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Thelma Johnson Streat
Thelma Johnson Streat
Born Thelma Johnson
August 29, 1912
Yakima, Washington, U.S.
Died May 1959 (aged 46)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Nationality American
Education Museum Art School in Portland
Known for Painting, Dance
Spouse(s)
Romaine Virgil Streat

(m. 1935–1948)
John Edgar Kline (m. 1948)
Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat (1912 – 1959)[1] was an African-American artist,
dancer, and educator. She gained prominence in the 1940s for her art, performance
and work to foster intercultural understanding and appreciation.

Contents
1 Early life and education
2 Art work
2.1 Collections
2.2 Select exhibitions
3 Dancer, singer, and folklorist
4 Teacher and activist
5 Honors and accomplishments
6 Personal life and death
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
9.1 Books
9.2 Periodicals
9.3 Artifacts
10 External links
Early life and education
Thelma Johnson was born August 29, 1912 in Yakima, a small agricultural town in
Washington State, to artist James Johnson, and his wife Gertrude.[2][3] She was
partially of Cherokee heritage.[4] Her family moved to Portland, Oregon when she
was a young child.[4] In 1932, she graduated from Washington High School.[1] She
began painting at the age of seven[1] and studied art at the Museum Art School (now
Pacific Northwest College of Art) in Portland from 1934 to 1935.[5][3] She took
additional art courses at the University of Oregon from 1935 to 1936.[5]

Art work
The work of Thelma Johnson Streat is in my opinion one of the most interesting
manifestations in this country at the present. It is extremely evolved and
sophisticated enough to reconquer the grace and purity of African and American art.

— Diego Rivera, artist[6][7]

Streat was a multi-talented artist, seeking to express herself through many
creative avenues, including oil and watercolor paintings, pen and ink drawings,
charcoal sketches, mixed media murals, and textile design.

A year after her high school graduation, Streat had paintings on exhibit at the New
York City, New York Public Library under sponsorship of the Oregon Federation of
Colored Women and the Harmon Foundation.[8] In 1938, she moved to San Francisco
where she participated in Works Progress Administration projects. Streat was also
included in exhibitions at the De Young Memorial Museum and San Francisco Museum of
Art (now the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art).[9] In 1939 until 1940, she
assisted artist Diego Rivera in the creation of the Pan American Unity mural, for
the Art in Action exhibition at Treasure Island's Golden Gate International
Exposition (GGIE).[10] A portrait of Streat, just one of Rivera's many friends
depicted in the mural, can be seen at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) in the
Diego Rivera Theatre located at CCSF's Ocean Campus.[11] The mural is currently
undergoing restoration and will be featured in the SFMOMA's retrospective
exhibition on Rivera in 2020.[12]

As Judy Bullington argues in her indispensable article on Streat, "the West Coast
allowed highly visible indigenous traditions that generated a different kind of
regional flavor from which modernists could draw inspiration. Streat’s ability to
blend these multiple influences into a modernist mode enabled her to attract the
attention of Hollywood arts collectors, to capture headlines across the United
States, and, in the 1940s and 1950s, even to gain some international
recognition."[13]

Her work was sometimes controversial. The Los Angeles Times reported that Streat
was threatened by the Ku Klux Klan for her painting called "Death of a Negro
Sailor," portraying an African-American sailor dying after risking his life abroad
to protect the democratic rights he was denied at home.[14] The threat only made
Streat believe that a program showing not only the Negro's tribulations but also
the Negro's contributions to the nation's wealth was needed, so she initiated a
visual education program called "The Negro in History."[citation needed]

Through a series of murals depicting the contributions of people of African

descent, panels showed Black Americans in industry, agriculture, medicine, science,
meat packing, and transportation. There was even a panel on the contributions of
Black women.[6][15]

Streat's work often portrayed important figures in history. Along with images of
well-known Americans like Frank Lloyd Wright, she painted a series of portraits of
famous people of African ancestry, including concert singer Marian Anderson,
singer/actor/activist Paul Robeson, Toussaint L'Overture, and Harriet Tubman, and
more. As a pioneer in modern African American art, her work influenced and was
influenced by Jacob Lawrence, Sargent Johnson, Romare Bearden, William H. Johnson,
and the other artistic leaders of her time.[16] Her ability to integrate dance,
song and folklore from a variety of cultures into a presentation package and
utilize it to educate and inspire an appreciation across ethnic lines was
revolutionary for her time.[7]

Collections
Her most well-known painting, Rabbit Man, was purchased by Alfred Barr for MoMA in
1942.[17] Streat was the first African-American woman to have a painting included
in MoMA's permanent collection.[18] Streat's work was added to the permanent
collection of the Smithsonian when they purchased the mural Medicine and
Transportation in 2016, which resides in the National Museum of African American
History & Culture in Washington, D.C.[19][20][2] Streat painted Medicine and
Transportation between 1942 and 1944, which features the contributions of African-
Americans at work in a laboratory and industrial settings.[21]

The Mills College Art Museum in Oakland, California also possesses a children's
book illustration by Streat titled Robot.[22]

People who have owned Streat's work include actor Vincent Price, singer Roland
Hayes, artist Diego Rivera, actress Fanny Brice, dancer Katherine Dunham, and
actress Paulette Goddard.[7][15]

Select exhibitions
Her paintings have appeared in exhibits at museums and galleries including:

1938 – Displeased Lady, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco,
California[5]
1941 – De Young Museum, San Francisco, California[18]
1942 – Raymond & Raymond Gallery, New York City, New York[18]
1942 – New Acquisitions: American Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New
York City, New York[23]
1943 – The Little Gallery, owned by actor and art collector Vincent Price, Beverly
Hills, Los Angeles, California[18]
1943 – The International Exhibit of Watercolor, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago,
Illinois[18][5]
1946 – Performance debut of her new choreography, San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art, San Francisco, California[24]
1991 – The Search for Freedom: African American Abstraction 1945-1975, Kenkeleba
Gallery, New York City, New York[5]
2003 – Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon
2017 and onward – Visual Art and the American Experience, (permanent art
exhibition), Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture,
Washington D.C.[25][26]
American Contemporary Art Gallery, Münich, Germany
Honolulu Academy of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii
Albany Institute of the History of Art, Albany, New York
Dancer, singer, and folklorist
Similar to her contemporary and acquaintance Katherine Dunham, Streat traveled to
Haiti between 1946 and 1951 to study dance, which she saw as an important
inspiration of social change and a catalyst for challenging societal norms.[13] She
also visited Mexico and Canada. Streat debuted her new choreography, inspired by
her travels, in a performance at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1946, which
combined African, Haitian, Hawaiian, Native American, Portuguese and other
indigenous dance forms.[13]

Streat realized that prejudice and bigotry are learned, usually during childhood.
In order to combat the development of bigotry, throughout the 1940s and 50s, Streat
performed dances, songs, and folk tales from many cultures to thousands of children
across Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the United States in an effort to introduce them
to the beauty and value of all cultures.

Teacher and activist

In 1945, Streat chaired a committee in Chicago to sponsor murals as part of a
"Negro in Labor" education movement.[1] Between 1948 and 1950, Streat moved to
Hawaii with her second husband Edgar Kline, and they founded Children's City of
Hawaii and New School of Expression in Punaluu, Oahu to introduce children to art
and to the value of cultural diversity.[13] A second Children's City school was
founded on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada in 1956.[8]
Honors and accomplishments
Gained national recognition at age 18, when her painting titled "A Priest" won
honorable mention at the Harmon Foundation exhibit in New York City (1929).[7]
First African-American woman to have a painting exhibited at the Museum of Modern
Art (MOMA) in New York (1942).[27]
Headed the Children's Education Project to introduce American kids to the
contributions of African Americans through a series of colorful murals.[15]
Was threatened by the KKK for exhibiting a painting honoring a Black American
sailor's sacrifice.[28]
Performed a dance recital at Buckingham Palace for the King and Queen of the United
Kingdom (1950).[29]
First American woman to have her own television program in Paris (1949).[29]
Worked with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera on his Pan American Unity mural in San
Francisco in 1939.[6][7][30]
By 1947, one of only four African American abstract painters to have had solo shows
in New York City. The other three were Romare Bearden, Rose Piper, and Norman
Lewis.[31]
Personal life and death
She married Romaine Virgil Streat in 1935, and they divorced in 1948.[8] Streat
continued to use her married name for professional purposes.[8] Later that year,
she married John Edgar Kline, her manager and a playwright and producer of both
theatre and film.[1]

Streat died of a heart attack in 1959.[8]

See also
List of African-American visual artists
List of 20th-century women artists
References
"Thelma Johnson Streat (1912-1959)". Oregon Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
Young, Arashi. "Thelma Johnson Streat Mural Finds a Permanent Home in
Smithsonian". The Skanner News. Retrieved 2017-02-22.
Allen, Ginny. "Thelma Johnson Streat (1912-1959)". The Oregon Encyclopedia.
Portland State University and the Oregon Historical Society. Retrieved 2017-02-22.
Muir, Pat (2016-02-14). "Project aims to educate public about forgotten
trailblazer, born in Yakima". Yakima Herald-Republic. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
"Thelma Johnson Streat: Faith in an Ultimate Freedom". Tyler Fine Art. Retrieved
2019-02-27 – via Issuu.
Luray, Elyse. "Investigation: WPA Mural Studies". Season 7, Episode 9. PBS History
Detectives.
Bullington, Judy (Summer 2005). "New Perspective: Thelma Johnson Streat and
Cultural Synthesis on the West Coast". American Art. Smithsonian Institution. 19
(2): 92–107. doi:10.1086/444483. S2CID 194036307.
Jones-Branch, Cherisse (2015-03-16). "Thelma Beatrice Johnson Streat (1912-1959)
•". Retrieved 2020-11-22.
"Thelma Johnson Streat (1912-1959)". oregonencyclopedia.org. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
"Pan American Unity". WikiArt. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
Zakheim, Masha. "Pan-American Unity, Historical Essay". FoundSF. Retrieved
September 26, 2014.
"Pan American Unity at SFMOMA | Diego Rivera Mural Project". riveramural.org.
Retrieved 2020-03-04.
Bullington, Judy (2005-06-01). "Thelma Johnson Streat and Cultural Synthesis on
the West Coast". American Art. 19 (2): 92–107. doi:10.1086/444483. ISSN 1073-9300.
S2CID 194036307.
"Painter's Death Of A Black Sailor Attracts Attention". The Black Dispatch.
December 4, 1943.
Jones, Catherine (August 15, 1945). "Freedom for Negroes Linked With the Arts".
The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon.
Patton, Sharon F. (1998). African American Art. New York: Oxford University Press.
p. 161.
"Thelma Johnson Streat. Rabbit Man. 1941". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved
2019-02-27.
"Thelma Johnson Streat, Artists". Modernism in the New City: Chicago Artists,
1920-1950. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
Cederholm, Theresa Dickason, ed. (1973). Afro-American Artists: A Bio-
Bibliographical Directory. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library. p. 270.
Igoe, Lynn Moody (1981). 250 Years of Afro-American Art. New York: R.R. Bowker
Company. p. 1127.
"Medicine and Transportation". National Museum of African American History and
Culture. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
Mills College Art Museum. ""Robot" Illustration For Children's Book by Thelma
Johnson Streat".
"New Acquisitions: American Painting and Sculpture". The Museum of Modern Art.
Retrieved 2019-02-27.
Potter, Berit (June 2017). "Grace McCann Morley: Defending and Diversifying Modern
Art · SFMOMA". www.sfmoma.org. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
"Visual Art and the American Experience". National Museum of African American
History and Culture. 2016-09-16. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
"Visual Art and the American Experience at the African American Museum of History
and Culture". DAILY SERVING. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
The Guerrilla Girls (1998). Guerrilla Girls Bedside Companion to the History of
Western Art. The Guerrilla Girls.
"KKK Threatens Woman Painter". The Pittsburgh Courier, national edition. December
4, 1943.
"Thema (sic) Streat At The Curran Starting Feb. 26". The Daily Recorder.
Sacramento, California. February 13, 1953.
Wysinger, Lena M. (September 15, 1940). "News of Activities of Negroes". The
Oakland Tribune. Oakland, California.
Patton, Sharon F. (1998). African American Art. New York, New York: Oxford
University Press. p. 161.
Further reading
Books
Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. (1985). Who Was Who In American Art, 1898-1947.
Connecticut: Sound View Press. p. 602.
Dictionary Catalog of the Dance Collection. Volume 9. The New York Public Library.
1974. p. 6129.
Museum of Modern Art: Library Inventory List, Part iv. (S-Z). 1984. p. 318.
Gibson, Ann Eden (1999). Abstract Expressionism: Other Politics. Yale University
Press.
Allen, Ginny; Klevit, Jody (1999). Oregon Painters: The First Hundred Years, 1859-
1959. Oregon Historical Society.
Reference Library of Black America. Volume 4. New York University. 1971. p. 93.
Ploski, Harry A.; Williams, James, eds. The Negro Almanac: A Reference Work on the
African-American. The Black Artist. p. 1076.
Ebony (1966). The Negro Handbook. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co. p. 355.
Periodicals
Smith, Roberta (June 28, 1991). "Review/Art; 'African-American Abstraction,' an
Exploration". The New York Times.
Jones, Aaron (May 1998). "Treasures from Reed's Collection". Reed College Magazine.
Reed College, Portland.
"Obituary—Mrs. John Edgar". Oregon Journal. May 14, 1959. p. 11.
"Obituary—Famed Painter-Dancer Dies After Heart Attack". The Oregonian. May 24,
1959.
"Famed Painter-Dancer is Eulogized in Los Angeles". Baltimore Afro-American. June
6, 1959. p. 15
"Couple from Hawaii Show Folklore Paintings, Curios". Bellingham Herald. May 16,
1958.
"Hills Folklore Collected By Husband-Wife Team". Daily Journal. Rapid City, S.D.
June 18, 1958.
"Visiting Hawaii Child Welfare Leaders See Folklore as Link for All Children".
Sioux City Sentinel. September 18, 1958. A-3.
"The Londoner's Diary: Two Yellow Moons". Evening Standard. UK. March 7, 1950.
"The News That's Going Around". The Irish Press. Ireland. May 6, 1950.
"Art and Artists: Thelma Johnson Streat at S.F. Museum of Art". Oakland Tribune.
March 17, 1946.
Artifacts
Letter to Marian Anderson (dated Dec. 19, 1938). Special Collections (Marian
Anderson archives), Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, University of Pennsylvania.
Photographs, personal applications and letters of reference. The Harmon Collection
(The Harmon Foundation). National Archives.
External links
Thelma Johnson Streat Project official website
Oral history interview with Vincent Price, 1992 Aug. 6-14, by Archives of American
Art, Smithsonian Institution - this mentions Streat in the interview, Price owned
the Little Gallery in Beverly Hills
More about the Diego Rivera on the Pan American Unity mural in San Francisco
Streat knew and visited with former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Ms. Roosevelt
mentions a 1951 visit from Ms. Streat in her daily journal
Watch the PBS History Detectives investigation on WPA Mural Studies (Aired: Season
7, Episode 9, Detective: Elyse Luray)

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