Bearden & Company An inaugural Exhibition
Featuring: Romare Bearden, Ed Clark, Roy DeCarava, Sam Gilliam, Norman Lewis, Al Loving, Henry O. Tanner & Charles Sebree February 27 through April 11
Bill Hodges Gallery 529 West 20th Street, #10E, New York, NY 10011 ¡ 212-333-2640 www.billhodgesgallery.com
Romare Bearden. The Rites of Spring, 1941, Gouache on Cardboard, 31 ½ x 48 in.
An Alternate History: African American Contemporary Art Masters of the 20th Century History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
-Winston Churchill
The sentiment of history being written by the victor is oft, and rightly, associated with the deliberate exclusion of critical facts, heinous atrocities and any other extraneous details that could tarnish or put into question the reputation and authenticity of a champion. The issues with this are many but the consequences are devastating, especially for the defeated. As a single-sided, often exaggerated, history is passed down - it becomes engrained in the cultural fabric of a community and regarded more and more as fact over time. By the time a society can come to terms with the need for reconciliation, reparations and a rewriting of history - they are often met by a staunch, unrelenting offense of people who have built their livelihood and identity on a false record. This phenomenon is common in the realm of national histories, war and politics but also in more benign, seemingly peaceable and passive aspects of culture like art and its histories. To some degree, art has always served as a cultural barometer – signifying trends, reaffirming standards of beauty, chronicling or responding to major events but art is often seen as emotional and passionate, personal and subjective and sometimes illegible or inaccessible. Outside of the art world, art is rarely given its due respect as a nuanced and complex cultural record but within the art world – tastemakers and record keepers further complicate this by applying, consciously or subconsciously, biases to their accounts, biases that are inherently reflective of their particular cultures. As the outside world becomes increasingly progressive, the art world is being forced to rectify their part in being an exclusive, oppressive and exploitative pillar of society to certain groups. Some initiatives by institutions appear sincere, while others are blatantly spurious and reek of superficiality. But so long as these cultural vanguards remain maintained by the cultural majority – there will always be an internal struggle for truth. From its inception, Bill Hodges Gallery sought to serve as a beacon for undiscovered or underappreciated artists who had been exiled or cast from history because of their race. There is a wealth of minority artists, especially African American artists, whom the public is just starting to learn about and an even larger trove of artists whom we will never have the chance to know. Bearden and Company, the inaugural exhibition at Bill Hodges Gallery’s latest Chelsea location, features works by Romare Bearden (1911-1988), Ed Clark (1926-2019), Roy DeCarava (1919-2009), Sam Gilliam (1933), Norman Lewis (1909-1979), Al Loving (1935-2005), Charles Sebree (1914-1985) and Henry O. Tanner (1859-1937) – though some more well known than others, all of these artists are integral members in their respective artistic, cultural and epochal move-
Henry Ossawa Tanner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1859 to Benjamin Tucker Tanner, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Sarah Tanner, a former slave who escaped to the North via the Underground Railroad. He was the first of seven children. His middle name “Ossawa” was in commemoration of the Battle of Osawatomie in Kansas (1856) where anti-slave settlers fought to defend their land from pro-slavery forces. In his youth, the Tanner family moved from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia where his father became friends with Frederick Douglass. At the age of 20, Tanner enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where he was the only Black student. While at the Academy, Tanner studied under Thomas Eakins, realist painter, photographer and sculptor. Eakins challenged the Academy’s perennial curriculum of anatomy lectures and plaster cast studies and proposed innovative methods such as live models, open discussions about anatomy between female and male students and even dissections of human cadavers. This energetic and, for the time, modern approach to art education profoundly inspired Tanner. After his graduation, frustrated with racism in America and the struggle to be accepted into the art world, even in the metropolis that is Philadelphia, Tanner opened up a photography study in Atlanta, Georgia in an effort to save up money to go to Europe. This venture was not successful but during this time, in the 1880s, Tanner made the acquaintance of Joseph Crane Hartzell, also a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church and a trustee of Clark College. Hartzell and his wife recommended Tanner to the college and he taught drawing there for a period of time. In 1891, Tanner traveled to Paris where he studied at Académie Julian. Tanner found comfort in Parisian life and did not face racial animosity in the general culture and art scenes like he did in America. Tanner returned to America occasionally but spent the rest of his life in Paris after his arrival in 1891. Paris served as a great source of inspiration for Tanner, as well. From studying under French artists like Jean-Joseph Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens, joining the Étaples art colony in Normandy and discovering the works of Gustave
Courbet and Jean-Baptiste Chardin – Tanner, who is considered a realist painter, evolved from painting architectural sites to coastal, more metaphorical spectacles to coastal, more metaphorical spectacles to, in 1895, painting mostly deeply religious scenes. This transition at an artist came at a time when Tanner was experiencing a struggle spiritually and sought to be a more devout follower of the Lord. His religious works were received well. His work Daniel in the Lions’ Den was shown at the 1896 Salon and his piece The Resurrection of Lazarus (1896) was so celebrated that it earned him an all-expense paid trip to the Middle East, gifted to him by art critic Rodman Wanamaker. This trip served as an incredible opportunity for Tanner, spiritually and artistically. In 1921, Tanner painted Moise dans les Joncs, featured in Bearden and Company, which depicts the Bible scene where Moses’ mother hides infant Moses in the reeds along the Nile to save him from a decree that commanded all Hebrew sons be drowned at birth. As Moses grows, his mother sets him up in a wicker basket by the river with hopes that someone will find and adopt him. To his luck, one of the pharaoh’s daughters hears Moses’ cry and takes him. Miriam, Moses’ sister, who was hiding in the bushes surveilling her brother, proposes to the princess if she would like a midwife and thus Moses’ mother was paid to nurse and raise her son and he was kept safe and alive. The use of a dusky cornflower blue veils the painting and imposes a sense of peace, or relief on the scene. Though the work is not incredibly detailed, Tanner uses the medium of oil paint to convey subtle elements in a unique manner, using an impasto style. The paint retains sheen and gives certain shapes volume, like the moon in the upper left that appears to glisten, but also adds an aqueous dimension to the blue dress of the standing woman cradling infant Moses in front of the river. Two years after this painting, in 1923, Tanner was appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, the highest national order of merit from the French government. Tanner has been called the “greatest African American painter to date” by historian Paul Finkelman and was the first African-American artist to have his work purchased by the White House. Tanner died in 1937 in Paris.
Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859 - 1937). Moise dans les Joncs, 1921. Oil on panel. 19 ½ x 15 ¼ in.
On the other side of the pond, another Black artist was paving the way from AfricanAmerican figurative art in the early 1900s. Charles Sebree, born in 1914 in Madisonville, Kentucky was a painter and playwright who was a major force in Chicago’s art scene. An only child, Sebree and his mother moved to Chicago in 1924 when he was 10. From early on his artistic prowess was caught the attention of his art teacher and the Renaissance Society at University of Chicago, who purchased an early painting of his titled Seated Boy and offered him a scholarship to take Saturday classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. At these classes, Sebree joined forces with other budding artists like Margaret Burroughs and Charles White. But, because of his young age and lack of formal training, Sebree was received skeptically by art circles and other Black, more established, artists but his work, which was in the figurative style but marred by a palpable emotional quality, did well in retail. In 1936, Sebree worked for the Works Progress Administration where he was able to get paid to make art. In 1939, Sebree painted Woman in White Turban, one of his largest works. Sebree’ distinctive style of accentuating bulbous facial features is mellowed and dignified by the poise of his character. Painted in a tranquil cornflower blue, like Henry O. Tanner’s Biblical reinterpretation Moise dans les Jancs - both artists harness the emotional capability of a color to dictate the air of a scene. Similarly, the gouache provides a fascinating matte texture that unifies the different shades of blue and white. The matte finish curious retains a slight glisten that does not take away from the regality of the portrait but encapsulates it. This work was later acquired by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. In 1942, soon after completing Woman in White Turban, Sebree was drafted into World War II. While at Camp Robert Smalls, a segregated section of the base, Sebree met playwright Owen Dodson who he collaborated with on plays and who inspired him to become a playwright. After the war, Sebree moved to New York to undertake artistic and theatrical pursuits. In 1945, he received a Julius Rosenwald Fund fellowship and co-wrote the 1954 Broadway musical Mrs. Patterson that starred Eartha Kitt. Sebree moved to Washington D.C. in the 1950’s and remained there until his death in 1985. With their diverse approaches to the medium - Henry O. Tanner and Charles Sebree challenged conceptions about African-American artists and African-Americans in paintings. The way both artists channel self-examination and self-representation into their technique helped revolutionize and pave avenues for Black creativity to be revered and celebrated in a world that was, and still is, so exclusionary. Another pioneer featured in Bearden and Company, who not only transformed artistic pathways for Black creatives but pioneered a new genre in his selective medium was Roy DeCarava. Born in Harlem in 1919, DeCarava was inducted into the creative spirit surrounding the Harlem Renaissance by birth. After graduating from Textile High School in 1938, DeCarava attended Cooper Union (1938-1940) and Harlem Art Center (1940-1942) to hone his style of painting. Originally a painter and, later, a printmaker – DeCarava took photographs to record his references for other projects during his time at school and working with the WPA but soon he became enamored with the medium and devoted himself to it. DeCarava is most known for his subjective, emotionally tinged candid photography which was revolutionary during this time where cameras and film were just beginning to be accessible to the general public. DeCarava was inspired most by his community and those are the subjects who comprise the majority, if not entirety, of his oeuvre. In his work, DeCarava challenged notions about Black people, Black culture and Harlem residents by capturing them without an inquisitive, scrutinizing gaze – as most White photographers did - but with an inherent compassion that sentimentalized and qui-
Charles Sebree (1913 - 1985). Woman in White Turban, ca. 1939. Oil on canvas. 40 x 30 in.
Edward Steichen, former director of the Museum of Modern Art’s photography department who urged DeCarava to apply for the Guggenheim Fellowship, which he won in 1952. Edward Steichen, former director of the Museum of Modern Art’s photography department who urged DeCarava to apply for the Guggenheim Fellowship, which he won in 1952. Steichen also included multiple DeCarava photographers in MoMA’s legendary 1955 exhibition The Family of Man, which toured the world for eight years after its premiere. A later work of his, the silver gelatin print Untitled (Man Smoking Cigar on Trashcan), 1978, which is shown in Bearden and Company, is a perfect example of the refined simplicity of DeCarava’s style. The hues of the photo, though it is black and white, enhance the organically monochrome metal and concrete structures that frame the subject. Oblivious of his observer, an older man decked in a neat button up and polished leather shoes sits, perched atop a tin garbage can with his legs straddling the iron railing of his stoop for balance. He huffs on a cigar, without the use of his hands, to show his sage and experience, as he gazes in a meditative state down the street. A moment of isolated self-reflection, something so hard to come by in New York City is delicately and surreptitiously captured by DeCarava. Roy DeCarava received acclaim and celebration during his career as a photographer and shot many jazz musicians as well as album artwork for a variety of artists including Miles Davis, Mahalia Jackson and Carlos Montoya. In 2006, DeCarava was awarded the National Medal of Arts from the National Endowment of the Arts. The artist passed away in 2009 in New York City.
Roy DeCarava (1919 - 2009). Untitled (Man Smoking Cigar on Trashcan), 1978. Gelatin silver print. 11 x 13 ⅞ in.
Al Loving (1935 - 2005). Untitled, 1966-68. Acrylic on shaped canvas. 68 x 61 in.
Sam Gilliam (1935). Renaissance I, 1986. Acrylic, enamel, aluminum and canvas construction on wood (in two parts). 75 x 90 x 7 in.
African-American artists have proven their mastery of academic, figurative art forms with extreme skill and grace but another domain where Black artists have been particularly ground breaking, especially within the past century in Contemporary art is abstractionism. Al Loving, born in Detroit in 1935, had a penchant for art. In 1963, he earned a BFA from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and later an MFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. While at the University of Michigan, Loving was mentored by abstract expressionist Albert Mullen who helped him join Once Group, a collective where artists of various mediums would come together and share ideas. In 1968, Loving moved to New York, specifically Hotel Chelsea, to pursue his art. Just a year after moving to New York, he became the first African-American artist to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American art. Also in 1968, Loving completed a large geometric abstraction piece featuring a shaped canvas that is featured in Bearden and Company. Untitled challenges viewers in multiple ways; it is a trompe l’oeil where Loving presents his fine skill of shadowing and spatial mastery all contained within a hexagonal canvas. The innovation of shaped canvases arose in the mid-20th century and was popular among African-American contemporary artists like Loving and also Sam Gilliam and Ed Clark. Loving tackled various media as an artist, moving onto fabric construction, similar to Gilliam’s draped canvases, in the early 1970s – inspired by the exhibition Abstract Design in American Quilts at the Whitney. In the 1980’s Loving began experimenting with large scale collages, akin to those by Romare Bearden. Loving was featured in many notable exhibitions at major institutions like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania (2000); the National Academy of the Sciences, Washington D.C. (1991); Albright-Knox Gallery, New York (1989); the Studio Museum (1985, 1989, 1977) and more. Loving passed away in 2005 in New York. A contemporary of Loving with whom he shares multiple stylistic approaches is Sam Gilliam. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1933, Gilliam showed an interest in painting at a young age. After completing his BFA at the University of Louisville, he applied to graduate school, took a brief hiatus to participate in the army and completed his MFA also at the University of Louisville in 1961. After receiving his Master’s degree he taught at multiple schools and universities on the east coast before moving to Washington D.C. with his wife, Washington Post reporter Dorothy Butler. Gilliam’s earliest works, in university, reflected his studies of European abstract expressionism while his principal career works were inspired by his move to Washington D.C. and his involvement with the Washington Color School. Being in Washington and working with the Color School inspired him take full advantage of the canvas which resulted in his partially sculptural, large scale, stained and hanging canvases - which are some of the most iconic works of his career. A few decades later, his works undertook another shift as the artist began experimenting with collage and materials like wood and metal, much like the wall sculpture featured in Bearden and Company. Renaissance I, 1986 is a large scale, 3-dimensional collage that embraces total chaos. Gilliam sticks to a simple, limited palette but his execution unrestrained. Gilliam has made smaller, three dimensional collages and sometimes incorporates mixed-media into his canvas drawings but Renaissance I is a true show stopper because of its gargantuan size and freedom of design. Gilliam, the only living artist featured in Bearden and Company continues to produce art and lives in Washington D.C.
An even closer contemporary to Gilliam is likely Ed Clark, who just passed away in 2019. Born in the Storyville area of New Orleans in 1926 to Creole parents, Clark’s childhood was marred by poverty, colorism and racism of the American South. At the age of 7, Clark and his family relocated to Chicago. In 1944, Clark left high school to serve in World War II in the Army Air Forces. He served in Guam for two years. Upon his return, Clark attended the Art Institute of Chicago (1947-1951) on the G.I. Bill and studied under Impressionist painter Louis Ritman at. Soon after he completed his studies, Clark’s grandmother passed away and left him a considerable amount of money in her will, with that and the help of the G.I. Bill, again, he went to Paris in 1952 and studied drawing at Académie Grande Chaumière. While in Paris, Clark became friends with other African American artists out there like James Baldwin, Beauford Delaney and Haywood Bill Rivers. His style also metamorphosized with his new surrounds from figurative to Cubist-influenced abstraction that reflected his time with and inspiration from Nicolas de Staël . His early work received recognition in the Parisian press and was exhibited in several contemporary galleries including the American Embassy (1969) and Galerie Creuze (1955, 1966). In 1956, he traveled to New York City, where his work adopted a more minimal and abstract style. Here he would become a founding member of the Brata Gallery, located in Greenwich Village, along with artists such as Sal Roman, Al Held, and Roland Bladen. In 1957, Clark began to experiment with shaped canvases - which painter and critic Lawrence Campbell claimed to be the first of their kind (ARTnews, 1972). By the 1970s, he continued to evolve these altered canvases with the creation of works with elliptical shapes, to emulate the act of perception by using an ocular inspired composition. During the 1970s and 1980s his use of color was an important aspect of his process and increasingly working with line and form also began to take on a more prime aspect. From the 1990s and onward, he continued to broaden his style adding vertical strokes to his color fields, like in his work New York Ice Cream, 2003. This shift in his composition contributed a new level of complexity to his works. Norman Lewis was another painter known and celebrated for complexity in his oeuvre of abstract expressionist works. Like Gilliam and many artists featured in Bearden and Company, Lewis displayed an artistic prowess from a young age. Born to Bermudian parents in Harlem, New York, Lewis gravitated to art from childhood and studied drawing and commercial design in high school. After high school, Lewis worked as a merchant marine along the east coast until returning to New York and studying under Augusta Savage as well as at Columbia University, from 1933 to 1935. These years were incredibly valuable for Lewis as he met many other Black artists, writers and creatives. A result of this time, Lewis joined 306 Group - a group of artists including Jacob Lawrence, Charles Alston and Ralph Ellison who worked to promote and support other upcoming Black artists. With the help of his friends at 306 Group, Lewis became a founding member of the Harlem Artists’ Guild in 1935. A year later he became a teacher at the Harlem Community Arts Center through the WPA (Works Progress Administration). While teaching in the 1930’s Lewis’ style was social realist and figurative, marked with influences of Cubism, African sculpture, jazz and “new Negro” as coined by Alain Locke. In the 1940’s, after WPA ended, Lewis was teaching at the newly built George Washington Carver School in Harlem alongside Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White. During this time his style also evolved slowly into a more abstract one with the use of calligraphic lines and loose representations. The two Untitled works by Lewis featured in Bearden and Company portray the artist’s evolution into abstraction. The Untitled piece dated 1945, emphasizes the Cubist and abstract influences Lewis was beginning to experiment with in his own practice, compared to
Edward Clark (1926 - 2019). New York Ice Cream, 2003. Acrylic on canvas. 72 ⅛ x 57 ⅞ in.
his 1970 Untitled piece which is distinctly Lewis’ own style. Lewis was friends with many of the abstract expressionists of the time but seldom received the acclaim of his peers and friends like Ad Reinhardt and Mark Tobey and only posthumously has he been recognized as the only African American artist in the abstract expressionist movement. Though his shift in genre separated him from his more realist peers in Harlem, he still remained close and co-founded the Spiral Group in 1963 with Romare Bearden, Alston and Hale Woodruff. His commitment to Black artists and the civil rights movement continued as he pursued his art. In 1969, he also opened the Cinque gallery with Bearden and Ernest Crichlow.
Norman Lewis (1909 - 1979). Title Unknown, 1945. Oil on canvas. 29 Âź x 16 in.
Norman Lewis (1909 - 1979). Untitled, 1970. Oil on paper. 29 Ÿ x 41½ in.
Romare Bearden was chosen as the titular inspiration of the show a because of his deep involvement in the African-American art movement in the twentieth century and for his relationships to many of the artists in the show. Romare Bearden was an American artist best known for his paintings and collages. Aside from his earlier comics, Bearden began his art career with portrayals of Black American life and scenes of the American South. He was inspired by cubism and Mexican muralists and reflected their color palettes and linear styles in some of his works. While developing his style, Bearden was a caseworker for the Department of Social Services and served in the U.S. Army during World War II, which allowed him to travel internationally. After his service, Bearden traveled to Europe to meet and befriend artists and his style evolved into abstract representations of more creative themes like religion and the human experience. The selection of works featured in Bearden and Company emphasize the drastic transition Bearden embarked on. The Rites of Spring, ca. 1941 is the earliest work by Bearden featured in the show. Though he had not yet begun to collage, the way he exaggerates and colors certain body parts or details of his characters resembles the corporal discontinuity found in his later collages. Bearden was a popular artist in the major art scene but he was also a force within the African-American art scene. In the early 1960’s, Bearden was a founding member of the Spiral, an artist collective formed for Black artists to discuss their struggle for civil rights. Soon after his participation in the group, Bearden transitioned into making his well-known collages. The Train, 1974; The Family, 1975; and Saturday Evening, 1975 are all late-career collages by Bearden and interestingly, they all portray family or communal scenes. Though Bearden was born in the North Carolina, he spent most of his adolescence in New York City but his summer trips to his distant family in the South had a major influence on his subject matters. The familial and pastoral spirit in these works reflects that. As he amassed more and more successes, Bearden was appointed the first art director of the Harlem Cultural Council, he was also involved in the creation of the Studio Museum, the Black Academy of Arts and Cinque gallery. In 1976, Bearden and other African American artists, like Ed Clark, were commissioned by the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden for the 1976 Bicentennial show. For this event, commemorating the 200 anniversary of the abolition of slavery, Bearden created a banner based on the story of Joseph Cinqué, an African man (from what is now Sierra Leone) who led a slave revolt on the Spanish slave ship La Amistad. Cinqué and his peers were captured and tried before the United States Supreme Court and were found to have rightfully defended themselves from being illegally enslaved. It is interesting to note that in Prince Cinque, the character is holding a green leaf which seems to be an identical motif in The Rites of Spring. Both of these works represent polar ends of Bearden’s career yet they both feature this mysterious detail. Bearden has been the focus of several museum retrospectives including those organized by the Museum of Modern Art (1971), Mint Museum of Art (1980), Detroit Institute of the Arts (1986), Studio Museum in Harlem (1991), and National Gallery of Art (2003). His work is collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 1984, he received the Mayor’s Award of Honor for Art and Culture in New York City, and in 1987, he was awarded the President’s National Medal of the Arts. Bearden and Company is the inaugural exhibition of Bill Hodges Gallery’s latest Chelsea location and a celebration of talent oft overlooked or seldom known outside of African-American art collectors or art enthusiasts. This show is the first in a series of regularly scheduled exhibitions highlighting African-American and African-descendant art masters.
Romare Bearden (1911-1988). Sunset (Mysterious Woman in a Swamp), 1980. Collage and mixed media on fiberboard. 14 x 18 in.
Romare Bearden. The Rites of Spring, 1941, Gouache on cardboard. 31 ½ x 48 in.
Romare Bearden (1911-1988). The Family , 1975. Color aquatint and photoengraving on paper. AP Edition of 25. 19 Âź x 26 â…› in.
Romare Bearden (1911-1988). Saturday Evening, 1975. Acrylic, ink, graphite and paper collage on masonite . 8 x 9 â…ž in.
Romare Bearden (1911-1988). Introduction for a Blues Queen (Uptown at Savoy), from Jazz Series, 1979. Monoprint on wove paper. 27 ⅞ x 37 ⅞ in.
Romare Bearden (1911-1988). The Train, 1974. Color aquatint etching and photoengraving with hand-coloring. Edition of 20. 22 x 30 in.
Romare Bearden (1911-1988). Prince Cinque (Maquette), 1976. Nylon banner. 59 ¾ x 44 ½ in.
Romare Bearden (1911-1988). Spring Festival, 1975. Wool tapestry. 95 x 66 in.