 Richard Yarde, Fanny Ellison |
In 1979, Brown University sponsored a "Ralph Ellison Festival" celebrating the work of the author of Invisible Man, Shadow and Act and other works. "Ellison showed me that the artistic process is, in part, intellectual, that it conditions the process of the mind...He taught me to have courage in my own insights, and in the sacredness of technique." (Ploughshares, p. 20-21)
"Inman Page...was the first black graduate of Brown [Class of 1877]. And he was the principal of the school that Ralph Ellison went to as a kid - Frederick Douglass High School in Oklahoma ... That was how we got Ellison to come to Brown, his allegiance to Inman Page and to Page's daughter, Zellia Brogue, who taught Ellison harmony...in high school." (Forum, p. 449) As part of the festival, Ellison was presented with a watercolor study of his mentor by the artist, Richard Yarde.