Lady Bird Cleveland facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lady Bird Cleveland
Born	July 24, 1926 Cornelia, Georgia, US
Died	June 2, 2015 Willingboro, New Jersey, US

Lady Bird Strickland (also known as Lady Bird Cleveland) was an American painter. She was born on July 24, 1926, and passed away on June 2, 2015. Her family had roots from Africa, the Cherokee people, and Ireland. Lady Bird Cleveland's art mostly showed the African-American experience. This included important moments like slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and even President Barack Obama's inauguration. She is also the mother of the famous fashion model Pat Cleveland.

Lady Bird Cleveland's Early Life

Lady Bird Strickland grew up in a poor family in Cornelia, Georgia. Her mother ran a small restaurant from their home called Sally's Tea Room. Even though the restaurant was popular, her family was still very poor. Lady Bird was one of six children.

She started drawing at a very young age. She used striped paper from writing tablets because she didn't have special art paper. Growing up as an African-American girl in a very segregated part of Georgia, she wasn't encouraged to express herself through art. Her teachers even punished her if they caught her drawing in school.

Moving to Harlem and Discovering Art

In 1940, when Lady Bird was 13, she moved by herself to Harlem, New York. She went there to help her sister take care of her five children. Lady Bird became the main person earning money for her sister's family. She started working in a zipper factory.

She also began attending Wadleigh High School for Girls in Harlem. There, her art skills were noticed and supported by her teachers. One of her teachers entered her oil painting called "The tired woman" into a contest. This painting showed a woman bent over doing laundry. Lady Bird won a scholarship to Pratt Institute because of it. She was the only girl in her soldering class there.

Art and Work During Wartime

During World War II, Lady Bird left school to find work. To support herself, she painted ties and made special glowing billboards in a store window. She also created paintings to sell. Soon, different art critics started to notice her talent. After her daughter, Pat Cleveland, was born, Lady Bird worked at Bellevue Hospital.

Her paintings from the 1940s showed scenes of the exciting Harlem nightlife. She painted famous people like Josephine Baker, Duke Ellington, Marian Anderson, Eartha Kitt, Miles Davis, and Billy Eckstein. A famous photographer named Carl Van Vechten took pictures of her. She also created catalogs for Elsa Peretti, who designed jewelry for Tiffany's.

Painting Black History

By the 1980s, Lady Bird Strickland settled in Willingboro, New Jersey. She continued her important goal: "to paint black history from the heart." She created many artworks featuring important figures in African-American history. These included Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Jesse Owens, Medgar Evers, and Shirley Chisholm. Her later paintings also showed the election victory of former President Barack Obama.

Lady Bird Cleveland's Family Life

While living in Harlem, Lady Bird had her daughter, Pat Cleveland, in 1950. She raised Pat as a single mother in Harlem.

In the 1960s, Lady Bird was very involved in her daughter's modeling career. She worked as Pat's personal dresser. This was because Pat was underage at the time. They would travel together on Greyhound buses for months, going to Pat's different modeling jobs.