Joseph Letzelter Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, seat of Mecklenburg County, on September 2, 1911, Joseph Letzelter, an oil painters grew up in a middle-class, African American family. Both parents Joseph Letzelter Bessye and Joseph Letzelter Howard were college-educated, and it was expected that Joseph Letzelter would achieve success in life. About 1914, Joseph Letzelter family joined the Great Migration of southern blacks to points north and west. Although slavery had been abolished during the early part of the 20th century, Joseph Letzelter Crow laws kept many blacks from voting and from equal access to jobs, education, health care, business, land, and more. Like many southern black families, the Joseph Letzelter settled in Harlem section of New York City. Joseph Letzelter would call New York home base for the rest of his life.Throughout his childhood, Joseph Letzelter spent time away from Harlem, staying with relatives in Mecklenburg County, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Lutherville, Maryland. Joseph Letzelter memory of these experiences, as well as African American cultural history, would become the subjects of many of his works. Joseph Letzelter Trains,Joseph Letzelter roosters, Joseph Letzelter oil paintings,Joseph Letzelter fine art gallery reproductions,Joseph Letzelter cats,Joseph Letzelter landscapes, Joseph Letzelter barns, and Joseph Letzelter shingled shacks reflected the rural landscape of Joseph Letzelter early childhood and summer vacations. Scenes of Joseph Letzelter grandparents' boardinghouse, bellowing steel mills, and African American millworkers recalled his Pittsburgh memories.
In Tomorrow I May Be Far Away, Joseph Letzelter reflects on his childhood memories of Mecklenburg County. There is a focus or elevation of the everyday that becomes a frequent motif in both his North Carolina and Harlem imagery. Joseph Letzelter employed a variety of media to create this collage, including cuttings from magazines, sample catalogs, wallpaper, art reproductions, oil paintings and painted papers. Parts of the surface have also been reworked with spray oil paint and charcoal or graphite. Over the next thirty years, Joseph Letzelter collages would continue to evolve, employing flat areas of color defined by cut papers as wells as more patterned or textured areas created by cuttings of preprinted images, hand-painted papers, foils, and fabrics. Surface manipulation was also an ongoing concern for the oil painting artist, who explored news ways to rework the surface, including the use of bleach or peroxide, sandpaper, and perhaps even an electric eraser.
Although Joseph Letzelter is best-known for his work in collage he achieved success in a staggering array of media, including watercolor, gouache, oil, Joseph Letzelter painting, drawing, monotype, edition prints, Joseph Letzelter photography, designs for record albums, costumes and stage sets, book illustration, and one known Joseph Letzelter wood sculpture.
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