Feels Like Freedom Phillip J. Hampton (1922-2016) Telfair Museums’ Jepson Center, Steward South and Kane Galleries with Savannah State University, Kennedy Fine Arts Gallery
Feels Like Freedom Phillip J. Hampton (1922-2016) Telfair Museums’ Jepson Center, Steward South and Kane Galleries with Savannah State University, Kennedy Fine Arts Gallery Savannah, GA
©2022
Director’s Foreward Benjamin T. Simons Telfair Museums’ Executive Director and CEO
T
elfair Museums is proud to present
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton,
the irst retrospective exhibition of painter Phillip J. Hampton (American, 1922-2016). The exhibition and its accompanying publication chart the course of Hampton’s lengthy career as an innovative artist, inspirational teacher and mentor, and forceful champion of fellow African American artists. As the title suggests, the exhibition highlights Hampton’s journey of artistic exploration leading from the primarily realist phase of drawings and paintings made in Savannah in the 1950s and 1960s to his growing embrace of lyrical and experimental abstraction later in his career—a course that allowed him to break away from traditional modes of representation and discover his own visual language of “freedom through abstraction.”1 Curated and organized by Erin Dunn, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art,
Feels Like Freedom spotlights the enduring
impact Hampton left on the communities where he painted and taught. Born in Kansas City, MO, Hampton served in the U.S. Army from 1943 until 1946, before attending Kansas State College and Drake University for his BFA and MFA. In Savannah, GA, Hampton is best known as an
inluential visual arts professor and eventual department head at Savannah State College (now University) from 1952 to 1969. In 1959, in an important moment in Telfair’s history, Hampton and other arts leaders successfully petitioned the Telfair Board to allow the Art Club of Savannah State College to hold an exhibition of works by African American artists from Savannah and beyond at the Telfair Academy. In 1969, Hampton accepted the position of professor of art at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where he taught until his retirement in 1992, afterwards remaining an active member of the arts community until he passed in 2016. Hampton’s career represents a clear example of the key role of art departments and faculties at HBCUs like Savannah State College in sustaining the artistic practice and networks of many African American artists, particularly outside the major urban centers commonly viewed as central to the history of Black Art in the twentieth century. In the words of art historian and artist David C. Driskell, “The HBCUs have not been given the credit they are due. When nobody else was out there championing these [Black] artists, HBCUs were there, claiming them, showcasing them, putting them up on walls, teaching about them.”2
1 Richard Powell, Black Art (Thames & Hudson, 2021), p. 111. 2 Quoted in Yvonne Bynoe, “HBCUs: The First Patrons of African American Art” in Black Art
in America (April 2021).
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
The essays in this volume explore and celebrate Hampton’s remarkable oeuvre while also highlighting his important lifetime of advocacy on behalf of African American artists. Telfair Museums is pleased to partner with Savannah State University to present concurrent exhibitions that honor the full scope of Hampton’s legacy. Together these shows will contextualize Hampton on a national scale within African American artmaking in the mid-20th century, outlining his participation in exhibitions such as the Atlanta Art Annuals (irst organized by Hale Woodruf), his work promoting fellow African American artists, as well as showcasing work created locally during Hampton’s tenure as a professor at Savannah State in the 1950s and 1960s. We would especially like to thank those who helped facilitate Dunn’s work in
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
organizing the exhibition and catalogue, especially co-contributors Dr. Peggy Blood, Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts at Savannah State University, and independent scholar Thom Pegg. We also thank SSU President Kimberly Ballard-Washington, a Trustee of Telfair Museums, for her support and contribution of a message to the catalogue. We also thank the generous lenders to the Telfair exhibition: the family of Phillip J. Hampton, Julie Farr, Deborah Ford and Jerome Watson, P. K. Hernandez, Robert Mallett, Thom Pegg, Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, James and Brenda Rivers, St. Louis Art Museum, Carla and Cleophus Thomas, and Brenda and Larry Thompson; and to the Savannah State exhibition: The Beach Institute African-American Cultural Center, Michael Butler, and James and Brenda Rivers.,
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Environment and Happiness, Master’s Thesis Painting, 1952; Collection of the Family of Phillip Hampton
Phillip J. Hampton, Exhibit of his work for master’s degree; Collection of the Family of Phillip Hampton.
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
The Search: Phillip J. Hampton and Savannah Erin Dunn, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Telfair Museums, Savannah, GA racticing a “seek-and-discovery technique,” as he later described it, creative experimental explorations recurred throughout the career of the late American artist Phillip Jewel Hampton (1922-2016).1 This discovery began in his childhood, as he recalled, when he eagerly used a watercolor set to paint his mother’s white blinds ― an act that earned him “a good thrashing”.2 Although he was chastised for his eforts at the time, his interest in art endured and led him to pursue a career as an artist and educator, irst through studies at Citrus Junior College in Glendora, CA and later at Kansas State College in Manhattan, KS through the G.I. Bill following his service with distinction in the U.S. Army for two years during World War II. Dissatisied with the more technically-focused artistic training he received at Citrus, Hampton transferred to Drake University in Des Moines, IA. Hampton selected Drake after he learned that the Kansas City Art Institute did not accept African American students. When the university changed its racist policy in 1948, Hampton later enrolled.
P
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Hampton was sought after as a candidate for a ine arts instructor after earning his MFA in 1952 from Kansas City Art Institute at the age of 30. His master’s thesis exhibition featured a bright, dynamic painting that heralds many of the creative directions his career would explore including an interest in narrative, depiction of landscape and environment, conlation of perspective, and bold use of color. He joined the Department of Arts and Sciences at the historically black college Savannah State College (previously Georgia State College and now Savannah State University) in Savannah, GA as one of nine new faculty members added to the staf that year.3 Remembering his decision to move south in an interview from 1995, he revealed, “I had three job ofers, and this one paid the most and it seemed to be a little more challenging. I also knew it would be warmer than Kansas City, so I said I would go there.”4
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Bringing along his wife Dorothy (Dot) and his irst son Harry, Hampton set to the immediate challenge of molding the school’s ine arts department, which lacked even the most basic supplies.5 Before Hampton’s tenure, the arts education was established under the brief direction of artist Walter Augustus Simon between 1948-1949. He chaired the curriculum committee and introduced the courses of Art Appreciation, Arts and Crafts for Elementary School, and Drawing and Painting.6 Simon reportedly found Savannah too slow and artisticallylacking and packed his bags for Virginia State College in the fall of 1949, but his foundational programs endured and grew through the skills of incoming professors such as Hampton.7 Upon arrival, Hampton became an integral part of the arts community by organizing and participating in group exhibitions, serving as judge for art shows and fairs, designing and painting scenery for school theatre productions, writing articles, giving lectures, and teaching auxiliary classes at the Jewish Educational Alliance and Savannah Art Association. He also taught art appreciation workshops with such themes as “Intellectual and Emotional Growth through Creative Experiences.”8 Hampton began his career as an associate professor, earning several promotions until he assumed the position of director of the department. Clearly a student favorite, he received the “Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award” in 1965 from the Student National Education Association. In 1967, 15 years after he joined the staf, Hampton relected on the progress he helped achieve, noting that “we have certainly come a long way. This beautiful building is a far cry from the old barracks
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that we used when I irst came here. It was just a large building which we shared with the music department.9
Associate Professor Phillip J. Hampton and Student, 1966; Collection of the Family of Phillip Hampton.
October 27, 1968, Savannah State College, Georgia, Professor Phillip J. Hampton and guests at opening of International Graphic Arts Society Exhibit; Collection of the Family of Phillip Hampton.
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
In addition to his role as an arts instructor, Hampton joined professional organizations such as the College Art Association and American Association of University Professors. In 1954, he attended the National Conference of Art Teachers in Negro Colleges, which became known as The National Conference of Arts (NCA) in 1959 under the leadership of artist Margaret Burroughs, an organization still in existence today.
NCA Conference, Lincoln University, 1954, (Phillip Hampton is second from top left)
Art Historian Dr. Floyd Coleman included Hampton in his list of great artists destined for recognition through the dedicated eforts of the NCA and members and writers such as Dr. Samella Lewis. Coleman emphasized that this group presented: The essence of the pure spirit and creativity of the Black race. Out of degradation, poverty, racist coercion, and violence, and the ugliness of the inner-city environment came creative action and the stuff for aesthetic appreciation. The success of our artists is measured by their ability to reveal the beauty, the coherence, and the positive vitality that exist in apparent chaos and inertia. 10
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Despite devoting much of his time to the advancement of other artists through his role as an educator and arts advocate, Hampton still managed to promote his own career, a recognition that began in earnest with his inclusion in Who Was Who in American Art (1952), the biographical directory published by the American Federation of the Arts of individuals important to the visual arts community in the United States.11 His artwork had a visible presence on campus and in homes throughout Savannah. Fittingly, one of his largest contributions to the Savannah State campus was a large mural in Hammond Hall to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Home Economics program. No longer extant, the mural was painted in three distinct sections that interpreted the history of home economics from early history to present-day 1959.12 A snippet of the cartoon of the mural was reproduced in scholar Cedric Dover’s text
American Negro Art (1960) under the section “Muralists,” which served to explore the range of African American visual arts in the United States. 13
Phillip J. Hampton, Art Instructor, unveils mural to Mrs. Evanel Terrell of Home Economics department Savannah State College, Ga. 14
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Savannah’s landscape proved inspirational to Hampton, and he continued to grow as an artist during his 17 years in the city. Particularly drawn to the marsh and coast of the Lowcountry, Hampton’s sketches, pen and ink drawings, and watercolors such as
Beached (1955) revealed his deft handling of atmosphere, setting, and light. It is likely that many of his paintings on the coastline were not of Tybee Island, the closest beach to Thunderbolt, but rather of Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, where African Americans could use the beach. Tybee Island was not desegregated until 1963 when several young people staged “wade-ins” in protest of the discriminatory policy.
Phillip J. and Dorothy Smith Hampton, the 1950s on the beach at Hilton Head Island, SC; Collection of the Family of Phillip Hampton.
Undeterred by lack of access, Hampton found much to admire in the area close to his home and Savannah State campus in the town of Thunderbolt. Hampton illed sketchbook after sketchbook with jottings of the environment surrounding him and returned to the drawings years later for inspiration.15 His Backyard Stuff (1951) exempliies a inished painting of a similar scene to the hundreds of sketches of residences, businesses, and streetscapes
that he captured. It slices out a scene of homes nestled amid the natural environment of gnarled oaks but also calls attention to the detritus, dirt roads, and ramshackle quality of the homes that were often built in the community which was still afected by the legacies of slavery resulting in less economic mobility and opportunity and the continued segregation of daily life.
Hampton rendered local neighborhoods, parks, and elements speciic to the city. He turned an expressive eye to depict social and urban realism, capturing the lavor of the location with speciic nods to structures and everyday life, but handling his paint in an expressive, gestural manner. Young Girls of Savannah (1954) reveals his adeptness at setting the location without relying on sharp details. This image of daily life in Savannah portrays two young girls walking on West Gwinnett Street. The elevated railroad track in the background, small building with a political sign, and glimpses of houses between the track supports anchor the scene. Wilton C. Scott wrote a description of the painting for the Savannah Morning News in 1961, lauding the “freely handled forms of greens, yellow, and vermillion.”16
Pictured above: Backyard Stuff, 1951
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Featured in the same 1960 Dover text as the Savannah State mural, Young Girls of Savannah received an honorable mention at the 1958 Atlanta University Art Annual. Founded by Hale Woodruf in 1942, the “Annual Exhibition of drawings, paintings, sculpture and prints by Negro Artists” or the Atlanta University Art Annuals was instrumental in promoting the work of Black artists and creating a communal gathering place to confer and exhibit work that would otherwise be excluded from predominately white mainstream institutions. Recognizable names today who participated included Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and Loïs Mailou Jones, among others.17 While some names were already known in their time, the exhibition also proved to be an opportunity for artists under the radar to make their mark. Through his participation in the Atlanta Art Annuals, Hampton promoted his own skill, but also uplifted an organization that provided a platform for Black artists whose exposure was often limited by the few opportunities available. HBCUs like Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University) and Savannah State did the work to ensure Black artists had space for exhibitions and would be remembered for posterity long before many other more broadly visible institutions recognized their work.
Occasionally, Hampton’s own career came secondary to the “challenges” of building an arts program for African American students in a city slow to embrace progress and for a school that was continually underfunded.18 Overall, however, Hampton found the Savannah art scene to be an open one with the groups of people as “racially mixed and liberal in spirit.”19 His paintings quickly sold to many Savannah families, both white and black, yet he had to push past the barrier of discrimination at Savannah’s prominent art institutions including the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (today Telfair Museums).20 The museum did not add a ine art piece by an African American artist until the museum acquired a print by Jacob Lawrence in 1977. From 1886 through the civil rights era, the museum took an indiferent approach toward inclusion, with occasional eforts to address the “problem” of integration.21 During Hampton’s time in Savannah, the lack of African American artists on view must have been a glaring lacuna. In 1959, he addressed this failing by petitioning the board for a show, a watershed moment for the museum to take more concrete steps toward inclusion. At the March 17, 1959 Board of Trustees meeting at the Telfair Academy, the Board president read a letter written by Hampton “requesting information regarding an exhibit in the Academy of negro artists from this area. Following discussion it was, upon motion of Mr. Karow, seconded by Dr. Charbonnier, unanimously resolved: that exhibits from all groups will be accepted at the Academy subject to the discretion of our Director.”22
The Savannah Tribune covered the
exhibition with the headline proclaiming “SSC Art Club Presents Exhibition of
Pictured above: Young Girls of Savannah, 1954
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Paintings” that addressed how the exhibition “will represent the materialization of an idea long held by many of the local artists.” The Art Club of Savannah State College announces an exhibition of fine paintings by Negro artists of Savannah and invited artists from several states. The exhibition will be hung in the Galleries of Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences beginning Sept. 8. The show will remain hung for three weeks or more depending on public response.23 Savannah Morning News referenced the Savannah-based painters, including Hampton: Subject matter and technique show a wide range, from a handsome, stylized oil of boats and a marine landscape by Phil Hampton, head of the art department at Savannah State, to a rather academic character study of “Sloppy Joe” Bellinger, the Negro, alleged bolita kingpin who died in Savannah recently. A particularly handsome portrait in the collection is of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, the educator, by Virginia J. Kiah.24 Instrumental to the exhibition’s success was the support of artist, educator, and activist Virginia Jackson Kiah. Kiah studied with Hampton at Savannah State and felt compelled, alongside her husband Dr. Calvin Kiah, to open the Kiah Museum as a “museum for the masses” in response to her feelings of exclusion from establishments of art such as Telfair Academy.24 Perhaps to signal a small change from the previous passive, obligatory path toward inclusion and integration, the Telfair Board did invite local African American leaders Dr. and Mrs. Howard Jordan, Dr. and Mrs. Calvin L.
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Kiah, Mr. and Mrs. Arnett Waters, Felix J. Alexis, and Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Hampton to become members of the museum. Exhibiting his work at the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences was a major accomplishment for Hampton in terms of his own efort and commitment to bring about the exhibition as well as the recognition of the quality of his paintings that is traditionally associated with a museum setting. Never one to rest on his laurels, Hampton took a broader perspective of the role of his art within the American art scene and began to experiment with materials and style. In the mid-1960s he began veering away from iguration, landscapes, and social realist scenes toward abstraction, a move that relected a broader trend in American art, but one that was socially and culturally fraught for African American artists. Many felt pressured to execute literal, realistic translations of their Black communities. For example, community leaders of The New Negro Movement like historian and activist W. E. B. DuBois and writer and philosopher Alain Locke saw igurative and narrative visual arts as key to documenting and uplifting Black life.26 In Cedric Dover’s publication, Hampton submitted a statement that addressed the dichotomy facing Black artists in America: American Negro artists need the recognition and greater understanding that surveys of their work should bring. It is only through recognition as a group that we will eventually become known as artists who are incidentally Negroes.27 He felt pressure to uplift all Black artists, but simultaneously did not want to only be
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
thought of as a Black artist instead judged on the quality and content of his work. As in other areas of life in the United States, many African Americans fought for integration instead of the exclusionary practice of separate exhibitions that were often on the margins of the art world. Black art historians and scholars were important voices to share the work of Black artists that would have otherwise been ignored. Hampton was included in the seminal text Black Artists on Art edited by Dr. Samella Lewis and Ruth Waddy in 1969. The text reproduced his work Bang! Abel (1966), a mid-career experiment using the material of string to create diferent planes of color and perspective. In his artist statement for the publication, Hampton expressed his interest in the complexity of “people, things, materials, and ideas,” that drives his desire to “know the techniques and attitudes of the old masters and practice the seek-and-discovery technique with
materials and ideas that I have brought to the studio.”28 The foregrounded igure is shrouded in darkness while the igure in the background is seen at a distance in an unknowable space, illuminated in light. The string bisects the frontal igure horizontally and vertically, leaving the viewer unsure if the string holds him together or breaks him apart. Invoked by the titular reference to the biblical narrative of Cain and Abel, the two igures are locked in an intense showdown augmented by their difering clarity and poses. The painting portents the angularity of Hampton’s later work that takes cues from an interest in Cubsim. He spoke to his search for a speciic style stating, “Today’s artists don’t have a particular style. The whole art world is searching for a dynamic style of expression. Perhaps anticipating a new form. We have certainly run the gauntlet of abstract expressionism. Cubism, because of its strength, might contribute more to what is to come.”29
Pictured above: Bang! Abel, 1966
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Another pressure faced by Black American artists was to address inequality and racism through their work. Hampton faced discrimination throughout his life and even recalled how he avoided the segregation of Savannah’s public transit by purchasing a vehicle immediately after moving there.30 Furthermore, he worked for Georgia’s higher education system during the tumultuous time around its court-enforced racial integration in 1961. His work tended to be primarily concerned with aesthetics irst, namely the ideas of “qualities such as tensions of form, texture, diversity and opposing rhythms.”31 However, several powerful works in his career did address the feeling of otherness that was part of his daily life. Another American’s
Autobiography - I Grew up with the Chasm (1971) is an acrylic and collage
mixed media work on a shaped canvas. Efectively evoking the colors of the American lag, the splitting crack down the middle creates an ominous break. The gap through the center of the canvas intersects the arm of the shadowy igure toward the bottom left, representing Hampton’s own feeling of division and separation due to his disenfranchisement.
connections to one another as repeated elements and certain marks and shapes reappear consistently throughout his oeuvre. Feels like Freedom (1977) exempliies the liberation and joy associated with his move away from identiiable representation to individualistic mark-making grounded in his artistic language, employed here as swaths of color that intersect and overlap on the paper through various applications, some splotchy, others more directed and linear. Thick red and pink acrylic paint is applied in a dramatic drip-like fashion to stand out against the washier sections of watercolor. Squares are worked throughout the composition―a recurring feature of Hampton’s work that often shows up in the form of grids. A collaged square in the lower right of the composition reads as a small painting within the larger composition.
Abstraction freed Hampton’s work to expand beyond the speciicity of igurative and narrative compositions. It allowed for more cerebral and universal exploration rooted in engagement with a multiplicity of ideas, both aesthetic and cultural. Although visually translated into abstraction, Hampton often incorporated ideas developed in his earlier work such as landscape, narrative, philosophy, myth, and culture. His paintings provide Pictured above: Another American’s Autobiography - I Grew up with the Chasm, 1971
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
While clearly invested in the freedom of pursuing his individual language through abstraction, Hampton did not see himself as working in a vacuum, but rather as part of an art historical lineage, writing, “In our time genius is relected as the work of many. I try to discover and contribute.”32 His words of contribution echo the sentiment of African American art historian and artist James A. Porter, who wrote decades earlier in 1939: “We have a right to expect that the inluence of good example will be manifest in the next harvest of worthy artistic production. … The young Negro artists of today are the direct forerunners of such a renascence. It is their task to prepare the world and point the way for their successors.”33 Hampton’s generous notion of contribution meant that each work, each idea, and each exhibition had a role to play in uplifting more than just his own identity as an artist. Furthermore, his contribution was formulated as a need to keep pushing ideas and creating new work that helps contextualize the rich variety of his practice as a combination of ideas, techniques, materials, and concerns that he developed over many years. Hampton left Savannah State for Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville in 1969. On the eve of his departure from Savannah
State in 1969, Hampton predicted that the city could eventually become a “real artists’ colony.” While he saw its promise, he remained frustrated by the lack of supplies and local and state support for the arts program at Savannah State. Under Hampton’s leadership, the program grew in leaps and bounds and added a major in art education, the irst of its kind in Savannah. Today, Savannah State boasts a robust Department of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Wellness with the opportunity to earn a BFA. Savannah’s art scene has continued to grow with arts programs at the Armstrong campus of Georgia Southern University, the introduction of the Savannah College of Art and Design, the opening of Telfair Museums’ Jepson Center in 2006, and the development of arts nonproits throughout the city. Hampton’s prophetic visioning and his own contributions to fostering creative development had an indelible impact on the role of the arts in the city in the present. At Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Hampton continued his service as a professor, curator, and artist and was honored with the title of Professor Emeritus upon his retirement in 1992. His impact on the arts community there was just as strong as the one he left behind in Savannah. Between 1969 and 2016, he continued his experimental practice, resulting in numerous unique visual expressions. He continued to utilize string, not only on the surface of the painting, but as a substrate for poured Rhoplex, an acrylic emulsion paint that formed a distinct textured surface. He also broke the conines of the rectangle by creating his own shaped canvases that served as creative planes for color swaths, shapes, and forms. His later “abstracted
Pictured above: Feels Like Freedom, 1977
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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landscapes” were often mixed media works that combined watercolor, acrylic, oil, pastel, and collage. They upended traditional considerations of perspective and the landscape tradition through markmaking, symbology, and art historical considerations. His work is simultaneously visually pleasing, but often very intellectual in terms of scientiic experimentation of material process. He mined the history of art for techniques and styles as wide-ranging as the sfumato used in Old Master paintings to the latness of Japanese wood-block prints. Speaking about his artistic journey, Hampton said: I have always wanted to find something uniquely my own. … The search is more important to me than the conclusion. 34 St. Louis proved to be fertile ground for Hampton’s career, and three of his works were acquired for the collection of the St. Louis Art Museum. The work
Imhotep #1 (1993) shows his late-career amalgamation of common motifs including grids, rectangles, and lorals, and how he addressed abstraction beyond paint on paper or canvas through the inclusion of collage, acrylic emulsions, and screenprinting. The work’s title evokes the narrative of the deiied Egyptian architect Imhotep, a story that is advanced through compositional elements like the grid to allude to Imhotep’s architectural prowess and the lorals and colors that reference the water lily―a symbol of Upper Egypt. The work reveals Hampton’s assuredness of reworking visual abstraction and symbolism in ongoing innovations throughout his long career.
According to interviews with friends, Hampton was still proliic in the years leading up to his passing in 2016. He had a basement and closets illed with his paintings, an indication that his lifelong search for a new order and understanding in art never stopped. Hampton remained extremely humble throughout his long career, often downplaying his contributions. He insisted that the work was irst and foremost his priority. “I am primarily concerned with painting. And in becoming as good an artist as possible. I think I owe my people this. I don’t feel near the pinnacle of ine artists such as Hale Woodruf, Jacob Lawrence, Charles White. Those are the artists among the Negroes who have sincerely contributed to the American cultural life.”35 While it is true that the artists Hampton named and admired received great attention and accolades, Hampton’s work is notable for many reasons―aesthetically beautiful, creatively experimental, art historically attune, and historically and culturally resonant.
Pictured above: Imhotep #1, 1993; acrylic, acrylic emulsion, screen print and collage on cardboard, 221/2 x 22-1/2 inches; Collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift of James A. Rivers and Brenda J. Rivers 48:1999; © Estate of Phillip Hampton
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Fortunately, Savannah did not let Hampton go entirely. His paintings are still found throughout homes in the city, and Telfair Museums acquired his painting Young Girls of Savannah in 2018. The King-Tisdell Cottage Foundation presented The Art of Phillip J. Hampton: The Savannah Years (1952-1969) and Beyond at the Beach Institute African American Cultural Center in 1995. Telfair Museums is proud to organize the largest museum retrospective of Hampton’s work to date along with the collaboration and companion exhibition The Early Years at Savannah State University’s Kennedy Fine Arts Gallery and help shed new light on his incredibly diverse and important practice. ,
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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End Notes 1 Samella S. Lewis and Ruth Waddy, Black Artists on Art, Vol 1 (Pasadena, CA: The Ward Ritchie Press, 1969), 28.
2 Alma Thomas, “Philip [sic] Hampton― Painter, Lithographer, Educator,” Savannah
Morning News and Evening Press Magazine, March 12, 1967, 6-7. 3 “9 Added to SSC Faculty,” Savannah Tribune, October 16, 1952, 7. 4 Marty Shuter, “Sketching Savannah: Philip [sic] Hampton’s career as an artist, teacher, celebrated,” Savannah Morning News and Evening Press, October 15, 1995. 5 Nancy Ancrum, “Parting Prof Says Art Colony Could Settle Here,” Savannah Morning News and Evening Press, July 27, 1969. 6 Earnestine Lovelle Jenkins, “Walter Augustus Simon: Abstract Expressionist, Art Educator, and Art Historian,” Black Artists
in America: From the Great Depression to Civil Rights (New Haven and London: Dixon Gallery and Gardens and Yale University Press, 2021), 136. 7 L.D. Reddick, “Walter Simon: The Socialization of an American Negro Artist,” Phylon 15, no. 4 (1954), 389-90. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/272850?seq=18.
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10 Floyd Coleman, “The National Conference of Artists: Some Thoughts on the Black Artworld,” NCA Art News Magazine (1983). https://www.ncanewyorkart.com/aboutnca-1. 11 Peter H. Falk, Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975, Vol. II (Madison, CT: Sound View, 1999), 1443. 12 Sherman Robertson, “Hammond Hall’s Mural Unveiled,” The Tiger’s Roar, March 1959, 4. 13 Cedric Dover, American Negro Art, (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1960, reprinted 1972), 91. 14 Shuter, “Sketching Savannah: Philip [sic] Hampton’s career as an artist, teacher, celebrated.” 15 Wilton C. Scott, “Hampton Paintings Featured in Book,” Savannah Morning News and Evening Press, January 22, 1961. 16 Tina M. Dunkley, “The Atlanta University Arts Annuals and the Afro-American Art Movement,” April 1980, 31. 17 Ancrum, “Parting Prof Says Art Colony Could Settle Here.”
8 Arts and Crafts Workshop,” Savannah Tribune, June 16, 1955, 1.
18 Olivia Lahs-Gonzalez, “A Celebration of Vision: The Art of Phillip Hampton,” The Sheldon Art Galleries, St. Louis, September 24 – December 3, 2005, 7.
9 Thomas, 6-7. The John F. Kennedy Fine Arts Center was completed in 1966.
19 In 1875, Mary Telfair bequeathed her
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
End Notes family home along with railroad stocks to open an “Academy of Arts and Sciences” for public use. Her family’s wealth had been built through enslaved labor and tied to the legacy of the museum. 20 Elyse Gerstenecker, “’Flocking to the Academy’: Telfair Museums and African American Resistance,” March 2022, unpublished. 21 March 17, 1959, Telfair Academy Board Notes, volume 10. 22 Wilton C. Scott, “SSC Art Club Presents Exhibition of Paintings,” Savannah Tribune, September 8, 1959, 7. The featured artists from Savannah in addition to Hampton included Virginia J. Kiah, Mrs. Susan Waters, Mrs. Lillie Gill Blount, Mrs. Ernestine Bertrand, Mrs. Howard Jason, Mrs. Rose McLain, Felix J. Alexis, Dr. Henry Collier, Jr, Henry Balloon, Joseph Burroughs, and William Pleasant. The exhibition also proved an opportunity to showcase talented Black artists beyond Savannah, many of them likely connections through Hampton’s professional network as a professor such as Jimmy Mosely, Chairman of the Art Department, Maryland State College; James D. Parks, Chairman Art Department, Lincoln University; Coleridge H. Smith, Jr., Painter, Designer, Kansas City, Missouri; Leonard Pryor, Art Educator, Kansas City, Missouri; Gerald Hopper, Professor of Art, Florida A&M University; Howard Lewis, Chairman, Art Department, Florida A&M University; Gregory Ridley, Chairman, Art Department, Grambling College; and Dr. John Biggers, Chairman, Art Department, Texas Southern
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
University. 23 “Telfair Exhibit Features Mazzon School Paintings,” Savannah Morning News, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 1959. 24 “Live Your Vision: An Online Exhibition,” SCAD Museum of Art, June 2021 – December 2022. https://www.scadmoa. org/exhibitions/live-your-vision-an-onlineexhibition. 25 For more information regarding The New Negro Movement, which began in earnest in the 1920s to promote racial self-expression and pride, readers can look to Alain Locke’s
The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925). 26 Dover, 51. 27 Lewis and Waddy, 28. 28 Thomas, 6-7. 29 Lahs-Gonzalez, 4. 30 “Sorority Presents Painting to SU,”
Lincoln Clarion, September 23, 1966, 2. 31 Lewis and Waddy, 28. 32 James A. Porter, “Art Reaches the People,” Opportunity 17 (1939), 376. 33 Shuter, “Sketching Savannah: Philip [sic] Hampton’s career as an artist, teacher, celebrated.” 34 Thomas, 6-7.
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Plates
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Phil Hampton at Work, c. 1950’s; colored pencil sketch on paper, 10-1/2 x 7-1/2 inches, signed King Kole II (presumably a student of Hampton’s at Savannah State College); Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Sketch of Savannah, c. 1960 watercolor and ink on paper 18 x 23-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Sketch of Savannah, c. 1960 watercolor and ink on paper 18 x 23-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Gasometer, Old Fort, Savannah, c. 1960 graphite and ink on paper 13 x 9-1/2 inches
Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Blooz in the Night, 1942 ink and watercolor on paperboard 20 x 30 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Backyard Stuff, 1951 watercolor on paper 21-1/2 x 29-1/2 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Environment and Happiness, Master’s Thesis Painting, 1952
oil on canvas 40-3/4 x 54-1/2 inches
Collection of the Family of Phillip Hampton
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Old Boggs Hall, 1952 watercolor on paper 18-1/4 x 22 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Sunday Evening, 1952
watercolor on paper 14-1/2 x 21-3/4 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Roy’l Crown in Georgia, 1953 watercolor on paper 21 x 28-3/4 inches
Collection of P. K. Hernandez
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Untitled (Figure), 1953
oil and string on masonite 48 x 35-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Young Girls of Savannah, 1954 gouache on paper 13 x 17 inches
Literature: Dover, Cedric. American Negro Art. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1960. Print. Plate 50. Collection of Telfair Museums, with funds provided by the Ronald J. Strahan Art Acquisition Endowment Fund, 2017.5
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Beached, c. 1955 watercolor on Arches paper 16 x 17 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Doo Diddy, 1955 mixed media on illustration board 10-3/4 x 15-1/8 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Untitled (Park Scene with Figure), c. 1960 watercolor on paper 18 x 25 inches
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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The Harbinger, 1959 oil on canvas 60 x 20 inches
Literature: Dover, Cedric. American Negro Art. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1960. Print. Plate 96. Collection of P. K. Hernandez
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Untitled (Neighborhood Scene), 1961 watercolor on paper 18 x 22 inches
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Dot, 1962
pastel on gray paper 16 x 12 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Untitled (Figure on the Beach), c. 1960 gouache on illustration board 20 x 30 inches
Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Savannah Skyline 1965 acrylic on board 23-1/2 x 31 inches
Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Bang! Abel, 1966 acrylic and string on masonite 34 x 48 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
The Season for Shells, 1969 acrylic on canvas 19-1/4 x 15-1/2 inches
Collection of Brenda and Larry Thompson
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Designing Dyad, 1968 acrylic and string on canvas 50-1/2 x 37 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Still Life, 1970 watercolor and collage on Arches paper 21x 30 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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You’re Looking Good, c. 1973 graphite on uniquely shaped paper 15 x 29 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Caryatids Forlorn, c. 1980
watercolor and water media on Arches paper 42 x 40 inches Collection of Jerome Watson and Deborah Ford
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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The Two Worlds of Boy, 1971 acrylic emulsion and collage on masonite 6-5/6 x 7-7/8 inches Collection of the Family of Phillip Hampton
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Boy, c. 1973 graphite, colored pencil, and collage on paper 22-1/2 x 28-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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That is how the world moves; not like an arrow, but a boomerang. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man 48 •
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Revolution in Symbolic Interaction Thom Pegg, BLACK ART AUCTION In the Spring of 2000, the St Louis Art Museum added a work by Phillip Hampton,
require an explanation, both to their audience and their fellow Black artists. Alain Locke
Imhotep #1, a large acrylic emulsion and
had in 1925, as editor of The New Negro, laid out a plan of race-building which included a responsibility for African American artists to reclaim their identity through their African heritage and their experience as African Americans. He believed to accomplish this, racially explicit subject matter was required. In 1942, at his
silkscreen executed in 1993, to their permanent collection. The new acquisition was placed on view and the artist’s work was introduced in the quarterly magazine published by the museum: “Phillip Hampton has been devoted throughout his long artistic career to investigations of abstract form and its relationship with objects from the visible world. He sees reality as that which is perceived via our senses, and that which is cerebral—derived from dreams, experiences or ideas. The aggregate forms that emerge from both levels of reality unite in the artist’s…paintings. Hampton studies the techniques of the old masters, the art of the Ife and the unique spatial qualities of Asian art, employing the spatial and formal systems in his work.”1
inaugural address for the Atlanta Annuals, an exhibition exclusively held for Black artists, Locke reiterated his original premise that Black art should relect Black life, and praised the exhibitor’s works as “a healthy and representative art of the people with its roots in its own native soil rather than a sophisticated studio art divorced from the racial feeling and interest of the people.”3 Of course, there were critics of Locke’s theories, most notably, art historian James Porter. Porter felt this “ancestralism” was In 1952, Willem de Kooning claimed, “There limiting to the African-American artist, and is no style of painting now. There are as perpetuated a segregated rather than many naturalists among the abstract painters integrated status for them. In the late as there are abstract painters in the so-called 1940s, and throughout the 1950s, this subject-matter school.”2 was a legitimate conlict for the Black artist wishing to move away from the “subjectLed by artists such as Norman Lewis, Hale matter school”, and to a degree, albeit much Woodruf, Beauford Delaney, and Charles lessened, the pressure for the AfricanAlston, many African American painters American artist to exclusively address (mostly) abandoned social realist subject “Black issues” through a narrative has never matter for abstract painting in the 1950s. completely dissipated. Unlike their white counterparts, it seemed to
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Phillip Hampton began his career not unlike a young Norman Lewis or Hale Woodruf, with a style rooted in realism, but as he matured, he also felt a need for a more universal language, a more updated mode of expression. Hampton points to this historical shift in agenda for Black artists in his written introduction to the exhibit he organized in 1972 at Southern Illinois University, Existence/Black: “The early years of the twentieth century witnessed a strong singular direction among black artists, and it was not infrequently alluded to as the Black Renaissance…African-American artists soon ascertained, and properly so, that it would be better to create images out of which is closest to their visions and heart than to gallop of into the funk of concepts conjured up by men who could never know their feelings.” He continued, “One wonders what impact the intonations of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, or the pungent truths of Alain Locke and James Porter, and even the biting philosophical thoughts of W.E.B. Du Bois had upon black artists forming art media into a black order.”4 At the root of this conlict or dilemma5 —or however one would choose to describe it— is the concept that the creation of art and its subsequent reception by the viewer, is a form of symbolic interaction and the artist, seen as the writer or speaker, is responsible for creating a system of visual symbols which will serve adequately and accurately to communicate an idea. Hampton begins in his treatise, Plastigraphs: An
Examination of Multimedia and Ideas Expressed as Plasti-Graphic Art Forms,
“Several scholars agree that civilization is best represented by its communicative skills and art…Apparently, the seed of civilization
50 •
begins to grow at the instant a people discovers that it can diferentiate, qualify, and exchange ideas.”6 With this in mind, the seriousness of artistic style, or symbolic vehicle of ideas, becomes more evident to the artist, as well as a sense of responsibility. The importance is twofold: irst, efective communication is crucial to the success of any group of people, whether it is a civilization or a race; secondly, those people as a group are represented or deined by that exchange of ideas. Locke understood this when he appealed to visual artists to produce social realist subjects, but the advocates of abstraction, including Hampton, believed that abstract painting not only did not (by necessity) ignore issues, but actually improved and expanded the “language” at its disposal to convey the ideas and concerns relating to these issues. As an artist and especially as a long-time educator, Hampton emphasized the importance of being current, and as such, his eforts to improve and expand his artistic language required continual scrutiny, experimentation, and adjustment. His approach to the creation of art was similar to the scientiic method: he adopted a set of techniques for investigating new phenomena (abstraction), acquired new knowledge by experimenting with not only the latest physical materials, but also the current philosophy and technological assumptions, and then replaced the “old” reality with a new or corrected one. Thomas Kuhn, in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, describes “normal scientiic progress” as development-by-accumulation of accepted facts and theories.
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of such conceptual continuity in normal science were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science. He argued that a historical accumulation of knowledge in a strictly linear fashion was both irrational and inefective: “For many centuries, both in antiquity and again in early modern Europe, painting was regarded as the cumulative discipline. During those years the artist’s goal was assumed to be representation. Critics and historians, like Pliny and Vasari, then recorded with veneration the series of inventions from foreshortening through chiaroscuro that had made possible successively more perfect representations of nature. But those are also the years, particularly during the Renaissance, when little cleavage was felt between the sciences and the arts. Leonardo was only one of many men who passed freely back and forth between the ields that only later became categorically distinct. Furthermore, even after that steady exchange had ceased, the term ‘art’ continued to apply as much to technology and crafts, which were also seen as progressive, as to painting and sculpture. Only when the latter unequivocally renounced representation as their goal and began to learn again from primitive models did the cleavage we now take for granted
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
assume anything like its present depth. And even today, to switch ields once more, part of our difficulty in seeing the profound diferences between science and technology must relate to the fact that progress is an obvious attribute of both ields.”7 Hampton adopted a similar dialectical model for artistic creation. If narrative painting served as the accepted thesis, but over time, developed inherent contradictions, such as perpetuating the segregation of Black artists, it would be essential to introduce a revolutionary antithesis in the form of abstraction to provide a more efective vehicle of artistic expression. “Viewers, once having experienced my work, may allow composites of my shapes to take hold in their minds, which composites by their own set of circumstances become genuine reality. With my having knowledge of this transformation, I may derive a sense of accomplishment and surmise in the process that as a painter and creator of shapes and structures, I have not merely regurgitated imagery from my limited dimension, but that I have provided forms attending a broader essence of reality, a reality which engages the innermost part of human thoughts and feelings.” 8
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Phillip Hampton developed a compound-media art form he called Plastigraphs as a universally symbolic vehicle of communication. He quotes Picasso: THERE IS NO PAST OR FUTURE IN ART, and his basic system of forms supersedes history by inluencing even unrelated cultures.
Hampton understood that the abstract painter has an advantage over the narrative painter because of the ability to represent several, equally viable, deinitions of reality pertaining to a single composition simultaneously. It seems reasonable that a person looking at any particular scene centuries ago would have a diferent sense of its “reality” than a viewer looking at the same scene today. Our current understanding of the scientiic universe, of history, and of metaphysics would not necessarily erase all commonality of the two viewpoints, but the current version would likely be amended or corrected. The abstract painter is not limited by a single-point narrative, but may choose to address multiple versions of the scene’s reality—including the concept of time itself. This dynamic and perpetually self-critical approach to the creation of art
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is valuable because it is continually updated in an efort to ind the most efective form of communication. Furthermore, the process itself is equally valuable for both artist and viewer because it is emancipatory. Hampton ofers core components as a structure for his artistic investigations, all of which shape our notion of how we perceive reality: 1. Interchange between positive and negative shapes 2. Realism is system 3. Studies in space 4. Light 5. Contraposition 6. Distortion 7. Time
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Hampton employs within the composition realistic and non-realistic elements (non-realistic in this case would mean incongruous, e.g., a grid is real, but would not typically be seen in a landscape) to formulate a multidimensional symbol or image of a particular reality. He explains his use of contraposition and the relationships of shapes, and that the characteristic of those relationships form a system—and that the system constitutes a reality: “verisimilar shapes may be contraposed to abstract shapes. Juxtapose these to grids, geometric and amorphic shapes, line blobs, and so on. Create an element of contradiction in the mind of the viewer, wherein lies reality, an internal entity. It is where order begins and system is derived, system becomes reality.” Hampton also believed that it only makes sense that the artist of today would represent images which are inluenced by light, speed, and ultimately— time— but diferently than artists of the past: “Often in my work, motion appears as vigorous lines or blurs. (To be sure, one hundred years and less have passed since Impressionists and Futurists entertained notions of light and
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
motion, but compared to today’s increase of speed and knowledge of light, the ideas of painters of light and motion, belonging to their slow-paced era, could hardly ofer abstinence to my concepts.)” 10 Hampton’s abstraction not only presupposes variable interpretation, it encourages it. The resulting communicative action or discourse itself becomes the rationality, replacing an empirical narrative of both content and composition. Lisa Farrington begins her new book, African-American Art, A Visual and Cultural History, with a chapter titled “The Art of Perception: How Art Communicates”, in which she describes art as: “a visual language with the power to impart information with as much insight and complexity as written or verbal language.” She uses the term “visual literacy” to describe the ability to view and understand images in art, and reinforces the notion that the “language” of any particular image is likely complex, addressing (directly and indirectly) multiple topics simultaneously— such as “history, experiences, culture, and the philosophies of artists and their societies”. 11
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Farrington’s ideas of visual interpretation reiterate the most important aspects of Phillip Hampton’s essays written in the 1960s-70s while a professor at Southern Illinois University. Farrington suggests being mindful of these key factors in interpretive analysis: 1. Iconography, “the study of content, meaning, and symbolism of a work of art” 2. Formalism, which is the “study of the composition or design of an art object”10 She adds four additional “key methods” of analysis: 1. Biography (including autobiography) in forms and extrapolates from works of art using facts from the artist’s life.
3. Contextual Analyses consider gender, sociopolitical, economics, ethnicity, and culture when investigating the meaning of an artwork.
An exact parallel between speciic dates and speciic styles throughout Phillip Hampton’s lifetime of work does not exist. Similarly, his creative approach did not strictly evolve as a straight line from realism to abstraction. The stylistic shift from Untitled (Park scene with figure) to Feels Like Freedom illustrates Hampton’s desire and success to replace a rendering of a speciic scene with abstracted, simpliied forms of nature, thus representing a more universal image. A similar shift may be seen in comparing Untitled (Neighborhood Scene) with Stop Here and Equivocate.
4. Semiotics rejects the importance of the artist in conferring meaning. Instead, this method seeks to identify universal meaning within an image that exists independently of the image itself and is deined by a broadly conceived “social consciousness.”12
One might view the small mixed media, Untitled (Landscape with a grid), similarly to an architectural rendering for a completed building. This work reveals in absolute terms the approach of Phillip Hampton: naturalistic elements, such as landscape and ocean
2. Psychoanalysis attempts to access the subconscious agenda of the artist via methods of image and dream analysis developed by Freud, Lacan, Winnicott, and other inluential psychoanalysts.
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The point of mentioning methods of interpretation is that Hampton, being a career educator and student of art history addressed them himself, and was mindful of this potential reception during his own creative process. He was familiar with Hermeneutics, the interpretive formalist philosophy espoused by Hans-Georg Gadamer or Jurgen Habermas, who both published seminal books on the subject in the 1960s-80s, and New Criticism, which dominated American literary criticism in the mid-20th century. While these concepts were primarily connected to the literary arts, it would have been entirely reasonable to apply them similarly to the visual arts. 13
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
are reduced to symbols, but remarkably, are immediately recognizable (their shape and color are determined by their natural characteristics). Dimension and scale are indicated by a geometric gridwork, and simple rectangles, added as elements of collage, represent in both substance and scale, structure (either man-made or natural). The attached rectangle is solid in contrast to the watercolor media, representing a greater density. What he has achieved is the creation of an image that communicates in more universal terms through abstract symbolism. T.S. Eliot, in his essay, Hamlet and His Problems, is critical of Shakespeare because he ofered no external (symbolic) representation of his character’s emotional state. Eliot believes if Shakespeare had used an objective correlative, which he deined as, “a set of objects, a situation, [or] a chain of events”14 that will, when read or performed,
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
evoke a speciic sensory experience in the audience, the audience would have had a much better understanding of the character’s internal struggle. Eliot believed that this symbolic device allowed the author to communicate something such as an emotional state, which would have been, if not impossible, extremely tedious, to convey in a descriptive narrative. Ralph Ellison was greatly inluenced by Eliot, and his overt use of symbolism (light, color, numbers, etc) in Invisible Man (1952) illustrates in literary terms the success of addressing issues of race, identity, and politics in abstract terms. It is clear that Hampton’s concerns are broader in scope, attempting to bring about an understanding of how abstract symbols communicate as a visual language, but similarly to other African American artists who worked in the second half of the 20th century, he is convinced that the ability to engage in this discourse at all is a validation of both strength and freedom. ,
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End Notes 1 “New Acquisitions.” The Saint Louis Art Museum Magazine (Spring 2000): 13. Print. 2 De Kooning, Willem. What Abstract Art Means to Me. The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin 18 (Spring 1951): 7. Print.
6 Hampton, Phillip J. Plastigraphs: An Examination of Multimedia and Ideas Expressed as Plasti-Graphic Art Forms. 1982. MS. Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. 7 Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1970. 161. Print.
3 Steeling, Winifred. Hale Woodruf, Artist and Teacher: Through the Atlanta Years. Hale 8 Hampton, Phillip J. An Essence of Form, Woodruff: Fifty Years of His Art. New York: Mutability and Reality. 1989. MS. Southern Studio Museum in Harlem, 1978. 124. Print. Illinois University, Edwardsville. (Quoted Alain Locke, Exhibition of Paintings by Negro Artists of America; This passage, 9 Ibid. pointing to Locke’s unwavering stance on ancestralism was presented in Ann Gibson’s Two Worlds: African American Abstraction in 10 Ibid. New York at Mid-Century, in The Search for Freedom, African American Abstract Painting, 11 Farrington, Lisa E. African-American Art: A Visual and Cultural History. New York: 1945-1975, New York: Kenkeleba Gallery, Oxford UP, 2017. 3. Print. 1991.)
12 Ibid., 5. (Hampton addresses the importance of iconography in his essay, Plastigraphs: An Examination of Multimedia and Ideas Expressed as Plasti-Graphic Art Forms, He explains how “system becomes reality”, which is essentially the concept of 5 Bearden, Romare. The Negro Artist’s Dilemma. Critique: A Review of Contemporary what Farrington calls “formalism” in Hampton, An Essence of Form, Mutability and Reality.) Art 1.2 (1946): 16-22. Print. (Bearden rejected criticism of work by blacks on 13 Interviews with the artist, 2013 and 2016. “sociological rather than esthetic merits.” In 14 Eliot, T. S. Hamlet and His Problems. an 1966 issue of ARTnews, Jeanne Siegel The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and published a roundtable discussion of 14 Criticism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1921. members of Spiral, the African American N. pag. Print. artist’s collective. The group included Bearden and Norman Lewis, among others. Lewis commented: “I am not interested in an illustrative statement that merely mirrors some of the social conditions, but in my work I am for something deeper artistic and philosophical content.” 4 Hampton, Phillip J. Existence/Black; an Exhibition of African-American Artists. Edwardsville, IL: n.p., 1972. Print.
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Plates
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Feels Like Freedom, 1977 watercolor, acrylic, and elements of collage on BFK Rives paper 25 x 35 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Another American’s Autobiography - I Grew Up With the Chasm, 1971
acrylic and collage on shaped canvas 55 x 52 x 2 inches
Collection of The Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Untitled, c. 1970
acrylic on shaped canvas 24 x 50 inches Collection of Julie Farr
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Untitled, c. 1970
watercolor, colored marker, and metallic paint on Arches paper 21 x 28 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Untitled, c. 1975
rhoplex (acrylic) emulsion structure suspended on string gridwork 50-1/2 x 50-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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High Jazz Yeller, 1975 acrylic emulsion 43-3/4 x 45-1/2 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Moodside Horizons, 1975 acrylic and watercolor on Arches paper 38-1/2 x 43 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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Untitled, c. 1975
watercolor and collage on paper 20 x 28 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Untitled, c. 1975
watercolor and collage on paper 20 x 28 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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Red Reaction Switch, 1979 acrylic emulsion on paperboard 42 x 39 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Red Thwarting Machine, 1979
acrylic emulsion on paperboard 42 x 39 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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Funky Rainbow Blues, c. 1980 acrylic on shaped canvas 44 x 67-1/2 inches Collection of Robert L. and Valerie Mallett
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Untitled, c. 1980
acrylic on shaped canvas 10-1/2 x 23 inches Collection of Cleophus and Carla Thomas
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Plane Interchange, c. 1980
acrylic emulsion on melamine board 47-3/4 x 51-1/2 inches Collection of Brenda and Larry Thompson
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Stop Here and Equivocate, c. 1980
mixed media (watercolor, gouache) and collage on paper 40 x 60 inches Collection of Jerome Watson and Deborah Ford
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
How Innocent Look the Flowers, c. 1985 acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, and collage on Arches paper 29-1/2 x 37-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
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Hope’s Antithesis, 1986 watercolor and acrylic on paper 30 x 41 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Cascade, c. 1980-1990
rhoplex (acrylic emulsion) structure suspended on string gridwork 38 x 30 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
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Paradise Memory Time, 1990 watercolor on Arches paper 43 x 46-1/4 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
The Garden of Unavoidable Sin II, 1991 watercolor, pastel, acrylic 40 x 43 inches
Collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum Minority Artists Purchase Fund 3:1999; © Estate of Phillip Hampton.
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The Garden of Unavoidable Sin III, 1991 watercolor, pastel, acrylic 39-3/4 x 40-1/2 inches
Collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum Minority Artists Purchase Fund 4:1999; © Estate of Phillip Hampton
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Imhotep #1, 1993
acrylic, acrylic emulsion, screen print and collage on cardboard 22-1/2 x 22-1/2 inches Collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift of James A. Rivers and Brenda J. Rivers 48:1999; © Estate of Phillip Hampton
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Drawing 1, Apocalypse Series, 1995
mixed media 39-3/8 x 45-5/8 inches
Collection of P. K. Hernandez
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Intermediate Estate, 1997
water media on Arches paper 39 x 46 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Sacred Skin V (Red), 2000 acrylic emulsion on cord 20-1/4 x 17-1/2 inches
Collection of P. K. Hernandez
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Quasiscape I, 2004
gouache on Arches paper 23 x 26-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
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A Crepuscular Oasis, 2005 acrylic on linen 50 x 50 inches
Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Blithering Blooms, c. 2007 acrylic emulsion on cord 28 x 20-1/4 inches
Collection of P. K. Hernandez
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Exhibitions Individual
1968 Phillip Hampton; Paine College, Augusta, GA Florida A&M University (Tallahassee, FL) 1995 The Art of Phillip J. Hampton; Beach Institute African American Cultural Center, Savannah, GA 2000 Phillip J. Hampton: Shapes Wrought From My Mind; Morris University Center Gallery, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL 2005 A Celebration of Vision: The Art of Phillip J. Hampton; Sheldon Art Galleries, St. Louis, MO 2008 Phillip Hampton: A Ceremony for Intimate Forms; The Gallery at Chesterield Arts, Chesterield, MO 2022 Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton (1922-2016), Telfair Museums Jepson Center, Steward South and Kane Galleries, Savannah, GA 2022 The Early Years, Savannah State University, Kennedy Fine Arts Gallery, Savannah, GA Savannah State College, GA; Lincoln University, Jeferson City, MO
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Phillip Hampton, Assistant Professor of Fine Arts, unveils mural which he painted. The Savannah State Tiger’s Roar, March 1959
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Exhibitions Individual
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1952
Mid-America Artists’ Association Member Show; Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design, MO All Negro Fine Arts Exposition; St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City, MO
1958
Atlanta University Art Annual; Young Girls of Savannah (watercolor), Honorable Mention; Artist’s Wife (oil)
1959
Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Savannah, GA Atlanta University Art Annual; Sea Scuttle (oil); Wind Drifts (watercolor)
1960
Atlanta University Art Annual; The Harbinger (oil); Blue Monday (watercolor), Honorable Mention
1961
New Vistas in American Art; Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
1962
Atlanta University Art Annual; Sunday Gown (oil); Passing Faces (watercolor), Honorable Mention
1963
Atlanta University Art Annual; Chicken Yard (oil)
1964
Fourth Coastal Empire Arts Festival, Savannah Artist Association, Purchase prize Contemporary Art Festival , Savannah, GA First National Watercolor Competition, Dulin Gallery, Knoxville, TN Southeast Exhibition of Prints and Drawings, Jacksonville, FL
1965
Atlanta University Art Annual; Valley and Shadows (oil); Bring Home Some Fish (watercolor), Honorable Mention; Delilah’s Man (graphics) National Print and Drawing Competition, Dulin Gallery, Knoxville, TN
1966
Centennial Fine Arts Exhibition; Lincoln University, Jeferson City, MO Contemporary Art Festival, Savannah, GA
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
The Savannah State Tiger’s Roar, November 1952
Hampton judging the South County Art Association’s Annual Art Show, Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, August 12, 1970
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Exhibitions Group
94 •
1967
Contemporary Art Festival, Savannah, GA (prize) Spring Art Festival, Jesup, GA, prize Beaux Arts Guild, Tuskegee Institute (purchase award)
1970
Mark Twain South County Bank April Art Show; St. Louis, MO Friedman Art Store, Savannah, GA
1971
National Exhibition of Black Artists; Smith-Mason Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
1972
Existence/Black: An Exhibition of African-American Artists; Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL
1973
Bluegrass Open Painting Exhibition; Arts Club, Louisville, KY
1975
Phillip Hampton and Don Davis; Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL
1977
Phillip Hampton, paintings and Bill Atkins, collages; CEMREL (Central Midwestern Regional Educational Lab), St. Louis, MO
1979
Black Artists/South; Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL
1980
The First Annual Atlanta Life National Art Competition and Exhibition; Atlanta Life Insurance Co; Atlanta, GA
1981
Group Show, ‘81; Vaughn Cultural Center, Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, MO
1985
The Fifth Annual Atlanta Life National Art Competition and Exhibition; Atlanta Life Insurance Co; GA A Visual Dedication to Azania: Work of 5 black artists; Bixby Gallery, Washington University, St. Louis
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Hampton painting Actinozoan, The ArtGallery Magazine, 1968
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Exhibitions Group
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1986
Group Show ‘86: influences/sources; Vaughn Cultural Center, Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis
1987
Contemporary African American Expression: Greater Lafayette Museum of Art, Indiana Three Artists; Loretto-Hilton Center, Webster University, St. Louis, MO
1988
St. Louis Artists’ Guild 75th Annual Oil, Acrylic, and Egg Tempera Exhibition, MO (First Prize)
1990
The Tenth Annual Atlanta Life National Art Competition and Exhibition; Atlanta Life Insurance Co; Atlanta, GA
1992
African-American Invitational Exhibition, St. Louis Artist’s Guild, MO
1998
Visions; Portfolio Gallery and Education Center, St. Louis, MO (curated)
1999
Contemporary African-American Artworks; St. Louis Artist’s Guild, MO (curated)
2001
The Light in the Other Room; Portfolio Gallery and Education Center, St. Louis, MO
2007
Caroline Bottom Anderson, Louie Badalamenti, Phillip Hampton; Edwardsville Art Center, IL
2008
African American Abstraction: St. Louis Connections; St. Louis Art Museum, MO
2009
Art, Inside and Out, Painters John Barton and Phillip Hampton; Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis, MO
2011
Maturity and It’s Muse: Celebrating Artists over 70; Sheldon Art Galleries, Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Gallery, St. Louis, MO
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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Collections Liberty National Bank, Savannah, GA Lincoln University, Jeferson City, MO Savannah State University, Savannah, GA South County Bank, Clayton, MO Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, AL Georgia Southern College, Statesboro, GA W.W. Law Art Collection, Savannah, GA Maryland State College, Princess Anne, MD West Virginia State College, Institute, WV Public School System, Savannah, GA Mrs. Alma Thomas, Savannah, GA Merrill Lynch, Savannah, GA Southern Illinois University , President Offices, Edwardsville, Illinois State University (office of John Westley), Bloomington James A. Rivers and Brenda J. Rivers, St Louis, MO Larry and Brenda Thompson, Atlanta, GA Telfair Museums, Savannah, GA Julie Farr P. K. Hernandez Michael Butler Jerome Watson and Deborah Ford Cleophus and Carla Thomas Robert L. and Valerie Mallett The Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art The John and Susan Horseman Collection, MO
98 •
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Phillip Hampton in his studio, c. 2010 Edwardsville, IL
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
• 99
Bibliography Hampton, Phillip J. Plastigraphs: An Examination of Multimedia and Ideas Expressed as PlastiGraphic Art Forms. 1982. MS 94019. Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. (Unpublished manuscript.) Hampton, Phillip J. An Essence of Form, Mutability and Reality. 1989. MS 861FA14. Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. (Unpublished manuscript.) Hampton, Phillip J. Modern Art: The Celebration of Man’s Freedom. Centennial Exhibition. Lincoln University, Jeferson City. 24 Feb. 1966. Speech. Cederholm, Theresa Dickason. “Phillip Hampton.” Afro-American Artists: A Bio-bibliographical Dictionary. Boston: Boston Public Library, 1973. 114-15. Print. Lewis, Samella S., and Ruth G. Waddy. Black Artists on Art. Vol. 1 Revised Edition. Los Angeles: Contemporary Crafts, 1976. 28+. Print. (Bang! Abel, 1966) Hudson, Ralph M. Black Artists/South. Huntsville, AL: Huntsville Museum of Art, 1979. Print. (Fire Jive Fly, 1974, rhoplex acrylic/Dacron) Atkinson, J. Edward. Black Dimensions in Contemporary American Art. New York: New American Library, 1971. 64-65. Print. (A Weekend Song, 1968, oil) Dover, Cedric. American Negro Art. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1960. Print. (Class Drawing; Cartoon for a Mural; Young Girls of Savannah, 1954, gouache; The Harbinger, 1959) Hampton, Phillip J. Existence/Black; An Exhibition of African-American Artists. Edwardsville, IL: n.p., 1972. Print. (I Was Born in a Funky Rainbow, series, acrylic structure) Robertson, Jack. Twentieth-century Artists on Art: An Index to Artists’ Writings, Statements, and Interviews. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1985. Print. Falk, Peter H. Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975. Vol. II. Madison, CT: Sound View, 1999. 1443. Print. Shields, Winifred. “Art and Artists: Active Mid-America Group Opens New Art Exhibition.” Kansas City Times 15 Feb. 1952: 24. Print. “Art Show at a Church.” Rev. of All-Negro Fine Arts Exhibition. Kansas City Times 28 Apr. 1952, morning ed.: 6. Print.
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Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Edwards, Martha. “New Art Instructor, P. J. Hampton Has Placed Works in Exhibits.” The Savannah State Tiger’s Roar Nov. 1952: 4. Print. Roberson, Sherman. “Hammond Hall’s Mural Unveiled.” The Savannah State Tiger’s Roar Mar. 1959: 4. Print. “Phillip Hampton to Show at LU.” The Daily Capital News [Jeferson City] 17 Feb. 1966, morning ed.: 5. Print. King, Mary. “Conviction, Energy in Atkins Collages.” Rev. of Phillip J. Hampton, Paintings and Bill Atkins, Collages, CEMREL. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 28 Apr. 1977, sec. F: 4. Print. “Openings - Group Shows.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 3 Dec. 1981, sec. D: 5. Print. Degener, Patricia. “Powerful Statements About South Africa.” Rev. of A Visual Dedication to Azania: Work of Five Black Artists. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 11 Sept. 1985, sec. B: 4. Print. Cunningham, Anne. ”Area Art Notes.” Indianapolis Star 1 Feb. 1987, sec. E: 10. Print. Daniel, Jef. “African-American Exhibition Conveys Diversity in Aspects of a Single Subject.” Rev. of Contemporary African-American Artworks. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 30 May 1999, sec. C: 4. Print. Daniel, Jef. “Painting in the Abstract.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 6 July 2000, sec. F: 1. Print. (Bang! Abel; Bring Home Some Fish, 1966, watercolor; Garden of Unavoidable Sin I, collage; A Bird is as…The Sound of Soft Thunder, 2000) Daniel, Jef. “Art Reviews: Watercolors, Number Relationships Illustrate the Range of Local Painters.” Rev. of The Light in the Other Room. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 24 June 2001, sec. F: 2. Print. Baran, Jessica. “Featured Review: Maturity and Its Muse.” Rev. of Maturity and Its Muse. n.d.: n. pag. Riverfront Times. 27 Jan. 2011. Web. 10 Oct. 2016. “Art Notes.” Jet 22 May 1952: 31. Print. “Afro-American Issue.” The ART Gallery Magazine 11.7 (1968):48. Print. (Actinozoan) “New Acquisitions.” The Saint Louis Art Museum Magazine (Spring 2000): 13. Print. “Member Events.” The Saint Louis Art Museum Magazine (Spring 2008): 16. Print.
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
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The Early Years Savannah State University, Savannah, GA, Kennedy Fine Arts Gallery. Curated by Dr. Peggy Blood.
102 •
The Early Years
A Message from Kimberly Ballard-Washington Savannah State University President We are delighted to partner with Telfair Museums to commemorate the life and work of Phillip J. Hampton, an important and impactful igure in Savannah State University’s history and a leader in the Savannah and national art scene. The collaboration represents an outstanding example of Telfair Museums working with key partners to elevate the public awareness of the accomplishments of African American artists broadly speaking, and especially of artists with deep connections to Savannah and the region. Savannah State University is home to many irsts and Phillip Hampton is no diferent. He was the irst African American student to earn a master’s degree in ine arts at Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri. Records relect that in 1952, Phillip Hampton joined the teaching staf at Savannah State College to build a program in art and design. In Savannah, Hampton quickly immersed himself in the arts community, teaching
The Early Years
workshops, giving lectures, writing articles and contributing works to group exhibitions. In his teaching, Hampton stressed the value of art on emotional and intellectual growth and promoted these theories through a variety of workshops throughout the 1950s. During his tenure, he wrote in “Impressions of College Art” that “[t]here is something mysterious and powerful about the medium of art. Art can be soothing and gentle like a breeze; or it can be furious, like a storm; it can be convincing like a top television commercial.” He further articulated that “[i]t seems that unrest and calamity immediately stimulates renewed interest in the arts.” Professor Hampton recognized that art gains signiicantly more attention during the times of crisis and strife, as was evidenced by the works which followed the First and Second World Wars. I know that all who visit the exhibits will be comforted by the works Professor Hampton left for us to enjoy during our generations’ period of uneasiness.,
• 103
Plates
104 •
The Early Years
Mother and Child, 1951
Silent Night, 1951
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
lithograph on paper 10-1/2 x 8-1/2 inches
lithograph on paper 12-1/2 x 10 inches
Untitled, 1951
lithograph on paper 13-1/2 x 11-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
The Early Years
• 105
Beachcomber (Savannah Coastline), 1957; watercolor on paper 23 x 12-1/2 inches. Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
106 •
The Early Years
Study for a Mural, c. 1957 ink on tracing paper 8 x 21 inches
Collection of Michael Butler *Preliminary sketches for Epitome, a mural executed for Hammond Hall, Savannah State College, 1957. The mural documented the history of home economics.
The Early Years
• 107
108 •
Shrimp Boat, Thunderbolt, GA, 1959; graphite with white highlights, 17 x 20-1/2 inches.
Pier, 1969; mixed media, marker sketch on brown
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Collection of Michael Butler
Fishing Boats Savannah, c. 1960; ink and watercolor on paper, 16-1/4 x 23 inches.
Beachside Shop, c. 1960; mixed media - ink, colored
Collection of Michael Butler
inches. Collection of Michael Butler
paper, 16 x 22-1/2 inches.
pencil, and watercolor on paper, 9-1/2 x 13-1/2
The Early Years
Untitled (House in Savannah, Georgia), 1952
watercolor on paper 14-1/2 x 21 inches
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
The Early Years
• 109
Untitled (Street Scene), 1956; watercolor on paper, 14 x 19-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Untitled (City scene with figures), c. 1960; watercolor on paper,
20-1/2 x 28-1/2 inches
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
110 •
The Early Years
Fishing Boat, Georgia, c. 1960
graphite, ink, and colored pencil with white highlights on paper 16 x 11 inches Collection of Michael Butler
Savannah Harbor, c. 1960 pastel and charcoal on paper, 13-1/2 x 10-1/2 inches Collection of Michael Butler
Saturday Shrimper, 1968; woodblock print 18 x 27 inches.
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Tybee, c. 1960 mixed media sketch on paper 27-1/2 x 21-1/2 inches Collection of Michael Butler
The Early Years
• 111
Jaunita (Homage to Larry Rivers), c. 1970
acrylic and graphite on canvas 34 x 30 inches
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
112 •
The Early Years
Untitled (House in a Landscape), c. 1980 watercolor on paper, 6-1/2 x 6-1/2 inches
Untitled (Flowers), c. 1980 acrylic on paper, 13 x 12 inches
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
The Early Years
• 113
Untitled, c. 1980 oil and collage on masonite 35-1/2 x 48 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
114 •
The Early Years
Untitled, c. 1980 acrylic and collage on linen 23-1/2 x 16-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
The Early Years
• 115
Untitled (Abstract), c. 1980 water media on paper 47 x 38-1/2 inches Collection of Michael Butler
116 •
The Early Years
Wilma and the Apocrisiary, 1984
mixed media and collage on board 16-1/2 x 12-1/2 inches Collection of Michael Butler
The Early Years
• 117
Space-Set Encounter, 1986 water media on 300 lb Arches paper 29-1/2 x 38 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
118 •
The Early Years
Time Place Sensate, c. 1987
water media on 300 lb Arches paper 41 x 47 inches Collection of Michael Butler
The Early Years
• 119
Red Square Resonate, 2000 acrylic emulsion and collage on paper mounted on foamcore 42-1/2 x 39-1/4 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
120 •
The Early Years
Red Angle Advocate, 2000 acrylic emulsion on paper mounted on foamcore 42-1/8 x 38-3/8 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
The Early Years
• 121
Untitled, c. 2000 acrylic emulsion on paper mounted on foamcore 42-1/2 x 39-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
122 •
The Early Years
Untitled, c. 2000 acrylic emulsion and collage on illustration board 19 x 22 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Purple Sun, 2000 rhoplex (acrylic emulsion) structure suspended on string gridwork 17-1/2 x 15-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Spatial Meander III, 2001 rhoplex (acrylic emulsion) structure suspended on string gridwork over linen 26-1/2 x 19 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
The Early Years
• 123
Plates Additional
124 •
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Valley and Shadows, c. 1965 oil and string on masonite 34 x 48 inches Private Collection, Illinois Exhibited: Atlanta University Annuals, 1965
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
• 125
Untitled (Dancer), c. 1967; oil, turpentine wash, and string on canvas, 48 x 28 inches. Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
126 •
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Sunkist,1973
graphite and colored pencil with collage on paper 18 x 22-1/2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
• 127
Untitled, c. 1980
acrylic and water media on paper 39-1/2 x 37-1/2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
128 •
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Autobiography Series, c.1970 Acrylic, string and collage on canvas, 60 x 36 inches Courtesy of The John and Susan Horseman Collection
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
• 129
Untitled, c. 1980
mixed media and collage on paperboard 60 x 40 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
130 •
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Untitled, c. 1970
acrylic on shaped canvas 24 x 50 x 2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
• 131
Dot of the First Year, 1994
watercolor on illustration board 38 x 26-1/2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
132 •
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
It Was a Very Starry Night, 1997 mixed media with elements of collage on paperboard 40 x 26-1/4 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
• 133
Untitled, c. 2000
water media and collage on uniquely shaped Arches paper 39 x 44 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
134 •
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Nocturne, c. 1990
water media and collage on Arches paper 38 x 48-1/2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
• 135
Time Sound Syndrome, 1991
acrylic on PVC board 45 x 43 inches
Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
136 •
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Untitled, c. 1975
rhoplex (acrylic) emulsion suspended on string gridwork 50-1/2 x 50 inches Courtesy of The John and Susan Horseman Collection
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
• 137
138 •
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Untitled (Landscape With a Grid), c. 1970
watercolor, metallic paint, and collage on board 7 x 8-1/2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Multicolores, c. 2001 polymer acrylic emulsion on canvas structure and wire grid 24 x 21 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
• 139
Ceremony for Blossom, 2001
polymer acrylic emulsion on canvas structure and wire grid 25-1/2 x 18-5/8 x 2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
140 •
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
• 141
Feels Like Freedom 1. Phil Hampton at Work, c. 1950’s colored pencil sketch on paper 10-1/2 x 7-1/2 inches signed King Kole II Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 2. Sketch of Savannah, c. 1960 watercolor and ink on paper 18 x 23-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 3. Sketch of Savannah, c. 1960 watercolor and ink on paper 18 x 23-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
18-1/4 x 22 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez 9. Sunday Evening, 1952 watercolor on paper 14-1/2 x 21-3/4 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez 10. Roy’l Crown in Georgia, 1953 watercolor on paper 21 x 28-3/4 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
Exhibition Checkl 4. Gasometer, Old Fort, Savannah, c. 1960 graphite and ink on paper 13 x 9-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 5. Blooz in the Night, 1942 ink and watercolor on paperboard 20 x 30 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 6. Backyard Stuff, 1951 watercolor on paper 21-1/2 x 29-1/2 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez 7. Environment and Happiness, Master’s Thesis Painting, 1952 oil on canvas 40-3/4 x 54-1/2 inches Collection of the Family of Phillip Hampton 8. Old Boggs Hall, 1952 watercolor on paper
142 •
11. Untitled (Figur (Figure), 1953 oil and string on masonite 48 x 35-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
12. Young Girls of Savannah, 1954 gouache on paper 13 x 17 inches Literature: Dover, Cedric. American Negro Art Ar . Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1960. Print. Plate 50. Collection of Telfair Museums. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Ronald J. Strahan Art Acquisition Endowment Fund, 2017.5. 13. Beached, c. 1955 watercolor on Arches paper 16 x 17 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
14. Doo Diddy, 1955 mixed media on illustration board 10-3/4 x 15-1/8 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Feels Like Freedom 15. Untitled (Park Scene with Figure), c. 1960 watercolor on paper 18 x 25 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
list
16. The Harbinger, 1959 oil on canvas 60 x 20 inches Literature: Dover, Cedric. American Negro Art. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1960. Print. Plate 96. Collection of P. K. Hernandez 17. Untitled (Neighborhood Scene), 1961 watercolor on paper 18 x 22 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 18. Dot, 1962 pastel on gray paper 16 x 12 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 19. Untitled (Figure on the Beach), c. 1960 gouache on illustration board 20 x 30 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 20. Savannah Skyline, 1965 acrylic on board 23-1/2 x 31 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 21. Bang Abel, 1966 acrylic and string on masonite 34 x 48 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
22. The Season for Shells, 1969 acrylic on canvas 19-1/4 x 15-1/2 inches Collection of Brenda and Larry Thompson 23. Designing Dyad, 1968 acrylic and string on canvas 50-1/2 x 37 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez 24. Still Life, 1970 watercolor and collage on Arches paper 21x 30 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 25. You’re Looking Good, c. 1973 graphite on uniquely shaped paper 15 x 29 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 26. Caryatids Forlorn, c. 1980 watercolor and water media on Arches paper 42 x 40 inches Collection of Jerome Watson and Deborah Ford 27. The Two Worlds of Boy, 1971 acrylic emulsion and collage on masonite 6-5/6 x 7-7/8 inches Collection of the Family of Phillip Hampton 28. Boy, c. 1973 graphite, colored pencil, and collage on paper 22-1/2 x 28-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
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Feels Like Freedom 29. Feels Like Freedom, 1977 watercolor, acrylic, and elements of collage on BFK Rives paper 25 x 35 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 30. Another American’s Autobiography - I Grew Up With the Chasm, 1971 acrylic and collage on shaped canvas 55 x 52 x 2 inches Collection of The Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art
36. Untitled, c. 1975 watercolor and collage on paper 20 x 28 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 37. Untitled, c. 1975 watercolor and collage on paper 20 x 28 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 38. Red Reaction Switch, 1979 acrylic emulsion on paperboard 42 x 39 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Exhibition Checkl 31. Untitled, c. 1970 acrylic on shaped canvas 24 x 50 inches Collection of Julie Farr
32. Untitled, c. 1970 watercolor, colored marker, and metallic paint on Arches paper 21 x 28 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
144 •
39. Red Thwarting Machine, 1979 acrylic emulsion on paperboard 42 x 39 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
40. Funky Rainbow Blues, c. 1980 acrylic on shaped canvas 44 x 67-1/2 inches Collection of Robert L. and Valerie Mallett
33. Untitled, c. 1975 rhoplex (acrylic) emulsion structure suspended on string gridwork 50-1/2 x 50-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
41. Untitled, c. 1980 acrylic on shaped canvas 10-1/2 x 23 inches Collection of Cleophus and Carla Thomas
34. High Jazz Yeller, 1975 acrylic emulsion 43-3/4 x 45-1/2 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
42. Plane Interchange, c. 1980 acrylic emulsion on melamine board 47-3/4 x 51-1/2 inches Collection of Brenda and Larry Thompson
35. Moodside Horizons, 1975 acrylic and watercolor on Arches paper 38-1/2 x 43 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
43. Stop Here and Equivocate, c. 1980 mixed media and collage on paper 40 x 60 inches Collection of Jerome Watson and Deborah Ford
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Feels Like Freedom 44. How Innocent Look the Flowers, c. 1985 acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, and collage on Arches paper 29-1/2 x 37-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 45. Hope’s Antithesis, 1986 watercolor and acrylic on paper 30 x 41 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
list
50. Imhotep #1, 1993 acrylic, acrylic emulsion, screen print and collage on cardboard 22-1/2 x 22-1/2 inches Collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift of James A. Rivers and Brenda J. Rivers 48:1999; © Estate of Phillip Hampton 51. Drawing 1, Apocalypse Series, 1995 mixed media 39-3/8 x 45-5/8 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
46. Cascade, c. 1980-1990 rhoplex (acrylic emulsion) structure suspended on string gridwork 38 x 30 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
52. Intermediate Estate, 1997 water media on Arches paper 39 x 46 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
47. Paradise Memory Time, 1990 watercolor on Arches paper 43 x 46-1/4 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
53. Sacred Skin V (Red), 2000 acrylic emulsion on cord 20-1/4 x 17-1/2 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
48. The Garden of Unavoidable Sin II, 1991 watercolor, pastel, acrylic 40 x 43 inches Collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum Minority Artists Purchase Fund 3:1999; © Estate of Phillip Hampton.
54. Quasiscape I, 2004 gouache on Arches paper 23 x 26-1/2 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
49. The Garden of Unavoidable Sin III, 1991 watercolor, pastel, acrylic 39-3/4 x 40-1/2 inches Collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum Minority Artists Purchase Fund 4:1999; © Estate of Phillip Hampton
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
55. A Crepuscular Oasis, 2005 acrylic on linen 50 x 50 inches Collection of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 56. Blithering Blooms, c. 2007 acrylic emulsion on cord 28 x 20-1/4 inches Collection of P. K. Hernandez
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The Early Years 1. Mother and Child, 1951 lithograph on paper 10-1/2 x 8-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 2. Silent Night, 1951 lithograph on paper 12-1/2 x 10 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 3. Untitled, 1951 lithograph on paper 13-1/2 x 11-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
9. Fishing Boats Savannah, c. 1960 ink and watercolor on paper 16-1/4 x 23 inches Collection of Michael Butler 10. Beachside Shop, c. 1960 mixed media - ink, colored pencil, and watercolor on paper 9-1/2 x 13-1/2 inches Collection of Michael Butler 11. Untitled (House in Savannah, Georgia), 1952 watercolor on paper 14-1/2 x 21 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Exhibition Checkl 4. Beachcomber (Savannah Coastline), 1957 watercolor on paper 23 x 12-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 5. Study for a Mural, c. 1957 ink on tracing paper 8 x 21 inches Collection of Michael Butler 6. Study for a Mural, c. 1957 ink on tracing paper 8 x 21 inches Collection of Michael Butler 7. Shrimp Boat, Thunderbolt, GA, 1959 graphite with white highlights 17 x 20-1/2 inches. Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 8. Pier, 1969 mixed media, marker sketch on brown paper 16 x 22-1/2 inches. Collection of Michael Butler
146 •
12. Untitled (Street Scene), 1956 watercolor on paper 14 x 19-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
13. Untitled (City scene with figures), c. 1960 watercolor on paper, 20-1/2 x 28-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 14. Fishing Boat, Georgia, c. 1960 graphite, ink, and colored pencil with white highlights on paper 16 x 11 inches Collection of Michael Butler 15. Savannah Harbor, c. 1960 pastel and charcoal on paper, 13-1/2 x 10-1/2 inches Collection of Michael Butler
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
The Early Years
list
16. Saturday Shrimper, 1968 woodblock print 18 x 27 inches. Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
22. Untitled (Flowers), c. 1980 acrylic on paper 13 x 12 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
17. Tybee, c. 1960 mixed media sketch on paper 27-1/2 x 21-1/2 inches Collection of Michael Butler
23. Untitled, c. 1980 oil and collage on masonite 35-1/2 x 48 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
18. Soliloquizing Sea, 1964 watercolor on paper 41-1/2 x 31-3/4 inches Collection of The Beach Institute AfricanAmerican Cultural Center Gallery and Museum, Savannah, GA; Gift of Albert Stoddard. (not pictured) 19. A Place for Salts, 1967 oil on canvas 34 x 24 inches Collection of The Beach Institute AfricanAmerican Cultural Center Gallery and Museum, Savannah, GA; Gift of Albert Stoddard. (not pictured) 20. Jaunita (Homage to Larry Rivers), c. 1970 acrylic and graphite on canvas 34 x 30 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 21. Untitled (House in a Landscape), c. 1980 watercolor on paper 6-1/2 x 6-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
24. Untitled, c. 1980 acrylic and collage on linen 23-1/2 x 16-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 25. Untitled (Abstract), c. 1980 water media on paper 47 x 38-1/2 inches Collection of Michael Butler 26. Wilma and the Apocrisiary, 1984 mixed media and collage on board 16-1/2 x 12-1/2 inches Collection of Michael Butler 27. Space-Set Encounter, 1986 water media on 300 lb Arches paper 29-1/2 x 38 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 28. Time Place Sensate, c. 1987 water media on 300 lb Arches paper 41 x 47 inches Collection of Michael Butler 29. Red Square Resonate, 2000 acrylic emulsion and collage on paper\ mounted on foamcore 42-1/2 x 39-1/4 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
• 147
The Early Years 30. Red Angle Advocate, 2000 acrylic emulsion on paper mounted on foamcore 42-1/8 x 38-3/8 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 31. Untitled, c. 2000 acrylic emulsion on paper mounted on foamcore 42-1/2 x 39-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers 32. Untitled, c. 2000 acrylic emulsion and collage on illustration board 19 x 22 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
2. Untitled (Dancer), c. 1967 oil, turpentine wash, and string on canvas 48 x 28 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 3. Autobiography Series, c.1970 Acrylic, string and collage on canvas 60 x 36 inches Courtesy of The John and Susan Horseman Collection 4. Sunkist,1973 graphite and colored pencil with collage on paper 18 x 22-1/2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
Exhibition Checkl 33. Purple Sun, 2000 rhoplex (acrylic emulsion) structure suspended on string gridwork 17-1/2 x 15-1/2 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
34. Spatial Meander III, 2001 rhoplex (acrylic emulsion) structure suspended on string gridwork over linen 26-1/2 x 19 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Additional Works 1. Valley and Shadows, c. 1965 oil and string on masonite 34 x 48 inches Private Collection, Illinois Exhibited: Atlanta University Annuals, 1965
148 •
5. Untitled, c. 1980 mixed media and collage on paperboard 60 x 40 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 6. Untitled, c. 1970 acrylic on shaped canvas 24 x 50 x 2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
7. Dot of the First Year, 1994 watercolor on illustration board 38 x 26-1/2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 8. It Was a Very Starry Night, 1997 mixed media with elements of collage on paperboard 40 x 26-1/4 inches Collection of James and Brenda Rivers
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Additional Works 9. Untitled, c. 2000 water media and collage on uniquely shaped Arches paper 39 x 44 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
16. Ceremony for Blossom, 2001 polymer acrylic emulsion on canvas structure and wire grid 25-1/2 x 18 - 5/8 x 2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
10. Nocturne, c. 1990 water media and collage on Arches paper 38 x 48-1/2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
list
11. Untitled, c. 1980 acrylic and water media on paper 39-1/2 x 37-1/2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 12. Time Sound Syndrome, 1991 acrylic on PVC board 45 x 43 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 13. Untitled, c. 1975 rhoplex (acrylic) emulsion suspended on string gridwork 50-1/2 x 50 inches Courtesy of The John and Susan Horseman Collection 14. Multicolores, c. 2001 polymer acrylic emulsion on canvas structure and wire grid 24 x 21 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction 15. Untitled (Landscape With a Grid), c. 1970 watercolor, metallic paint, and collage on board 7 x 8-1/2 inches Courtesy of Thom Pegg, Black Art Auction
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Acknowledgements Feels like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton and The Early Years at Savannah State University would not have been possible without the dedicated eforts of Thom Pegg, whose belief in the strength of Phillip Hampton’s work led to this collaborative efort. Much appreciation is due to his industrious eforts to assist in any way possible to see the exhibitions and publication to fruition. He also deserves mention as a particularly great guide around St. Louis. Additional thanks are due to Renée Yeager who ofered administrative support and produced a publication in three weeks, a monumental feat! We wish to thank all the lenders, listed in the Director’s Foreword, who generously parted with works from their collections for the exhibitions. Their contributions assist in making known the work of an artist long overdue for recognition. Special thanks to James and Brenda Rivers, Brenda and
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Larry Thompson, and P. K. Hernandez who allowed us to visit their homes and collections and ofered recollections of the artist to illuminate his life and artistic career. Clare Kobasa and Amy Torbert at the St. Louis Art Museum were generous with their time to view the Hampton works in the museum’s collection and ofer a tour around the museum. The Beach Institute in Savannah deserves recognition for their 1995 exhibition of Hampton’s work as well as serving as a lender to Savannah State. We also want to extend our appreciation to Phillip Hampton’s family, especially Noel Hampton-Tenner, Gloria Hampton, and Harry Hampton who invited us into their home to share stories, memories, and photographs that are essential to his story. We want to thank the staf at our respective institutions whose professionalism and efort all played a role in making the publication and exhibitions a tremendous
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
success. At Telfair Museums, the project was championed by Executive Director and CEO Benjamin Simons. The exhibition received additional support from Crawford Alexander Mann III, Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Afairs; Jennifer Levy, Chief Registrar; Harry DeLorme, Director of Education and Senior Curator; Deja Chappell, Tenenbaum Education Fellow; and Heath Ritch and Andrew Gatti, Designer/ Preparators. In addition, thanks are due to staf who have played a role big or small in realizing this project at Telfair including Anne-Solène Bayan, Rana Edgar, Elyse Gerstenecker, Melissa Hill, Jason Kendall, Kayla Logan, Beth Moore, Lisa Ocampo, Joey Rudder, and Brittany Salley. At Savannah State University, the project was supported by Jennifer West, Technical Services Lead Librarian; Nicholas Silberg, Department Chair, Fine Arts Humanities and Wellness; Chante B. Martin, Interim Dean, College of Liberal Arts Social Sciences; David Poole, Technical Director of Theatre;
Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton
Zelana Davis, Creative Consultant and Designer; special thanks to Sametria McFall, Interim Provost and Vice President; and Kimberly Ballard-Washington, President, Savannah State University. Finally, we express gratitude to the artist we all come together to celebrate ― Phillip Hampton. We wish you were here to receive the attention you have always deserved.
Erin Dunn, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Telfair Museums Dr. Peggy Blood, Distinguished Professor, Fine Arts Department, Savannah State University
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©2022
©2022