Edwin Harleston, an African-American painter, embarked on his adventure when he wed Elise Forrest, a photographer, in 1920. The long-held goal of rewriting the history of African Americans was shaped by his wife.
According to the African American Registry, Harleston made the decision to use the portrait approach to portray the narrative of the accomplishments of African Americans. He quickly rose to prominence as one of the most amazing Black painters known for his portraits. His artwork portrayed prominent Black entrepreneurs, community figures, and their families.
Several of his pieces from World War I praised African-American soldiers for their sacrifices, patriotism, and valor on the battlefield. According to the South Carolina Encyclopedia, he won the coveted NAACP Amy Spingarn Award in 1925 with his picture Oudia.
Among his prominent subjects were the daughter of W. E. B. Du Bois, industrialist and philanthropist Pierre Samuel DuPont, and Edward Twitchell Ware, president of Atlanta University.
The Charleston Museum examined Harleston’s pictures of South Carolina congressman Thomas Miller and Aaron Douglas, the leading figure in the 1920s “New Black” movement.
Harleston was so talented as an artist that Douglas asked him to Nashville in 1930 to create murals for the brand-new Fisk University library.
The murals were completed in 1931, the year he passed away. Before his passing, Harleston received the Alain Locke Prize for portraiture for his painting The Elderly Servant, which was featured in a Harmon Foundation exhibition. “The Charleston Shrimp Man,” “The Honey Man,” and “The Elderly Servant,” three of his notable images that focused on the true Black American cultural heritage
In Charleston, South Carolina, Harleston was born in 1882. He was one of his parents’ eight children. His father was a rice farmer who eventually became a sea captain and a funeral director. At the Charleston-based Avery Normal Institute, Harleston received the valedictorian award in 1900. Later, he transferred to Atlanta University, where he joined a quartet and played soccer.
He relocated to Boston and enrolled at the Boston Museum of Fine Art’s art school. Up until 1913, he served as Frank Benson and William Paxton’s understudy. He briefly oversaw the South Carolina funeral home run by his father. He continued to be active in the civil rights struggle while carrying out this work, eventually rising to the position of president of the NAACP branch in Charleston. He oversaw efforts that demanded that Black instructors be hired by the public school system.
On May 10, 1932, Harleston passed away in Charleston. He was laid to rest in the Unity and Friendship Cemetery’s Harleston section.