Introduction
Since the abolition of slavery in the USA, the American Negro needed changes in his living conditions. With the end of World War 1, and the industrialization in the north, African Americans found it necessary to move north for a better living. They went en mass to big cities and gave rise to a new grand culture. This was “the great migration of African Americans” The great migration expended the Negro’s communities and created a greater market for Negros’ culture, mainly on Art which was composed of painting, sculpture, and photography.

I/ The renaissance of a new African American art an its importance
The Harlem Renaissance was the era when African Americans could express their thought and culture in a newly formed black community in Harlem. And this culture was somehow a mean to express the civil rights and equality. As a heritage, African American painting, sculpture, photography, pottery… became important aspects of this mainstream culture. That’s to say literature, theatre, music and politics were not the only means to show their identity and to struggle for their freedom and emancipation.
Before the Harlem renaissance blacks did not have the opportunity to be professional artists since the Jim Crow laws in South separated blacks from the mainstream of American life. Leaders of the Harlem renaissance who had coined the idea of “The New Negro” encouraged Black visual artists. They were guided to a new image and ethnic identity that emphasized the influence of African Art, and the folk Art of Black Americans.
The establishment of the Harmon foundation by the Art patron William E. Harmon in 1922 sponsored many artists through its Harmon Award an Annual exhibition. As it did with many such endeavors, the 1929 great depression largely ended founding for the Art for a time. While the Harmon Foundation still existed in this period, its financial support toward Black artists ended. However it continued supporting them until 1967 by organizing