Margaret Taylor-Burroughs

There, at the age of 23, Burroughs served as the youngest member of its board of directors. A long-time educator, she spent most of her career at DuSable High School. Taylor-Burroughs was a prolific writer, with her efforts directed toward the exploration of the Black experience and toward children, especially to their appreciation of their cultural identity and to their introduction and growing awareness of art. She is also credited with the founding of Chicago's Lake Meadows Art Fair in the early 1950s.

Margaret Taylor-Burroughs studied at Englewood Technical Prep Academy, Chicago State University and Englewood High School. The recorded working language is English. Residence is recorded at Louisiana and Chicago. Work by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs is recorded in the collections of Metropolitan Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Studio Museum in Harlem and Print Collection. Distinctions recorded are Paul Robeson Award, Chicago Women's Hall of Fame, Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award and honorary degree from Spelman College.

• Name — Margaret Burroughs • Birth Name — Victoria Margaret Taylor • Born — 1 November 1915 • Birthplace — St. Rose, Louisiana, U.S. • Died — 21 November 2010 • Place of death — Chicago, Illinois, U.S. • Organizations — * South Side Community Art Center • DuSable Museum of African American History • Education — * Englewood High School • now Englewood Technical Prep Academy, Chicago • Chicago Teachers College • now Chicago State University • School of the Art Institute of Chicago (B.A.), (M.A.) • Awards — * President's Humanitarian Award (President Gerald Ford), 1975 • Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award, 1988 • Paul Robeson Award, 1989 • Art Institute of Chicago's Legends and Legacy Award, 2010 • Spouse — * Bernard Goss • Charles Gordon Burroughs • Children — 2

Burroughs was born Victoria Margaret Taylor in St. Rose, Louisiana, where her father worked as a farmer and laborer at a railroad warehouse. She was raised there as a Catholic. The family moved to Chicago in 1920 when she was five years old. There she attended Englewood High School along with Gwendolyn Brooks, who in 1985-1986 served as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress (now United States Poet Laureate). As classmates, the two joined the NAACP Youth Council. Burroughs earned her teacher's certificates from Chicago Teachers College in 1937. She helped found the South Side Community Arts Center in 1939 to serve as a social center, gallery, and studio to showcase African American artists. In 1946, Taylor-Burroughs earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in art education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she also earned her Master of Arts degree in art education, in 1948.

Taylor-Burroughs married the artist Bernard Goss (1913–1966), in 1939, and they divorced in 1947. In 1949, she married the poet Charles Gordon Burroughs and they remained married until his death in 1994.

Taylor-Burroughs taught at DuSable High School on Chicago's south side from 1946 to 1969, and from 1969 to 1979 was a professor of humanities at Kennedy-King College, a community college in Chicago. She also taught African American art and culture at Elmhurst College in 1968. She was named Chicago park district commissioner by Harold Washington in 1985, a position she held until 2010. Margaret Burroughs is the recipient of an honorary doctorate, as well as the President's Humanitarian Award (1975). At age 22, she helped found the South Side Community Art Center, the first Black museum in the United States, in 1941.

Dr. Margaret Taylor Burroughs exhibited her art with the American Negro Exposition (Chicago, 1940), as well as Atlanta University (1943-1945), and the San Francisco Civic Museum (1949). Burroughs created many of her own works of art as well. In one of her linocuts, Birthday Party, both Black and white children are seen celebrating. The Black and white children are not isolated from each other; instead they are intermixed and mingling around the table together waiting for a birthday cake. An article published by The Art Institute of Chicago described Burroughs' Birthday Party and said: "Through her career, as both a visual artist and a writer, she has often chosen themes concerning family, community, and history. 'Art is communication,' she has said. 'I wish my art to speak not only for my people - but for all humanity.' This aim is achieved in Birthday Party, in which both black and white children dance, while mothers cut cake in a quintessential image of neighbors and family enjoying a special day together." The painting puts in visual form Burroughs' philosophy that "the color of skin is a minor difference among men which has been stretched beyond its importance." In many of Burroughs' pieces, she depicts people with half black and half white faces. In The Faces of My People, Burroughs carved five people staring at the viewer. One of the women is all black, three of the people are half black and half white and one is mostly white. While Burroughs is attempting to blend together the Black and white communities, she also shows the barriers that stop the communities from uniting. None of the people in The Faces of My People are looking at each other, and this implies a sense of disconnect among them. On another level, The Faces of My People deals with diversity. An article from the Collector magazine website describes Burroughs' attempts to unify in the picture. The article says, "Burroughs sees her art as a catalyst for bringing people together. This tableau of diverse individuals illustrates her commitment to mutual respect and understanding." Burroughs once again depicts faces that are half black and half white in My People. Even though the title is similar to the previously referenced piece, the woodcut has some differences. In this scene, there are four different faces – each of which is half white and half black. The head on the far left is tilted to the side and close to the head next to it. It seems as both heads are coming out of the same body – taking the idea of split personalities to the extreme. The women are all very close together, suggesting that they relate to each other. In The Faces of My People, there were others pictured with different skin tones, but in My People all of the people have the same half black and half white split. Therefore, My People focuses on a common conflict that all the women in the picture face. • Artwork — Medium — Date — Collection • Still Life — Oil on compressed particle board — 1943 — Corcoran Collection • Sleeping Boy — Linocut — 1953 — Reba and Dave Williams Collection • Black Venus — Linocut — 1957 — Reba and Dave Williams Collection • On the Beach — Linocut — 1957 — Reba and Dave Williams Collection • Abstraction — Linocut on paper — ca. 1962 — The Johnson Collection • African Odalisque — Lithograph on paper — 1984 — The Johnson Collection • Hop Scotch — Linocut on paper — 1991 — The Johnson Collection • Bill Broonzy- Me Folk Singer — Linocut on paper — 2006 — The Johnson Collection • Woman — Ink on paper — 2006 — DuSable Collection

Burroughs died in Chicago on November 21, 2010.