Fully immersed in jazz’s creative community, Norman Lewis bridged music and visual art in his work. In Harlem Jazz Jamboree, he brings a New York City nightclub to life by depicting its abstract and physical elements alike: instruments, expressive facial features, and vibrant reds and blues that imitate club lighting. By painting both Black and white figures, Lewis reflects the realities of jazz culture and makes a clear distinction in roles: Black musicians, at the center of the composition, drive the creative process, while the white audience, dotting the sides of the canvas, observes.

As a Black woman, Augusta Savage overcame numerous obstacles in her career, advocating for herself and other Black artists in the process. Her Portrait Head of John Henry is part of an emergence of naturalistic portrayals of Black men in the middle of the 20th century. Black men were often stereotyped and caricatured, but Savage’s work is a realistic and dignified depiction. As America modernized and jazz became synonymous with US culture, artists like Savage catalyzed a shift in the perception of Black people: where they were once parodied, they started to be humanized.  

The decorations that adorn Viktor Schreckengost’s Jazz Bowl capture the excitement of New York City nightlife in 1930, which was often viewed as scandalous due to its opposition to Prohibition and sexualized dancing in clubs. Schreckengost made the bowl for Eleanor Roosevelt, whose husband, future president Franklin D. Roosevelt, was campaigning against the alcohol restrictions of Prohibition. Schreckengost’s bowl allowed white patrons like the Roosevelts to bring exhilarating jazz culture into their genteel homes.

Jazz is a Black art form, but it has influenced Black and white artists alike. One of those white artists, Stuart Davis, immersed himself in jazz culture while living in New York’s Greenwich Village, where many other artists—like Davis’s friend Beauford Delaney—shared similar passions. In Hot Still-Scape for Six Colors—7th Avenue Style, Davis uses abstract modernist styles and bold colors to capture the spontaneity and energy of jazz in paint. Expressive shapes emulate movement across the canvas, suggesting music, dancing, and wonder.

Jewelry maker Art Smith was perhaps the most prominent of many fine craftsmen operating out of Greenwich Village in the middle of the 20th century. Smith was known among contemporaries for his distinctive style—large-scale pieces brought to life through the movement of the human body. His “Galaxy” neckpiece, made for Cab Calloway’s sister Bernice Calloway Monroe, was crafted to wrap around the wearer’s neck, resembling planets along a curving line. With his futuristic aesthetics and dynamic jewelry designs, Smith was at home within the jazz community.

Beauford Delaney’s Greene Street combines the artist’s love of jazz, his nightlife experiences, and his everyday life while living on Greene Street in Greenwich Village. Jazz spurred a strong artistic shift at midcentury: artists began to create more dynamic, expressive, and visually explosive works. Layered, somehow harmonic, yet visually dissonant, this mishmash of dynamic shapes and colorful palettes forms Delaney’s geometric representation of his neighborhood.  

Archibald Motley’s Cocktails evokes the sophistication of Black culture and glamour of Black women in the US at the beginning of the 20th century. By showing a group of well-dressed women enjoying alcoholic drinks—illegal during Prohibition—in an elegant room, Motley opposes previous assumptions of Black culture being a monolith and flips preconceived stereotypes on their head.