare Bearden, who later described him as a "seminal figure" in twentieth century American art. (Laura Giles)
