This award and the sale of several of his paintings made it possible for him to travel to Europe (Artists"). In 1931, after four years of travel in Europe, Woodruff became a professor at Atlanta University. He was the first African American with formal training to earn an art professorship in a southern black university. Woodruff liked to display works of major black artists. In the University Library, Woodruff would annually host an exhibition of commencement week, where he influenced students to invent their own unique style of art. He also made art more accessible to his students and to the African American community, by getting into the High Museum of Art, where blacks were never allowed (Carlin).
Woodruff taught in Atlanta for nearly fifteen years. During this time he also produced several great works of art. He depicted shack homes, black churches, outhouses, pine forests, field work, chain gangs and lynchings. Woodruff's creations were made by carving, inking and pressing a material favored for its character and price (Artists"). Simplicity was also the key to a good painting; Woodruff's most renowned paintings are in simple watercolor formats. His amazing works showed that any style of art would be acceptable, and influenced many to create their own styles.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, black artists in America were often craftsmen by trade. They would be free or slave and only paint in their spare time. Often the northern African Americans were sent to the South to teach blacks and whites their craft. On southern plantations, blacks developed tools and other utensils to do the work of slaves. Carving, pottery, and ironwork were often a result of their newly invented tools. The primary artists were slaves and craftsmen that conformed to the fashion of the times (Black).
Painters became affiliated with organizations, and founded art schools. The African American artist, however, was often a victim of these times.