Tag Archives: african american

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Norman Lewis, American Totem

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norman lewis american totem photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

American Totem (1960) is one of a series of black-and-white paintings that Norman Lewis made which explore the emotional and psychic impact of the civil rights movement. Lewis, one of the few Black artists associated with Abstract Expressionism, created a form  that evokes the infamous hooded Klansman, but the monolith is composed of a multitude of smaller forms resembling apparitions, skulls and masks.

Lewis’s work suggest that terror is both representable and abstract, conscious an unconscious, visible and hidden. The painting was made more than decade after Lewis’s first solo show at the Willard Gallery in New York in 1949, which had earned him considerable renown but neither the financial rewards nor exhibition opportunities if his peers.

Photographed in The Whitney Museum in NYC.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Rosie Lee Tompkins, Three Sixes

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rosie lee tompkins three sixes photo by gail worley
Photos By Gail

To make this quilt, Rosie Lee Tompkins (1936 – 2006) drew on many techniques developed by Black women quilters in the American South who blended West African textile traditions, European patterning, and individual improvisation in their art.

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Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Emma Van Name By Joshua Johnson

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emma van name by joshua johnson photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

This compelling portrait of a Baltimore toddler picking berries from a surreally-scaled goblet is an icon of the American vernacular painting. Joshua Johnson, who was self taught, is the earliest known African American painter to make his living from his art. Emma Van Name (1805) is his most ambitious and engaging portrait of an individual child. Revealing the hallmarks of Johnson’s characteristic style in its naturalistic precision and imaginative flair, the painting is distinguished by a bravura demonstration of his talents in its nuanced palette, compositional complexity, and deft handling of details, especially in the child’s dress and demeanor.

Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: The Wedding By Jacob Lawrence

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the wedding by jacob lawrence photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

Jacob Lawrence (1917 – 2000) once wrote, “For me, the most important function of art is observation.” He was inspired by and created works based on his own experiences of everyday life in Harlem and the history of African Americans the United States. In  The Wedding (1948), Lawrence simultaneously depicted the solemnity and the joy of the marriage ceremony. Although the preacher’s face is only partially defined, he appears to look down with great seriousness at the couple as they contemplate their vows. The large, colorful urns overflowing with brilliant flowers signify the prosperity of this union

Photographed in the Art Institute, Chicago.

Design and Innovation

Pink Thing of The Day: Pink Mannequin Bust

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Pink Mannequin Bust
Photo By Gail

What’s most interesting about this Hot Pink bust of a lovely African American lady, is that it’s not in use as your standard display mannequin, despite the fact that it is clearly in the middle of a clothing section of a department store. In this instance, it is really more like a sculpture; more like  a work of art meant to enhance the consumer’s shopping experience, I think. In my case, it was highly effective.

Photographed at Saks Fifth Avenue, The Gardens on El Paseo, Palm Desert, California.