Artist Birthday: Larry Walker

Larry Walker was born in Georgia but raised from one year of age in Harlem, New York, in the waning days of the Harlem Renaissance. A consummate abstractionist, he also devoted his life to art education in several different schools.

Artist Birthday for 22 October: Larry Walker (1935-2023 US)

Larry Walker, Saguaro Spirits – Visitors, 2001, offset color lithograph on paper, 54.6 x 74.3 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, © 2025 Artist or Estate of Artist (PMA-5228)

In many of Walker's works, he weds symbolism with landscape. This is particularly evident in his series of works Saguaro Spirits. The series questions people's responses to nature, as well as people's relationship to each other. Saguaro cactus in the Arizona deserts have long been associated with sentinel-like imagery. When the cacti begin to die and decay, becoming shriveled, single vertical posts result that seem to wither preparing for the release of the inner "spirit". In this sense, they are symbols of fragility -- a state experienced by all human beings -- but not defeated.

The Saguaro Spirits series began in 1996 with a focus on three single Saguaro cacti, progressing to whole forests, as in this work. It is unclear whether the skeleton-like rock formations in this piece are the visitors, or the cacti themselves. Nonetheless, the overall sense of the series is the transience of life, an ages-old theme in all sorts of artistic subject matter. In this iteration, the shriveling cacti merge with humanistic heads, producing a group of cacti mimicking human gestures and expressions. Walker used the offset lithography process so that he could guide the image through different stages, ensuring multiple veil-like layers of color.

Background

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and founding of the African American artists’ Spiral Group in New York in 1963 were two factors that galvanized Black artists to push for a revival in the exhibition and study of African American art that had stagnated since the Harlem Renaissance (ca. 1918-1930s). As during the Harlem Renaissance, some black artists continued to work on images of the African American community, with scenes of everyday life and elements of their African ancestry. Others believed that style was a means to an end, and that any style, regardless of its “Blackness” could represent modern African American art as a significant contribution to contemporary American art.

A series of shows in the 1970s and 1980s brought further attention to African American artists like never before. By the 2000s, the presence of African Americans in the American art world has progressed to strong representation in almost every gallery and museum in the country, including some museums dedicated to black artists, and in many abroad.

Larry Walker is an artist and art educator, born in Franklin, Georgia. He was raised in Harlem, New York from 1936 on, graduating from the High School of Music and Art. Relocating to Detroit for college, he received a BS in art education and an MFA in drawing and painting both from Wayne State University. He spent the majority of his life in art education -- six years in Detroit public schools, 19 years at the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, and 17 years at Georgia State University, Atlanta.