How the Black Power movement shaped art history

The title image of the "Soul of a Nation" exhibition at London's Tate Modern is a bold, life-size portrait. Barkley Hendricks has painted himself into the picture, naked from the waist down, calm and almost nonchalant. His Superman t-shirt recalls a quote made by Black Panther founder Bobby Seale, who once declared in court: "We're hip to the fact that Superman never saved no black people."

In the early 1960s, police violence in African-American neighborhoods in Los Angeles sparked the Watts Rebellion race riots, which left 34 people dead. Faith Ringgold's bloody depiction of the clashes includes a symbol of hope for the future in the form of two terrified children, one white and one Black, clinging to each other amid the chaos.

Roy DeCarava was one of the first artists to develop a Black aesthetic in photography, using deep grains and an intense black palette to encourage viewers to concentrate on the details of an image. He visited jazz clubs, capturing icons like John Coltrane in action, and snapped intimate moments between Black couples and families.

One of the few white artists to be featured in the "Soul of a Nation" exhibition, Andy Warhol photographed Ali as part of his Athletes series. The image of the Black hero was common in portraits by Warhol's Black contemporaries. Ali was even named directly as a worthy example of a Black hero in the manifesto penned by the Organization of Black American Culture in the late 1960s.

Some artists from the Black community of this era channelled their political and social criticism into pieces that were ambitious in both style and scale. Sam Gilliam boldly removed this oversized canvas from the traditional stretcher, and deliberately allowed it to hang differently during each showing - a physical liberation reflecting the freedom sought by Black civil rights campaigners.

By the early 1970s Betye Saar's artwork focused on the role of rituals and "ancestral connectedness." She explored how culture and belief systems linked Black communities in the US with those in the Caribbean, Africa and elsewhere. Her previous solo exhibition on this theme included pieces as varied as painted leather and intricate, window-like structures adorned with animal bones and fur.

Lorraine O'Grady attended the 1983 Harlem African American Day Parade, bringing along a parade float and 15 dancers. She photographed them as they jumped off the float and held golden picture frames up to the faces of onlookers in the crowds. It was an artwork within an artwork, and defied the common assertion that there was no place for Black artists in the avant-garde art world.