Eldzier Cortor (1916 - 2015)

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