Alvin Hollingsworth
Encyclopedia
Alvin Hollingsworth whose pseudonym
s included Alvin Holly, was an African-American painter and one of the first Black artists in comic book
s.
, New York City
, New York
, of West Indian parents, and began drawing at age 4. By 12 he was an art assistant on Holyoke Publishing's Cat-Man Comics
. Attending The High School of Music & Art
, he was a classmate of future comic book
artist and editor Joe Kubert
.
Circa 1941, he began illustrating for crime comics
. Since it was not standard practice during this era for comic-book credits to be given routinely, comprehensive credits are difficult to ascertain; Hollingsworth's first confirmed comic-book work is the signed, four-page war comics
story "Robot Plane" in Aviation Press' Contact Comics
#5 (cover-dated March 1945), which he both penciled and inked
. Through the remainder of the 1940s, he confirmably drew for Holyoke's Captain Aero Comics (as Al Hollingsworth), and Fiction House
's Wings Comics, where he did the feature "Suicide Smith" at least sporadically from 1946 to 1950. He is tentatively identified under the initials "A. H." as an artist on the feature "Captain Power" in Novack Publishing's Great Comics in 1945.
In the following decade, credited as Alvin Hollingsworth or A. C. Hollingsworth, he drew for a number of publishers and series, including Avon Comics' and later Superior Publishers Limited's The Mask of Dr. Fu Manchu
; Premier Magazines' Police Against Crime; Ribage's romance comic
Youthful Romances; and horror comics
such as Master Comics
' Dark Mysteries and Trojan Magazines' Beware. As Al Hollingsworth, he drew horror comics including Avon's Witchcraft and Premier's Mysterious Stories, and romance comics such as Lev Gleason Publications
' Boy Loves Girl. One standard source credits him, without specification, as an artist on stories for Fox Comics (the feature "Numa" in Rulah, Jungle Goddess
, and "Bronze Man' in Blue Beetle
) and on war stories for the publisher Spotlight.
Historian Shaun Clancy, citing Fawcett Comics
writer-editor Roy Ald as his source, identified Hollingsworth as an artist on Fawcett's Negro Romance #2 (Aug. 1950).
In the mid-1950s, he worked on newspaper comic strips including the 1955 Kandy, from the Smith-Mann Syndicate, as well as Scorchy Smith
and, with George Shedd, Martin Keel.
painter, and from 1980 until retiring in 1998 he taught art as a professor at Hostos Community College
of the City University of New York
. As a painter, his subjects included such contemporary social issues as civil rights
for women and African Americans, as well as jazz
and dance
. Of one subject he painted, an African Jesus Christ, he told Ebony
magazine in 1971, "I have always felt that Christ was a Black man," and said the subject represented a "philosophical symbol of any of the modern prophets who have been trying to show us the right way. To me, Malcolm X
and Martin Luther King are such prophets." An authority on fluorescent paint, he worked in both representational
and abstract art
.
In the summer of 1963, he and fellow African-American artists Romare Bearden
and William Majors formed the group Spiral in order to help the Civil Rights Movement
through art exhibitions. At some point during the 1960s, he directed an art program teaching young students commercial art
and fine art at the Harlem Parents Committee Freedom School.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
s included Alvin Holly, was an African-American painter and one of the first Black artists in comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s.
Early life and comics
Alvin Carl Hollingsworth was born in HarlemHarlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, of West Indian parents, and began drawing at age 4. By 12 he was an art assistant on Holyoke Publishing's Cat-Man Comics
Cat-Man and Kitten
Cat-Man and Kitten were a pair of superhero characters created by Charles M. Quinlan and Irwin Hasen and first published in 1940 by now-defunct Holyoke Publishing...
. Attending The High School of Music & Art
The High School of Music & Art
The High School of Music & Art, informally known as "Music & Art", was a public alternative high school at 443-465 West 135th Street, New York, New York, USA that existed from 1936 through 1984, and then merged into the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing...
, he was a classmate of future comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
artist and editor Joe Kubert
Joe Kubert
Joe Kubert is an American comic book artist who went on to found The Kubert School. He is best known for his work on the DC Comics characters Sgt. Rock and Hawkman...
.
Circa 1941, he began illustrating for crime comics
Crime comics
Crime comics is a genre of American comic books and format of crime fiction. The genre was originally popular in the 1940s and 1950s and is marked by a moralistic editorial tone and graphic depictions of violence and criminal activity. Crime comics began in 1942 with the publication of Crime Does...
. Since it was not standard practice during this era for comic-book credits to be given routinely, comprehensive credits are difficult to ascertain; Hollingsworth's first confirmed comic-book work is the signed, four-page war comics
War comics
War comics is a genre of comic books that gained popularity in English-speaking countries following World War II.-American war comics:Shortly after the birth of the modern comic book in the mid- to late 1930s, comics publishers began including stories of wartime adventures in the multi-genre...
story "Robot Plane" in Aviation Press' Contact Comics
Contact Comics
Contact Comics is an American comic book series published during what is known as the Golden Age of Comic Books by Aviation Press. All of the stories printed in Contact Comics dealt with modern aviation....
#5 (cover-dated March 1945), which he both penciled and inked
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...
. Through the remainder of the 1940s, he confirmably drew for Holyoke's Captain Aero Comics (as Al Hollingsworth), and Fiction House
Fiction House
Fiction House is an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.-History:-Jumbo and Jack...
's Wings Comics, where he did the feature "Suicide Smith" at least sporadically from 1946 to 1950. He is tentatively identified under the initials "A. H." as an artist on the feature "Captain Power" in Novack Publishing's Great Comics in 1945.
In the following decade, credited as Alvin Hollingsworth or A. C. Hollingsworth, he drew for a number of publishers and series, including Avon Comics' and later Superior Publishers Limited's The Mask of Dr. Fu Manchu
Fu Manchu
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character introduced in a series of novels by British author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century...
; Premier Magazines' Police Against Crime; Ribage's romance comic
Romance comics
Romance comics is a comics genre depicting romantic love and its attendant complications such as jealousy, marriage, divorce, betrayal, and heartache. The term is generally associated with an American comic books genre published through the first three decades of the Cold War...
Youthful Romances; and horror comics
Horror comics
Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, black-and-white comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. Horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, when concern over content and the imposition of the self-censorship Comics Code Authority contributed to...
such as Master Comics
Master Comics
Master Comics was a monthly ongoing comic book anthology series that began its 133-issue run during the 1930s and 1940s period known as the Golden Age of Comic Books...
' Dark Mysteries and Trojan Magazines' Beware. As Al Hollingsworth, he drew horror comics including Avon's Witchcraft and Premier's Mysterious Stories, and romance comics such as Lev Gleason Publications
Lev Gleason Publications
Lev Gleason Publications, founded by Leverett Gleason, was the publisher of a number of popular comic books during the 1940s and early 1950s, including Daredevil, Crime Does Not Pay, and Boy Comics....
' Boy Loves Girl. One standard source credits him, without specification, as an artist on stories for Fox Comics (the feature "Numa" in Rulah, Jungle Goddess
Rulah, Jungle Goddess
Rulah, Jungle Goddess is a fictional character, a jungle girl, in comic books published by Fox Feature Syndicate. She first appeared in Zoot Comics #7...
, and "Bronze Man' in Blue Beetle
Blue Beetle
Blue Beetle is the name of three fictional superheroes that appear in American comic books published by a variety of companies since 1939.-Publication history:...
) and on war stories for the publisher Spotlight.
Historian Shaun Clancy, citing Fawcett Comics
Fawcett Comics
Fawcett Comics, a division of Fawcett Publications, was one of several successful comic book publishers during the Golden Age of Comic Books in the 1940s...
writer-editor Roy Ald as his source, identified Hollingsworth as an artist on Fawcett's Negro Romance #2 (Aug. 1950).
In the mid-1950s, he worked on newspaper comic strips including the 1955 Kandy, from the Smith-Mann Syndicate, as well as Scorchy Smith
Scorchy Smith
Scorchy Smith was an American adventure comic strip created by artist John Terry that ran from 1930 to 1961.Scorchy Smith was a pilot-for-hire whose initial adventures took him across America, fighting criminals and aiding damsels in distress...
and, with George Shedd, Martin Keel.
Fine art career
Hollingsworth thereafter left comics for a career as a fine artFine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
painter, and from 1980 until retiring in 1998 he taught art as a professor at Hostos Community College
Hostos Community College
Eugenio María de Hostos Community College of The City University of New York is a community college in the City University of New York system located in the South Bronx, New York City...
of the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
. As a painter, his subjects included such contemporary social issues as civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
for women and African Americans, as well as jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
. Of one subject he painted, an African Jesus Christ, he told Ebony
Ebony (magazine)
Ebony, a monthly magazine for the African-American market, was founded by John H. Johnson and has published continuously since the autumn of 1945...
magazine in 1971, "I have always felt that Christ was a Black man," and said the subject represented a "philosophical symbol of any of the modern prophets who have been trying to show us the right way. To me, Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
and Martin Luther King are such prophets." An authority on fluorescent paint, he worked in both representational
Representation (arts)
Representation is the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else. It is through representation that people organize the world and reality through the act of naming its elements...
and abstract art
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
.
In the summer of 1963, he and fellow African-American artists Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden was an African American artist and writer. He worked in several media including cartoons, oils, and collage.-Education:...
and William Majors formed the group Spiral in order to help the Civil Rights Movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
through art exhibitions. At some point during the 1960s, he directed an art program teaching young students commercial art
Commercial art
Commercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...
and fine art at the Harlem Parents Committee Freedom School.