Wifredo Lam
Personnage, 1969
Oil on Canvas
23 ⅝ x 17 ¾ in. (60 x 45 cm)
Born to Bermudian parents in Harlem, New York in 1909, Norman Lewis was interested in the arts from a young age, studying drawing and commercial design in high school. In Harlem, Lewis was surrounded by opportunities for artistic inspiration. Lewis recounted one such instance in an interview: in his early years as an artist, he spent time observing Augusta Savage in his studio and watching him create art, which offered him tremendous support in confirming his passion for art without receiving any lessons on physical techniques. Lewis went on to study at the Teacher's College at Columbia University from 1933 to 1935. While in school, Lewis continued to engage socially by joining the 306 Group. Through both education and social events, Lewis met many artists, writers, collectors, and social activists in both Harlem and downtown. Co-founded by Charles Alston, the 306 Group is a community institution for exchanging ideas between social activists and artists.
One of the few heroically-scaled works Lewis composed in his lifetime; Exodus is a vibrantly dynamic, eye-catching example of the artist's ability to balance abstraction, storytelling, rhythm, and repetition. Like a congregation united in motion, the abstracted figures in Exodus seem to buzz in harmony; with electric yellows activated against a hazy, charcoal grey background. Notice the silhouettes of a crowd, whose stomping, abstracted feet and painted gestures towards wide-open eyes energize the rhythm of this composition. Norman Lewis, a pioneer of Abstract Expressionist art, is known for his artistic agility across mediums and dimension. At the onset of his career, his work was largely characterized as influenced by social realism. Like his contemporaries, Lewis saw art as an opportunity to directly engage with civil rights discourse of the time. However, as early as 1945, Lewis’ aesthetic became increasingly abstract, though his proclivity towards referencing dynamics facing the Black community never waned; evidenced in the organizing spirit at the forefront of Exodus. Although he passed in 1979, Lewis’ life’s work is only now beginning to receive proper recognition, celebrated for its lively, dynamic, and facile handling of space, color, and history.
Provenance
The Artist
The Artist’s Wife, Ouida B. Lewis, New York, NY Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Norman Lewis: Black Pantings 1946-1977, 1 April – 20 September 1998, The Studio Museum, Harlem, NY
Norman Lewis: Black Pantings 1946-1977, 26 March – 27 June 1999, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT
Norman Lewis: Black Pantings 1946-1977, (Start Date Unknown) – 3 October 1999, The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH
Master Paintings: from 1943 - 1977, 15 May – 5 June 2004, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis, 13 November 2015 – 3 April 2016, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis, 4 June – 21 August 2016, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX
Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis, 17 September 2016 – 8 January 2017, Chicago Cultural Center, Exhibit Hall, Chicago, IL
Selections from the Hamptons Virtual Art Fair, 3 September – 17 October 2020, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Norman Lewis: Shades of Blackness, 18 November 2021 – 29 January 2022, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
On the Wall, 22 September – 15 October 2022, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
BLOCKBUSTER, 27 October – 14 January 2023, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
The Studio Museum In Harlem, Norman Lewis: Black Pantings 1946-1977, New York, 1998, Plate 22, illus. p. 84
Bill Hodges Gallery, 25 Highly Important Paintings by Norman Lewis, New York, 1998, illus. p. 50
Bill Hodges Gallery, Norman Lewis: A Painter's Odyssey 1935 - 1979, New York, 2009, illus. p. 19
Ruth Fine et al., Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis, Univ. of California Press, 2015, Plate 49, illus. p. 96
Bill Hodges Gallery, Norman W. Lewis, et al., New York, 2017, illus. p. 7
Bill Hodges Gallery, Norman Lewis: Shades of Blackness, New York, 2021, illus. p. 11
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 9
Exodus, 1972
Oil on Canvas
72 x 88 ½ in. (182.9 x 224.8 cm)
Signed and Dated, Lower Right: Norman Lewis 72
Titled and Dated on Reverse: 72 – Title “Exodus"
Serpentine (1970), a vibrant canvas of Lewis’ late period, is an energetic composition of crimson hues abuzz against polygonal tiles of cobalt blue that puzzle into the outline of a serpent. Upon closer examination of Serpentine, the forceful dots and lines Lewis employed to break the blue fields suggest his decisive motion. Lewis was publicly recognized by the art critics at the time as an abstract expressionist. Under this wider recognition, Lewis struggled with his invisibility among the white artists. His works received public recognition: Lewis had his one-person debut in 1949 at Willard Gallery; his works were included in the 1951 MoMA exhibition titled Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America; and he won the Popularity Prize at the 1955 Carnegie International Exhibition. He was socially active with other artists of his generation. He attended Studio 35 meetings, organized by Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and William Baziotes, alongside Ad Reinhardt, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Alfred Barr. However, he struggled to be seen as a black artist while recognizing his abstract expressionist identity. Therefore, understanding such struggle, Lewis dedicated much of his time being a mentor to younger artists, providing platforms for their artistic achievement. This painting from Lewis’s later career was painted right after the creation of Cinque Gallery, which was cofounded by Lewis with two other artists—Romare Bearden and Ernest Crichlow. With the aim of supporting young art students and offering a platform and space for them to show their works, Lewis dedicated hours and days to communicating with and engaging with the younger generations. Reading beyond the visual of the simple lines and dots, the composition of each element invites the viewers to reimagine the arrangement in order to experience the crowds of people where their abstracted bodies are simplified and contorted. n this respect, Serpentine represents Lewis’s determination to build communities that assemble individuals into groups for support.
Provenance
The Artist
Norman Lewis Estate, New York, NY Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibiton History:
Norman Lewis: Canvas, 12 November 2015 – 13 February 2016, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Selections from the Collection, 15 April – 29 May 2021, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, 25 Highly Important Paintings by Norman Lewis, New York, 1998, illus. p. 40
Bill Hodges Gallery, Norman Lewis: A Painter's Odyssey 1935 - 1979, New York, 2009, illus. p. 33
Bill Hodges Gallery, Norman W. Lewis, et al., New York, 2017, illus. p. 17
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 11
Norman Lewis remained committed to community uplift throughout his career. In 163, Lewis co-founded the Spiral Group with Romare Bearden, Alston, and Hale Woodruff. Lewis' support of Black artists and the Civil Rights Movement continued as he produced his signature paintings and drawings. In 1969, he also opened the Cinque Gallery with Bearden and Ernest Crichlow to support young artists and curators and provide them with a platform to practice. From 1972 until his passing in 1979, Lewis continued to mentor young artists, teaching at the Art Students League of New York. Norman Lewis passed away in 1979; his work continues to be celebrated and remembered for its lively, dynamic, and facile handling of space, color, and history.
Title Unknown, 1955–1979, is an eye-catching work of abstraction by Lewis; showing dynamic interaction between alternating blue and red hues against a grained gray background. The dark lines outlining the edges of the color blocks trace the shape of Lewis' signature active figural compositions; a style found in many of Lewis’s works, including one of his most prominent canvases, Procession 1965. Lewis' processional compositions are a mainstay of the artist's oevre, constituting a profound example of Lewis' protest paintings. While the wider range of colors dominates the lower half of the canvas, the diminishing figures behind them gently merge with the pale atmosphere as if their existence is fading in society. Completed over the course of his storied career, this work represents Lewis’s ability for storytelling, and his penchant for creating a powerful artistic language that speaks through a timeless sphere.
Provenance
Private Collection
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Selections from the Hamptons Virtual Art Fair, 3 September – 17 October 2020 Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Norman Lewis: A Painter's Odyssey 1935 - 1979, New York, 2009, illus. p. 27 Bill Hodges Gallery, Norman W. Lewis, et al., New York, 2017, illus. p. 25 Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 25
Oil on Canvas
37 1/4 x 62 ½ in. (94.6 x 158.8 cm)
Signed and Dated, Lower Left: NORMAN LEWIS 1955 – 1978
Untitled (Seachange), 1970, exemplifies Norman Lewis’s ability to create simplistic abstractions. In this work, Lewis uses light and shadow to delineate the curved edges of several floating orbs, nestled together like a string of celestial pearls on a necklace. Orbs are a motif seen frequently in Lewis’s atmospheric works, and in this oil on paper work, Lewis skillfully balances a sharp sense of weight with the transient feeling of gossamer breeze. Through the use of white and brown to accent highlights and shadows, Lewis lends these orbs depth in space, with a near-metallic aesthetic. The change of color and the hints of brightness in the highlights call the viewer’s attention to its formation, examine the connection between each part, question the spatial correlation, and immerse oneself in the abstract environment. Painted later in his career, Untitled (Seachange), is found around many of Lewis’s works that are more vibrant and active with busier brushwork. This painting was completed while the Cinque Gallery was actively running; indicative of Lewis’ evolving practice after engaging with the younger generations of artists and curators.
Provenance
Collection of Tarin Fuller, NJ
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Norman Lewis: Small Paintings & Drawings, 12 September – 15 November 2014
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Artist of the WPA, 16 April – 6 June 2015
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Norman Lewis: Works on Paper, 24 September – 7 November 2015
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Norman Lewis: Drawings and Works on Paper, 18 February – 2 April 2016
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Bearden & Co., 27 February – 28 August 2020
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Norman Lewis: Shades of Blackness, 18 November 2021 – 29 January 2022
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Norman Lewis: A Painter's Odyssey 1935 - 1979, New York, 2009, illus. p. 47
Bill Hodges Gallery, Norman Lewis: Shades of Blackness, New York, 2021, illus. p. 21
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 27
29 ½ x 41 ½ in. (74.9 x 105.4 cm)
Signed and Dated, Lower Right: Norman Lewis-9-70
In the 1940s, after the renowned government program Worker's Progress Administration (WPA) ended, Norman Lewis started teaching at the newly built George Washington Carver School in Harlem alongside Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White. During this time, his style also evolved gradually into a more abstract one with the use of calligraphic lines and loose representations.Under this wider recognition, Lewis struggled with his invisibility among white artists. His works received public recognition: Lewis had his one-person debut in 1949 at Willard Gallery; his works were included in the 1951 MoMA exhibition titled Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America; and he won the Popularity Prize at the 1955 Carnegie International Exhibition. He was represented in the US Pavilion at the 1956 Venice Biennale. However, Lewis struggled to be seen as a black artist while recognizing his abstract expressionist identity rather than labeling it with more prevalent black artists’ content.
Title Unknown, dated 1945, emphasizes the Cubist and abstract influences Lewis was beginning to experiment with in his own practice. Employing bright red, pink, orange, green, and blue, Lewis transitioned the colors from right to left with black linear curves generating gestures A captivating work of art, Lewis composed the painting when he was transitioning from social realism to abstraction. While this work remains untitled, it is visually similar to those inspired by jazz music and street scenes, calling on his distinct practice of subtly referencing the outside world in his work. In this painting, the rhythm and flow of jazz are articulated through rich colors, expressive brushwork, and organic forms fit into a thick, lattice-like structural outline..
As a recipient of many public awards and exhibitor of prestigious international exhibitions, Lewis was recognized by art critics alongside other abstract expressionists such as Ad Reinhardt and Mark Tobey. However, at the same time, Lewis struggled with his invisibility among the group; only posthumously has he been recognized as the only African American artist in the Abstract Expressionist movement. Therefore, his own experiences within the larger social community drew him closer to his African American peers; he remained close and co-founded the Spiral Group in 1963 with Romare Bearden, Alston, and Hale Woodruff.
Provenance
Norman Lewis Estate, New York, NY
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Norman Lewis: Small Paintings & Drawings, 12 September – 15 November 2014
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Artists of the WPA, 16 April – 6 June 2015, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Norman Lewis: Canvas, 12 November 2015 – 13 February 2016
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Selections From the Hamptons Virtual Art Fair, 3 September – 17 October 2020
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Bearden & Company, 27 February – 11 April 2020
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Figuratively Speaking, 2 March – 22 April 2023
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Norman W. Lewis, et al., New York, NY, 2017, illus. p. 27
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 30
Title Unknown, 1945
Oil on Canvas
29 1/4 x 16 in. (74.3 x 40.6 cm)
Signed and Dated, Lower Center: Norman Lewis-45
Parade, 1961, is an oil on paper by Norman Lewis showing his abstracted figural practices. Around the time of the Civil Rights Movement, the heat of civil unrest motivated artists across the country to express their feelings. Even though all the figures are abstracted, their simplistic bodies are composed of multiple geometric shapes stacking, overlapping, and connecting with each other to express the vitality of their individualities. None of the two figures are identical; therefore, they possess unique narratives within the larger framework of the event, which the title entailed. Lewis’s depiction of the group in parade represents the larger black community, which was actively tackling racial barriers. And more specifically, the action parade alludes to Lewis’s awareness of social events around this time, such as the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, which called on communities to unite and work together.
Provenance
The Artist
Collection of Robert Gist
Collection of Wendy (Gist) Lawler and Michael Lawler
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Selections from the Hamptons Virtual Art Fair, 3 September – 17 October 2020
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 32
Signed and Dated, Lower Left: Norman Lewis 11-61-
Romare Bearden's body of work stands as a pillar of Black art, depicting the lives of African Americanonnecting the people to current social unrest. At the start of his career, Bearden studied at the Art Student League of New York, a government-funded project, and illustrated political cartoons for Baltimore Afro-Americans. Bearden became acquainted with the popular themes and styles created by African American artists and realized the inadequacy of political art. Bearden intended to utilize his work to move social boundaries and expand critics' recognition of African American art beyond the limitation of "African idiom" by exhibiting the expansive topics African American artists can cover. In the 1960s, to create better social connections with his works while innovating his artistic approach, Bearden started exploring while drawing references to events he experienced and depicted in his early works. Through the gradual transition, Bearden eventually found a collage, using pieces of painted color patches and arranging them into paintings like abstractions. One step further, to draw political connections with his collages' content without depicting a political event scene, Bearden uses sources directly from newspapers and magazines. In their original content, Bearden's sources delineate black people and their experiences in specific events, so Bearden's audiences can draw recognizable connections when viewing Bearden's works. The representation of black people in popular media was always filtered through social categorization, which parallels Bearden's concern about the understanding of black artists by critics and the art world. To challenge the limitation, Bearden constantly deconstructs his sources into fragments in organic shapes and rearranges them randomly, so the context of the original narrative is also deconstructed.
Over the decades, Bearden has been the focus of several museum retrospectives including those organized by the Museum of Modern Art, Mint Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of the Arts, Studio Museum in Harlem, and National Gallery of Art. 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. In March of 1988, Bearden passed away in New York City. Two years after his death, the Romare Bearden Foundation was established, working to preserve the legacy and memory of his foundational body of work.
Sunset, a collage of verdant greens, delicately accented by the magenta hues of a figure cradled in foliage abound. Though shape and shadow are bisected and sourced from the saturated dyes of cuttings and photographs, the composition of Sunset is imbued with a dreamy gentleness that an impressionist scene of idyllic nature might invoke. The feminine figure in the foreground, whose shades of orange share a color palette only with the setting sun, is the portrait of interior serenity. Donning a beaded headband with eyes not quite closed, the corners of her mouth curve into a gentle smile. Bearden, a tour de force of the mixed media and collage genre, beckons viewers to consider how a spirit of tranquility can be inscribed within pressed layers of paper on fiberboard. Created at the height of the artist’s collage works, Bearden’s Sunset is the pinnacle of craft and detail, illustrative of an artist’s keen sensibility of surreal place and personhood that a work can evoke.
Provenance
Private Collection, New York, NY
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Romare Bearden: Narrations, 22 September – 29 December 2002, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, NY
Romare Bearden: Narrations, 7 February – 23 April 2003, Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI
Romare Bearden: Narrations, 22 May – 20 July 2003, Delaware Art Museum (First USA Riverfront Art Center), Wilmington, DE
Bearden & Company, 27 February – 28 August 2020, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Selections from the Hamptons Virtual Art Fair, 3 September – 17 October 2020, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Selections from the Collection, 15 April – 29 May 2021, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Figuratively Speaking, 2 March – 6 May 2023, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 13
Sunset, 1980-81
(Also Known As Mysterious Woman in Swamp)
Collage and Mixed Media on Fiberboard
14 x 18 in. (35.6 x 45.7 cm)
Signed, Titled, Dated and Inscribed on Reverse: "Sunset” Collage & Mixed Media 1980/1981, Romare Bearden
Richard Hunt, born in 1935, grew up in the south side of Chicago, immersed in the art world through classes at the Middle School Program (MSP) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). During his formative artistic years, he worked with clay and carvings. He had a makeshift studio in his bedroom until he built a studio in the basement of his father’s barbershop. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in art education from the Art Institute of Chicago, Hunt received a fellowship grant from the Art Institute to travel around Europe and further his studies. The experience of touring England, Spain, France, and Italy solidified his interest in the medium of welded and cast steel, aluminum, copper, and bronze. Hunt has been known to experiment with metals found in junkyards and with old car parts, which he deconstructs to shape abstract, organic, forms that reference surrealist representations of nature, animals, and humans. The sculpture is monolithic and enclosed; the form is solid and dense, with airy notes offered by the changes and the curves. Working out of a sprawling trolley train station turned professional studio, Hunt has produced a body of work that distinguishes him as the most prolific site-specific artist in the world. Hunt received numerous fellowships, including the Guggenheim fellow. By 1969, he was the first African American sculptor to be honored with a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Richard Hunt's sculptures are renowned for their fine balance of delicate, outstretched scions, often welded to a dense, angular base. Many of Hunt's works contain parts derived from automobiles and assorted industrial elements; which imbue his compositions with a blend of organic and mechanical references; comprising triumphant shapes in space, finished with premier welding. Hunt's attention to fine art, material and texture is exemplified in Winged Hybrid (1973), a phenomenal work of sculptural genius assembled from automobile parts and welded into a luminous, curving silhouette. Produced fifty years ago, this museum-caliber work is a profound example of Hunt's insightful craftsmanship. From the smooth shine of light glinting off the edge of steel to the captivating gradation of color on chrome, Hunt's brilliance with regard to compositional balance with wrought metals remains unparalleled. Luminous from all angles, Winged Hybrid is a profound instance of sculptural virtuosity.
Provenance
Estate of Mason Adams
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 17
Welded Chrome
28 x 16 x 12 ½ in. (71.1 x 40.6 x 31.8 cm)
Signed and Dated: R. Hunt 73
In 1967, Richard Hunt received a commission for his first public sculpture, Play, and in 1971, he was the first African American sculptor to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Hunt established his studio center in Benton Harbor, Michigan in 2006, where artists of all disciplines could work, attend workshops, learn, and teach in the community. Today, Hunt has over 125 commissioned public sculptures in the United States, many of which are in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Hunt’s work can be seen at numerous museums, including The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; and the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.
Title Unknown, 2022, recent work by internationally celebrated African American sculptor Richard Hunt continues Hunt's artistic exploration from the early 1970s. Hunt’s numerous public commissions working with sculptures in large sizes showcase his significance as a public figure and his eminent role in the African American community. With a strong interest in metal sculptures, Hunt became his adventure in both the creative language and technical possibilities. Observing organic and machine structures' formation and spatial content, he combined his modern urban life with African American experiences, deconstructed a coherent narrative within one single object, rearranged pieces and symbols from various sources, and reconstructed them into new construction. Through Hunt’s sculpture, one is able to revisit his personal experiences. Hunt wanted to treat his materials in increasingly broad terms; therefore, his sculptures began to increase in size after success in the technical development of compounding parts into a single formation. He challenges his previous techniques in each of his larger pieces, utilizing advanced ways. As seen today, from the example of Title Unknown, his sculptures evolved around architectural style. Through its size and volume, different emotions and sensibilities are conveyed and offered to the audiences.
Provenance
The Artist
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 21
Agustín Cárdenas was an Afro-Cuban sculptor best known for his organic, sinuous forms in both sculptures and drawings, blending Surrealist ideals with African aesthetics. A descendant of Senegalese and Congolese slaves, Cárdenas was born in an infamous slave port and sugar plantation in Cuba. His artistic career began in Havana, as he studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro under one of Cuba’s great sculptors, Juan José Sicre. In 1955, Cárdenas moved to Paris and joined the Surrealist movement, where he befriended artists Constantin Brâncuşi, Salvador Dalí, and André Breton. It was in Paris, Cardenas understanded Surrealism as an artistic language to break away from constrains and allows for personal discovery, and at the same time to directly experience and feel as a black man. His style, recognized by undulating forms and elongated silhouettes, is a fusion of his artistic community, the cultural atmosphere of the Pan-African Movement in Paris, and aspects of African heritage as seen in Dogon totems. Cardenas’s practice can be divided into roughly three periods, where in each period, he utilized different materials for various formations, showcasing Cardenas’s mastery of techniques. Cárdenas’ work exhibited internationally and was well-received, earning several prestigious awards: the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, 1976 and the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas from the Cuban Ministry of Culture, 1995.
For many years, Cárdenas lived and worked in Meudon-Bellevue and at his studio in Nogent-sur-Marne, France. He produced work in Canada, Austria, Japan, Israel, Korea, and Carrara, Italy where his acclaimed marble pieces were sculpted. Cárdenas participated in over a hundred group exhibitions and was the focus of over forty monographic exhibitions. His works are included in many permanent collections around the world, including: the Centre National des Arts du Cirque, Paris, France, Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France, Musée de la Sculpture en Plein Air, Paris, France, Musée d’Art et d’Industrie, Saint-Étienne, France, Hakone Open-Air Museum, Hakone, Japan, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Argel, Algeria; Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, Venezuela, Kendall Art Center, Miami, Florida, and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana in Havana, Cuba. The artist passed away in Havana, Cuba in 2001. -
A modest, yet intriguing bronze, Vertical Form (1983) is a particularly exquisite work by Agustín Cárdenas. The perforations throughout the form and the whittling and widening of the sculpture’s extremities beckon fascination and investigation. Rich brown patina glazes this solid yet elegant bronze sculpture adding a richness and smoothness only Cárdenas could accomplish. The verticality of the work as it erupts from its marble base, as well as the sumptuous feeling that it evokes distinguishes this sculpture as a profound example of the artist's compelling style.
Cárdenas
Provenance Private Collection; Paris, France
Exhibition History
Cardenas: Sculptures, 10 March - 10 April 1999. Galerie Trigano, Paris, France
Wifredo Lam + Agustin Cardenas, 9 September - 5 November 2021. Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery. Wifredo Lam + Agustin Cardenas. New York, 2021. p. 32
Please note: this work is mis-dated 1956 in Wifredo Lam + Agustín Cárdenas.
Cast Bronze with Brown Patina on Marble Base 15 ½ x 3 ½ x 3 ½ in. (39.4 x 8.9 x 8.9 cm)
Base: 1 ⅝ x 3 ½ x 3 ¾ in. (4.1 x 8.9 x 9.5 cm)
Total: 17 ⅛ x 3 ½ x 3 ¾ in. (43.5 x 8.9 x 9.5 cm)
Signed and Numbered on Bottom Left: Agustin C 3/8
Stamped on Front: Foundry Oceane
Elizabeth Catlett was born on April 15, 1915, in Washington D.C. Her family's story of building community after enslavement carried a strong influence in her life, shaping the ethos of her artistic practice. Catlett's historic body of work engages with race, class, and gender, spanning a variety of mediums. Her sculptures, paintings, and prints offer meditations on both the struggles and the joys within Black life. Responding to segregation and the fight for civil rights, her depictions of sharecroppers and activists were stylistically influenced by Primitivism and Cubism. Catlett attended Howard University and graduated in 1935. Her perspective on an artist's political responsibility was influenced by the professors she encountered there, including celebrated African American figures such as Lois Mailou Jones and Alain Locke. After graduating from Howard, Catlett went on to receive an M.F.A in Sculpture from the University of Iowa.
Dividing her time between New York and Cuernavaca, Mexico, Catlett continued to produce a high volume of work. Over the course of her career, Catlett held over fifty solo exhibitions throughout the United States; in museums such as the Studio Museum of Harlem, New York; and the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York. The latter held a fifty-year retrospective of her sculptures, Elizabeth Catlett Sculpture: A 50-Year Retrospective, in 1998. Her archetypal figures, abstracted in wood, stone, clay or bronze into postures of defiance, endurance and, in the case of many mother-and-child images, fiercely protective tenderness, exude a spirit of indomitable hope and will. Catlett's sculptures and prints are in the permanent collections of major institutions and museums, including the New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. On April 4, 2012, Elizabeth Catlett passed away at the age of 96. Her legacy still lives through her children, specifically, her son David Mora Catlett, an artist who often worked in collaboration with his mother.
Elizabeth Catlett's sculpture, The Family depicts a father, mother, and child standing and embracing. In bronze with brown patina, the lines of The Family follow the soft curve of her fine carving techniques, making the figure feel at once monumental and timeless. From the portrayal of this heartwarming American family, the artist would continue to find imagery to fuel a revolution, reminding us of the role that art can play in the fight for social justice. As Catlett once proclaimed, “We have to create an art for liberation and for life."
Exhibition History
Masters of Sculpture, 12 May – 31 August 2022, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Figuratively Speaking, 2 March – 6 May 2023, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masters of Sculpture, African Americans, et. al., New York, NY, 2022, illus. p. 23 Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 36
Cast Bronze with Brown Patina on Wooden Base
15 ⅛ x 5 1/4 x 5 ½ in. (38.4 x 13.3 x 14 cm)
Base: 2 x 6 ⅛ x 6 ⅛ in. (5.1 x 15.6 x 15.6 cm), Total: 17 ⅛ x 6 ⅛ x 6 ⅛ in. (43.5 x 15.6 15.6 cm)
Initialed: E.C
Provenance
Lewis and Louise Hirchfeld Cullman Collection, New York, NY
Private Collection
Northside Child Development, New York, NY
Private Collection, CA
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Melvin Edwards is a pioneer in the contemporary art scene. Edwards is best known for his welded sculptures and his belief in abstract art as a vehicle for social change. The artist was born in Houston, Texas, and raised in both Houston and Dayton, Ohio; He then settled in Los Angeles, where he still lives and works today. Throughout his childhood, Edwards balanced his interest in art and sports, and played football during high school and college. Ultimately, his interest in art was prioritized, and Edwards graduated with a BFA from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 1965. While beginning as a painter, Edwards then turn his focus to sculpture once he received critical acclaim for his Lynch Fragment series (1963 –present). Combining found industrial objects such as barbed wire, chains, and machine parts, Edwards welded dense, abstract forms that allude to the lived experiences and brutality faced by Black community. During his decades-long career, Edwards has produced sculptures that address complex themes such as the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and African culture.
In 1970, Edwards became one of the first African American sculptors to be featured in an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he displayed a series of delicate, barbed wire sculptures. Melvin Edwards’ work is included in the renowned public collections of the Modern Museum of Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; among many others.
Yellow Way is an excellent example of a contrasting diversion from his early series. The bright yellow and flat geometrical shapes introduce light, optimism, and a sense of carefree, childlike playfulness, to this work. This medium-sized welded sculpture of painted steel is a striking geometric assembly of circles, rectangles, and squares, fully coated in crisp, canary yellow paint, the same shade Edwards applies to many of his painted sculptures. The exuberant monochromatic primary color adds visual dynamism to this work and plays a vital role in abstracting the materiality of the underlying steel structure. Edwards’ choice to thoroughly coat the surface imbues the work with a sense of cohesive and congruous spatial design, bringing attention to its form. The aesthetics and dynamics of sports thinking are evident in how he positions its elements relative to one another. Edwards has incorporated a yellow motif into a number of his painted sculptures, exploring the vibrant primary color’s visual dynamism in both large- and small-scale works. The contrast between the rhythmic curves of the circles and their bisected, adjacent rectangular forms amplifies the formal, yet playful nature of the sculpture. Edwards often takes a process-oriented approach, where a spark of idea enlightened his creation. He works on his sculptures without any particular plans; therefore, allowing the sculptures to speak of themselves.
Exhibition History
Recent Acquisitions, 11 September – 13 October 2007, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
African American Master Artists, 6 March – 26 April 2008, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
A Collaborative Effort, 1 May – 31 May 2008, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
What’s on the Wall II, 24 June – 5 July 2008, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
The Summer Exhibition, 8 July – 30 August 2008, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Selections From the Collection, 2 December 2009 – 10 January 2010, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Preview for the National Black Fine Art Show, 15 January – 10 February 2009, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Preview of US Art Fair, 13 September – 20 September 2011, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Selections from the Collection, 29 September – 5 November 2011, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Selections from the Collection, 15 April – 29 May 2021, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Masters of Sculpture, 12 May – 31 August 2022, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery. Norman W. Lewis, et al. New York, 2017. p. 49
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masters of Sculpture, African Americans, et. al., New York, NY, 2022, illus. p. 23
Eldzier Cortor, painter and printmaker, was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1916. As the Great Migration swept northward, the Cortor family relocated to Chicago soon after Eldzier was born, seeking employment in the city's industrial manufacturing centers. Cortor studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1930s under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy where he developed an interest in painting, particularly techniques associated with Surrealism. However, African art, which he studied under the tutelage of the Art Institute’s Kathleen Blackshear, proved to be a principle influence on the tenor of his work.
Cortor’s art advocated for a dignified view of African-American culture. His portraits of Black life mixed the realism of domestic scenes with a sense of fantasy through distorted perspectives. His depictions of African-American women in particular defined his practice, as many of his paintings and drawings depict silhouettes of Black figures with both African and Surrealist impulses. In the 1940s, Cortor worked with the Works Progress Administration in his South Chicago community, traveled and taught through the Caribbean on a Guggenheim Fellowship, and worked with the Gullah communities in coastal Georgia and South Carolina. The latter experience influenced a practice that championed and upheld the African roots of African American culture.
In recent years, the artist's work has become more renowned. In 2002, his solo show Eldzier Cortor: Master Printmaker was exhibited at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. In 2006, his career as a master printmaker and draftsman was celebrated in the exhibition Black Spirit: Work on Paper by Eldzier Cortor organized by the Indiana University Art Museum. Cortor's works are held in the collections of Howard University, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and The Art Institute of Chicago, among others.
Wearing a draped rosy pink dress, the woman in the scene holds her straw hat slightly while looking outside the door, desiring to avoid the scorching sun. Tropical fruits, vases, and seashells are scattered around; their bright and decorative appearances alleviate the scene. With the elongated torso and elegant posture of the lady, a trace of 19th-century European royal paintings is mirrored in this work. Eldzier Cortor’s approach of shaping accurate depictions of blackness as graceful and dignified with distorted perspective is epitomized by this oil on canvas, Marche Assemblage III. Known for his elongated nude figures in intimate settings, Cortor skillfully incorporates the cylindrical and lyrical quality that was a tribute to traditional African sculptures into the framework of European art, which adds the quality of surrealism to the work. Believing Black women to be the carriers of Black culture, Cortor spent the majority of his career portraying Black feminine figures in a manner that represented their strength and beauty.
Provenance
Private Collection, New Jersey
Collection of Corrine Jennings
Faith Grobman Collection, New Jersey Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Decades of Acquisitions: Works on Paper from the Collection, 24 February – 30 April, 2022, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Figuratively Speaking, 2 March – 11 May 2023, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 52
Marché Assemblage III, ca. 1985
Oil on Canvas
20 x 17 ½ in. (50.8 x 44.5 cm)
Signed, Lower Right: E. Cortor
Titled, Signed, and Inscribed on Reverse: “Marché/Assemblage III” Eldzier Cortor Oil Canvas
Wifredo Lam, a luminary of surrealism, is known for his large-scale paintings and drawings that blend Western techniques with distinctly Afro-Cuban cultural references. Lam was born in Sagua La Grande, Cuba in 1902; his father is Chinese, and his mother is an Afro-Cuban. His body of work reflects Cuban history, spiritual traditions (such as Santería and Vodú), social injustice, and the perils of war. Notably, Lam’s work is influenced by the 1930s Négritude movement, whose anti-colonial ideology proudly emphasized the value of African diasporic culture amidst the backdrop of Eurocentric ideals. The exuberance in Wifredo Lam’s work, as well as its deft social critique, marked his legacy as distinct in the canon of modern art. After graduating from Havana’s Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, am traveled to Europe to further his studies at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Lam studied under Fernando Álavarez de Sotomayor y Zaragoza, the curator of the Museo del Prado and former teacher of Salvador Dalί. During this time, Lam was greatly motivated by the studies of political corruption, and he went on to use his work as a way of condemning the horrors of war. He moved to Paris in 1938, where the artist communities were excited by the non-European cultures and fascinated by Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Lam was particularly appealing to these artists including Pablo Picasso and Andre Breton who introduced him to European art movements such as Cubism, Surrealism, and Primitivism. In 1940, due to the instability of the political party and the arrival of the Nazis in France, Lam escaped and returned to Cuba and was soon confronted with extreme difficulties. Shocked to see how the African population was exploited and treated, Lam sought to conserve and revere the African culture of Cuba through his works during this time. He was motivated by the country’s situation; thus, strongly invested himself in the representation of the local culture and the exploration of the African spirit. In Lam’s mature style, he combined his feelings and knowledge all together.
Personnage, an oil painting in 1969, was painted by Lam when he was celebrated internationally across the globe, receiving numbers of retrospectives at well-known institutions. As an Afro-Chinese Cuban artist born in Cuba and raised in a sugar farming province, Lam was influenced by many artists of his time including Pablo Picasso and Andre Breton, and he absorbed multiple styles and interpretations in his artistic creations. Through his works, one is able to trace the roots of Surrealism, Cubism, as well as the Cuban culture that accompanied Lam before his formal artistic training in Europe. Lam learned from the formal qualities of Cubism and Surrealism and employing the techniques to show the Afro-Cuban religion and sprits which he was fond of. This work shows Lam’s matured style using abstracted and geometrically shaped compositions in the construction of figures and movements. He juxtaposed multiple figures of different origins and sources, including human, animals, and plants side by side.
Galerie Lelong, Paris, France Private Collection, Belgium
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Michel Leiris, Wifredo Lam, Milan, Italy, 1970, No. 192, illus. np.
Max-Paul Fouchet, Wifredo Lam, Paris, France, 1976, No. 168, illus. p. 138
André Verdet, "Wifredo Lam" in Terre d'Europe, XVIII, Bruxelles, 1978, No. 55, illus. np.
Max-Paul Fouchet, Wifredo, Second Edition, Paris, France, 1989, No. 168, p. 142
Manuel López Blázquez, Wifredo Lam, 1902 – 1982, Madrid, Spain, 1996, No. 49, illus. np.
Lou Laurin-Lam & Eskil Lam, Wifredo Lam: Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Works, Volume II, Paris, France, 2002, No. 69.59, illus. pp. 133, 322 Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 15
Wifredo Lam’s untitled drawing (1968) is a remarkable example of his Afro-Cuban, modernist canon of work. Lam, a luminary of surrealism, is known for his large scale paintings and drawings that blend Western techniques with distinctly Afro-Cuban references. In this 19 x 29 inch work, spirited beastly figures outlined with charcoal playfully command attention against the tangerine pastel background. Lam’s utilization of smudging softens the creature’s rigid angles and emphasizes its gentle curves, adding motion and weight to the figures depicted. Overall, this drawing evokes a sense of genial whimsy, which beckons the viewer to take a closer look at the hazy details lingering in its light charcoal shadows.
Provenance
Collection of Colette Creuzevault, Paris, France
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Wifredo Lam and Agustín Cárdenas, 9 September – 5 November 2021, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Wifredo Lam + Agustín Cárdenas, New York, 2021, illus. p. 17
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 37
Untitled, 1968
Pastel and Charcoal on Paper
19 x 26 in. (48.3 x 66 cm)
Signed and Dated, Lower Right: Wifredo Lam 1968
Signed and Dated on Reverse: Wifredo Lam 1968
This work by Lam depicts three polymorphic figures whose various arrangement of arms and legs interact and intersect in the work. The detailing in this drawing, from the form’s adornments to the hatch marks and shading used to indicate the texture of the figures’ skin is consistent with Lam’s artistic interest in totenism. With varying levels of dimensionality, these figures bear the stylistic markings of symbolic characters in Santeria culture. Lam’s mark-making in this drawing is clean and decisive, with thin, curving lines gently outlining the figures’ shapes. Little indication is given to the setting and backdrop of the composition, suggesting that these divine subjects exist in an omnipresent form – neither here, nor there, living in profound distinction in their own limitless dimension.
Untitled, 1968
Pen and Ink with Graphite on Paper
14 ¾ x 21 ⅞ in. (37.5 x 55.6 cm)
Signed and Dated, Lower Right: Wi 1968
Provenance
Galerie Dobbelhoef, Kessel (Belgique)
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Wifredo Lam + Agustín Cárdenas, New York, 2021, illus. p. 21
Exhibition History
Wifredo Lam and Agustín Cárdenas, 9 September – 5 November 2021, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
In this monochromatic ink work, Lam returns to a familiar motif. The polymorphic horse-headed woman appears in several of his works over the years, in works such as Femme Cheval, Horse-Headed Woman, and others. Over the course of his career, Lam’s work has reflected on spiritual symbology in Santeria and Voodoo culture, and this piece is no exception. Here, Lam is experimenting with representations of divine femininity and Afro Cuban archetypes of ancestral guardianship. Valerie Fletcher notes that “in Santeria symbology a horse signifies the possession or empowerment of a devotee by an orisha; when a practitioner becomes possessed, that person is described as being ‘ridden’ by that spirit” (my emphasis). The expression of an anti-colonial spiritual force, largely associated with his godmother and the femme cheval, is one of the defining features of Lam’s Negritude.
Pastel and Charcoal on Paper
19 x 26 in. (48.3 x 66 cm)
Signed, Dated, and Inscribed: 1951
Provenance
Private Collection
Private Collection
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Wifredo Lam and Agustín Cárdenas, 9 September – 5 November 2021, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Figuratively Speaking, 2 March – 11 May 2023, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1917. His mother, after separating from his father, moved the family to New York City when Lawrence was seventeen. There he took classes in arts and crafts at a settlement house in Harlem, which was amid the Harlem Renaissance at this time. His future as an artist was facilitated by his particular interest in drawing the patterns of his mother's carpets with crayons. He received artistic training at Works Progress Administration (WPA) Harlem Art Workshop under artist Charles Alston. During the Depression, he worked for the WPA, Civilian Conservation Corps, furthered his relationship with Charles Alston, and observed the creation of the WPA mural, Magic and Medicine, for a hospital in Harlem in 1937. In 1941 came his most famous succession of works, a sixty-panel series entitled Migration of the Negro, which was an emotionally raw portrayal of the migration of African Americans from the largely rural South to the urban centers of the Northeast and Midwest, immediately following the First World War. He would also complete a series on Abolitionists John Brown, Frederick Douglas, and Harriet Tubman each telling a story of their own. This work is number seven from his John Brown series and represents the early planning stages of his military attempts to overthrow the institution of slavery.
Jacob Lawrence created various advertisements for an annual ball presented by the Artists Equity Fund, Inc. On the night of May 20, 1954, the Spring Fantasia Masquerade Ball was in full swing, and Hotel Astor was one of the advertisements used to promote this wondrous evening. Hotel Astor shows long lines and strokes that form gestures of peoples’ embrace as they dance with elegant dresses and suits under dazzling lighting. To the left of the illustration is a circle and box with written notes inside. This is where the details of the ball’s invitation would be added. The strokes of black gloves and elongated eyelashes coincide with the neatly arranged squiggly lines that illustrate elegant up-do hairstyles and stunning necklaces and rings. Just by looking at the illustration, you can sense an element of glamour and mystery, as everyone’s face is hidden, either by hair, eyelashes, or a mask. Some figures in this illustration have their face hidden simply because their back is turned toward the audience. This shows his intellect of Lawrence and how creative he is when it comes to perspective and his overall attitude toward the context of the scene in which he has created.
Provenance
Galerie Dobbelhoef, Kessel (Belgique) Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Exhibition History
Wifredo Lam and Agustín Cárdenas, 9 September – 5 November 2021, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
12 x 9 in. (30.5 x 22.9 cm)
Zanele Muholi is a South African artist and visual activist; she works in photography, video, and installation. For over a decade she has documented the lives of black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex in various townships in South Africa. Responding to the continuing discrimination and violence faced by the LGBTI community, in 2006 Muholi embarked on an ongoing project, Faces, and Phases, in which they depict black lesbian and transgender individuals. Muholi’s self-proclaimed mission is "to re-write a black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our resistance and existence at the height of hate crimes in SA and beyond." In a more recent ongoing series, Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness), Muholi becomes both the participant and the image-maker, as they turn the camera on themselves. Experimenting with different characters and archetypes, Muholi’s self-portraits reference specific events in South Africa’s political history. Through exaggerating the darkness of her skin tone, Muholi reclaims their blackness and offsets the culturally dominant images of black women in the media today.
They look directly into you with their beautifully almond-shaped eyes and interact with you. They seem to have something to say to you, but they remained silent. Silence is a source of great strength. Hollow pattern bag - the symbol of the hand-woven technique combined with the leather material, flows along their shoulder. The photograph brings a peaceful acceptance of the past. Yet their body is leaning slightly forward to the camera, to the viewer, suggesting the possibility of movement, a gesture that heralds changes. In Cebo, Philadelphia, Muholi turns the camera on themselves, showing their fiery self, suppressed roar, and the power gushing out, in silence but vividly alive. You look into their soul and see and feel the firm belief in themselves and their cause.
Cebo, Philadelphia, 2018
Gelatin Silver Print Edition of 5 30 x 23 ¾ in. (76.2 x 60.3 cm)
Born in Philadelphia in 1946, Stanley Whitney is a significant American abstract artist who only received the critical acclaim he deserved following a recent solo exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Growing up in a small African American community outside of Philadelphia, Whitney had a long interest in jazz music; he would travel to New York during weekends to listen to Jazz in the city. After completing his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, Whitney was already slowly shifting toward abstraction. In 1992, Whitney’s artistic career had its most substantial shift when he settled in Rome. He was moved by the architecture and Renaissance paintings and finally reached his reconciliation with the displacement of color and space. From this point forward, Whitney painted in his most notable mature style; he uses color as a spatial indication rather than separating the two as independent subjects within one work.
In 1973, Whitney was a Professor of Painting and Drawing at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University, commuting from New York to Philadelphia. Whitney, who felt equally inspired by the formal qualities of Abstract Expressionism and the vivid tonality inherent to the Color Field movement, began to experiment with abstraction. Though his signature style remains concretely abstract, Black history and jazz figured as principal influences for Whitney, whose works are full of thematic resilience and rhythm. Adam Pendleton, who owns a number of paintings and drawings by Whitney, admires his older colleague’s “dogged dedication to a toolbox that appears fixed but is infinite in all the ways he unfixes it,” he said. Whitney’s longstanding engagement with the grid is about “how to break down visual order and imbue it with music, with life, with a kind of poetic.” His iconic, loose matrices of vibrant color distinguish his work as a unique blend of minimalist and color field exploration. In 2010, Whitney was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, followed by the Robert De Niro Sr. Prize in Painting in 2011. Whitney’s work is included in public collections such as the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. He splits his time between Manhattan and Parma Italy, continuing to produce his iconic, stylized compositions.
This monotype features a vibrant, cobalt blue band across the top of the composition, which is accented exquisitely by a canary yellow burst from the adjacent top left square. Stacked tightly below, ruddy rectangles congeal against one another, filling the grids with minimal white space allowed. From the tactility invoked by the strokes of chroma to the mutability of the color block’s form, Stay Songs' details mark each work as a singularly exuberant aesthetic experience. Stay Songs is a series of monotypes on paper that constitute vivid portals into colorful abstraction (pictured above). Each work is an example of the artist’s aptitude for color theory, shape, and composition, with Whitney’s trademark style of rhythmic repetition, accented with wobbly, whimsical color grids. By making use of the negative space on the paper to differentiate the shapes of each colorful form, Whitney effortlessly incorporates a sense of verticality and horizontality in his compositions.
Provenance
Team Gallery, Inc., New York, NY
Private Collection
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Decades of Acquisitions: Works on Paper from the Collection 24 February – 30 April 2022
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Printed Paper, 18 May – 8 July 2023, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Monotype on Paper (Unique)
Image: 8 ⅞ x 8 ⅞ in. (22.5 x 22.5 cm)
Sheet: 22 1/4 x 21 1/4 in. (56.5 x 53.9 cm)
Signed and Dated on Reverse: 02-2002 SW
This monotype contains contrasting colors that range in vibrance and opacity. A lime green square buzzes with energetic tonality against an abundance of ruby and tangerine strokes of color. Thin slivers of white space peek out from behind the rounded edges of the gridded tableau. In this monotype, each color block occupies a set of spaces while spatially separated by the uncolored regions between various colors. The color blocks also revealed the creation process with the rough brush works and the uneven color distribution. This monotype particularly shows the audience the vibrant energy infused by Whitney on the painted surface that is influenced by the active emotions in jazz music that had always been Whitney’s interest.
Monotype on Paper (Unique)
Image: 15 ⅝ x 16 in. (39.7 x 40.6 cm)
Sheet: 29 1/4 x 29 ⅜ in. (74.3 x 74.6 cm)
Dated on Reverse: 07-2002
Provenance
Team Gallery, Inc., New York Private Collection
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Printed Paper, 18 May – 8 July 2023, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Literature
Bill Hodges Gallery, Masterworks of the African Diaspora, New York, 2023, illus. p. 46
This monotype is accented by muted lavenders and chartreuse tones, exemplifying the artist's precise manipulation of color theory and balance. Within each grid, brushstrokes vary in opacity, creating a dynamic sense of rhythm within every column. Among other monotypes, this work represents Whitney’s understanding of how to situate color and space the most significantly, where the color is transformed and became space. Through viewing and understanding Renaissance paintings, architecture, and sculptures, Whitney was impacted by the abundance of colors and the function of color in actual constructions. Each color and its squaredoccupied region become the space that eventually fulfills the entire print, leaving no extra empty areas to interrupt the continuation of colors. Unlike an object or technique that can be utilized and situated colors, in Whitney’s sense, color is the space, they cannot be separated and discussed.
Monotype on Paper (Unique)
Image: 15 ⅞ x 15 ¾ in. (40.3 x 40 cm)
Sheet: 24 ⅞ x 22 ⅛ in. (63.2 x 61.3 cm)
Initialed and Dated on Reverse: SW 04-2002
Provenance
Team Gallery, Inc., New York, NY Private Collection
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Exhibition History
Decades of Acquisitions: Works on Paper from the Collection 24 February – 30 April 2022
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY Printed Paper, 18 May – 8 July 2023, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Howardena Pindell is an artist, educator, and curator, leaving influences on the art world as a female African American figure. Trained as a painter, Pindell challenges the tradition of painting using various materials and mediums in composing her works. Using non-traditional materials in her paintings, she allows the paintings to develop out of the flat surface and to fall free and drop without being confined by stretcher support. After arriving in New York after competing for MFA at Yale University, Pindell’s approaches changed drastically. She became more aware of Black Power and feminist movements. She engaged with artists, activists, and feminists and was socially active as a member of the A.I.R. Gallery. In 1979, Pindell experienced a car accident, leaving a short-term amnesia. From this point forward, Pindell’s experimentation moves beyond materiality and engages with different content that constitutes the stories within her art. She uses postcards and photographs, cuts them into pieces, and reconstructed them back into the form of paintings.
ntitled (1998) marks the early periods of Howardena Pindell’s artistic career. While experimenting with various ways of approaching art, Pindell started to lay pieces of paper on the small television and traces the action of each line and dot using arrows and number labels. In this work, the small arrows with number labels near the corner show the particular action of the scene Pindell was tracing through. The repetition of the lines indicates the edges of the scene and its movement between seconds. Untitled shows the amount of physical dedication and the detailed tracing of each movement. It incorporates both the painterly effects through the drawing lines, which became a scene in itself, and leaves spaces for audiences to imagine and guess what the original television screen was showcasing.
Provenance
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers, Atlanta, GA Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Charles Henry Alston, born in Charleston, South Carolina, was an illustrator, painter, muralist, sculptor, as well as a teacher, mentor, and organizer. As a child, Alston spent a great deal of time in North Carolina, where he cultivated an interest in the arts, sculpting forms from the red clay that surrounded him there. His curiosity carried over into his academic studies; he enrolled in art classes while obtaining his bachelor’s degree at Columbia University. Alston had a strong dedication to teaching and advising to support young generations and address the barriers that black artists faced in the mainstream art world. Alston returned to Teachers College at Columbia in 1929, and his passion for mentorship led to a fruitful career as a professor; he was the first African American instructor at the Art Student League, the first African American supervisor in the Work Progress Administration’s (WPA) Federal Art Project (FAP), an instructor at Pennsylvania State University, and later an associate professor in painting at the City University of New York. Aside from teaching, Alston dabbled in all sectors of art, from working as a muralist for the WPA during the Great Depression to creating commercial art such as advertisements, record covers, and cartoons. Alston’s works gained recognition in the 1950s, when one of his paintings was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Afterward, he landed several exhibitions at major galleries and institutions across the United States and became the first African American instructor at the Museum of Modern Art.
ainted with a muted color palette, Charles Alston's Title Unknown is a modest painting showing an abstracted figure’s head. The figure’s facial feature is simply delineated by thin lines of black paint, outlining gestures towards a proud nose, ears, furrowed brow, and eyes nearly closed in shadowy obscurity. The colors are composed of various rusts and cloudy grays, evocative of Alston's recognizable style of gestural portraiture. When examining the painting in close observation, hints of bright color patches appear underneath the top layer, bringing vitality to the painted surface.
Beauford Delaney, born in 1901 in Knoxville, Tennessee, is remembered for his involvement in Harlem Renaissance and his later development in abstract expressionism. Delaney’s father is a respectable minister, and his mother, born as a slave who taught reading and writing on her own, recognized the importance of education for future generations in the racist society. Delaney received his art training with techniques and skills from Massachusetts Normal School, the South Boston School of Art, and the Copley Society. Around the 1940s, Delaney moved to New York City, where he participated among other African American artists in the Harlem Renaissance. During these years, he painted many pastel portraits of well-known African American figures including W.E.B. Du Bois and Duke Ellington. Like many artists in New York at the time, the social gathering that outcasted African Americans in society slowly transformed Delaney to follow his passion after abstraction. He developed a lyrically expressive style that follows his love of music and the bold experimentation of color. In Delaney’s abstraction, one can find the strong energy associated with the use of sharp pure color.
Through the layers of yellow and white oil paints, Composition, 1961 narratives a mellow but intense melody through the waves of the oil paints. Layers of yellow paint fill the edges of the canvas with a vertically draped white brush stroke in the middle. In the center of the canvas is a bold and forceful touch of yellow paint, where both the center and the edges slowly merge with the white paint. While the two-dimensional horizontal spread of the paint covers the entire surface and offers an intense impression of the work, its three-dimensional development extending into the space shows the fluidity of the material as if it was frozen in time. Although it is an abstract painting, the surface texture provides the history of its action; therefore, providing a narrative for the audiences to reimagine the space and the time Delaney was at when it was created.
Oil on Canvas
5 ½ in. x 7 ⅛ in. (14 x 18.1 cm)
Signed on Back: Beauford Delaney
Provenance Private Collection
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Bright pastel yellow oil paints surrounding pieces of white brush strokes, Beauford Delaney’s later abstract paintings show a lyrical expression. The densely applied yellow oils swirl and move on the surface plane, while leaving a breathing space between the forceful heavy white shapes. Composition is a delicate oil on canvas painting that is not only painted through the two-dimensional surface but also extends into the space with depth through the layers of the paints. Although tiny in size, the energy is revealed through the traces of action done in the painting process.
Oil on Canvas
10 ⅝ x 51/4 in. (27 x 13.3 cm)
Signed on Back: Beauford Delaney
Provenance Private Collection
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
Gallery Owner Bill Hodges
Gallery Director Navindren Hodges
Gallery Manager Irene Ross
Gallery Registrar Angel Hurtado
Research Asssistant Qiang Hu
Norman Lewis
Title Unknown
1955- 1978
Oil on Canvas
37 1/4 x 62 ½ in. (94.6 x 158.8 cm)
