| Georgette Seabrooke | |
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Seabrooke, 1939 |
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| Born | 2 August 1916 [1] Charleston, South Carolina[1] |
| Nationality | American |
Georgette Seabrooke (aka Georgette Seabrooke Powell;b. 1916), is an American muralist, artist, illustrator, art therapist and educator.
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Seabrooke was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and grew up in the New York City neighborhood of Yorkville, Manhattan. Her mother, widowed when Georgette was a child, was domestic housekeeper, and Georgette started working with her mother. She graduated from Washington Irving High School.[2] She studied with James Lesesne Wells at the Harlem Art Workshop, and with Gwendolyn B. Bennett at the Harlem Community Art Center.[3]
When the Harlem Hospital Center mural project selected her to receive a commission (her work Recreation in Harlem), she was the youngest master artist to attended the prestigious Cooper Union in New York City and became an award-winning art student. At age 18, in 1935, the Federal Art Project (FAP) for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) chose Seabrooke for a mural at Queen's General Hospital, Long Island (the required age was supposed to be 21).[3]
After Seabrooke got married and started a family with three children, she began illustrating calendars and magazines.
She went to Fordham University and studied theater design. Seabrooke moved to Washington, D.C. in 1959. She founded Operation Heritage Art Center, now known as Tomorrow's World Art Center, in 1970. In 1972 she became a registered art therapist, and the following year earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Howard University.[2] She was very active in combining art with mental-health therapy, teaching at the Tomorrow's World Art Center and at Malcolm X Park for the "Art in the Park" events.[3]