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Joe Louis

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@ National Portrait Gallery

Description

American boxing great Joe Louis began his pro career in 1934 and quickly eliminated a series of opponents with his devastating knockout punch. Widely expected to take the 1936 heavyweight title, Louis was stunned by his defeat at the hands of German champion Max Schmeling. When he reentered the ring against Schmeling in 1938, far more was at stake than a world heavyweight crown. Schmeling came to the contest as Adolf Hitler's champion of Aryan supremacy while Louis, the first African American boxer to win the enthusiastic support of black and white Americans alike, was embraced as democracy's standard-bearer. Louis struck like lightning when the fight began. Staggering Schmeling with a sequence of tremendous blows, he took only 124 seconds to claim one of the sweetest victories in boxing history. As reporter Heywood Broun rightly observed, Louis had "exploded the Nordic myth with a boxing glove."The Harmon Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in New York City and active from (1922-1967) included this portrait in their exhibition “Portraits of Outstanding Americans of Negro Origins” which documented noteworthy African Americans’ contributions to the country. Modeling their goal of social equality, the Harmon sought portraits from an African-American artist, Laura Wheeler Waring and Euro-American artist, Betsy Graves Reyneau. The two painters followed the conventional codes of academic portraiture, seeking to convey their sitters extraordinary accomplishments. This painting, along with a variety of educational materials, toured nation-wide for ten years serving as a visual rebuttal to racism.Harmon Foundation; gift 1967 to NPG.
Type:
Image
Format:
Oil On Canvas
Rights:
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Harmon Foundation
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Record Contributed By

National Portrait Gallery

Record Harvested From

Smithsonian Institution