Hubert H. Crawford

Hubert Horace Crawford was an American painter and muralist. Details of his early years are sketchy. He was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on September 22, 1910. He moved with his family to 172 Garner Street in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1917 and was a graduate of the Albright Art School.

An African American, Crawford was a contemporary of the Harlem Renaissance. He was commissioned to design the stage and décor of Buffalo’s best-known African American nightclub, the Moonglow, and to paint interior and exterior murals for the building at 460 Michigan Avenue in the mid 1930s. He is also known for a 1939 mural in the Officers Club Building of Fort Niagara State Park depicting the first American victory of World War I.

In 1940 Crawford was commissioned to create a large exhibit commemorating the 75^th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation for the American Negro Exposition in Chicago; it was subsequently shown at various sites in Buffalo to much acclaim.

His interests were many and varied. He was a violinist; designed furniture; taught woodworking; designed and constructed a powerboat, and is believed to be the first African American yachtsman in Buffalo.

Crawford’s career ground to a halt in 1940 when he fell from the third floor attic window of his house at 124 Northland Avenue. The accident left him impaired for the rest of his life. He became a patient at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center and executed works at and for the center, although his earlier work went largely forgotten. He was discharged in 1977 and relocated to a senior center in Hamburg, N.Y.

Crawford died in poverty and obscurity in a nursing home near Utica, N.Y. on January 11, 1985. His occupation is listed as "draftsman" on his death certificate.