The Janitor Who Paints

This piece depicts an artist in his studio, but the painting is described as “a sort of protest painting” of his own economic and social standing as well as that of his fellow African Americans. Hayden said his friend Cloyd Boykin, an artist who, like Hayden, had supported himself as a janitor, inspired this piece: ​“I painted it because no one called Boykin the artist. They called him the janitor.” Details within the cramped apartment — the duster and the trashcan, for example — point to the janitor’s profession; the figure’s dapper clothes and beret, much like those Hayden himself wore, point to his artistic pursuits. Hayden’s use of perspective was informed by modern art practices, which favored abstraction and simplified forms. He originally exaggerated the figure’s facial features, which many of his contemporaries criticized as African American caricatures, but later altered the painting. He maintained the janitor as the protagonist as it represented larger civil rights issues within the African American community.

Palmer Hayden

1937

Oil Paint