Bob Thompson
Also known as Robert Louis Thompson
American, 1937 – 1966
“Tree”
more info….
Black Women in Art and Literature
Amid the harsh repression of slavery, Americans of African descent, and particularly black women, managed–sometimes at their own peril–to preserve the culture of their ancestry and articulate both their struggles and hopes in their own words and images. A growing number of black female artists and writers emerged throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction eras before finally bursting into the mainstream of American culture in the 1920s, with the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance. After playing a significant role in both the civil rights movement and the women’s movement of the 1960s, the rich body of creative work produced by black women has found even wider audiences in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
ART REVIEWS; 150 Years of African-American Art
ART REVIEWS; 150 Years of African-American Art
By Helen A. Harrison
Published: March 12, 2000
Published: March 12, 2000
Walter O. Evans Collection
Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Avenue, Huntington. Through April 9. (631) 351- 3250.
Spanning a 150-year period, from the mid-19th century to the late 1990’s, the Evans collection highlights a wide range of artistic achievement. While it makes no claim to comprehensiveness, it includes examples by some of the most notable African-American artists, from Robert Scott Duncanson and Edmonia Lewis to Alma Thomas and Richard Hunt.
Established figures like Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence and Aaron Douglas are prominently featured. In addition to several of Bearden’s characteristic mixed media collages, with their visionary treatment of ordinary experiences, there are two early works that show his mastery of Cubist formal dynamics. Lawrence’s expressionistic distortion, also rooted in modernism, serves him equally well in genre subjects and grand narratives like ”The Genesis Creation Sermon,” a series of eight gouaches that bring the biblical story vividly to life. Douglas, one of the foremost artists of the Harlem Renaissance, specialized in bold stylizations that combine African-inspired motifs with black American themes. His gouaches and ink drawings — for example, ”The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” a sinuously rhythmic silhouette — often relate to literary works, but amplify rather than illustrate them.
Paintings by Jamaal Sheats
Check New Arrivals for paintings by Jamaal Sheats, Indigo works by Pat Kabore, Evita Tezeno drawings and other new pieces by our family of artists
Just Lookin’ Gallery
Daniel Minter A Hidden River, 2011
Visions of Our 44th President Barack Obama
Visions of Our 44th President is a collective sculptural show created to recognize and celebrate the historical significance of the first African American President of the United States of America, Barack Obama.
Forty-four Contemporary African American Artists, renowned and emerging, are participating in the avant-garde art collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the world’s largest institution dedicated to the African American experience, and Peter Kaplan of Our World, LLC.
The Pressure of Preserving Our Legacy
The head curator for the national African-American museum tells The Root what goes into his job.
The Six Riches Black People in the World
Forbes Magazine recently published a list of the richest people on the planet and this year, they, “counted [an] all-time high [of] 1,226 billionaires worth a record $4.6 trillion.”
In determining how one makes the billionaire list, Forbes said, “Our estimates are purposely conservative and should be considered “at least” figures. While we try to value everything from individuals’ stakes in publicly traded and privately held companies to real estate holdings and investments in art, yachts and planes, we do not pretend to have access to list members’ tax returns and bank accounts.”
Only six Blacks are included on Forbes’ 2012 list of “an all-time high [of] 1,226 billionaires.”
Sonie Joi Ruffin Visual Artist
Sonie is a contemporary fabric artist, fabric designer and writer based in Kansas City. Sonié grew up in a family of seamstresses and clothing designers. She started sewing at the age of four.
Her vibrant quilts draw from a centuries old wellspring that explores humanity through the crux of the black African American experience.
Sonié’s designs and stories are distinctive, her stories embrace and inspire, the mastery of her writing shares stories from her life’s experiences, the black African American culture, hardships, triumphs and the courage to celebrate life.
She designs from the heart, paints with fabric and embellishes with her needle revealing universal truths. She is a master at incorporating the boldness of African fabrics such as kente cloth, mud cloth and korhogo cloth with American print fabrics to create striking designs with an engagement of color dialogue.
Exhibition about African American Art in the 20th Century opens April 27 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
“African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond” presents a selection of works by 43 black artists who lived through the tremendous changes of the 20th Century. In paintings, sculpture, prints and photographs, the featured artists embrace themes both universal and specific to the African American experience, including the exploration of identity, the struggle for equality, the power of music and the beauties and hardships of life in rural and urban America.
“African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond” will be on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum from April 27 through Sept. 3. The exhibition is organized by Virginia Mecklenburg, senior curator of painting and sculpture at the museum. It will travel following its presentation in Washington, D.C.
Julian Bond Professorship in Civil Rights and Social Justice at the University of Virginia
On Wednesday, May 2, 2012, a powerful group of 400-500 leaders of industry, business, arts, politics, community and culture will gather at the Plaza Hotel Ballroom in New York to honor Julian Bond through music and spoken word for his long history as a civil rights leader. The gala will also serve as a fundraiser to create the Julian Bond Professorship in Civil Rights and Social Justice that will advance the teaching and interpreting of civil rights studies at the University of Virginia. The professorship will create a powerful synergy among the many faculty and students who are working to shed new light on the civil rights movement and the African American experience.
100 Greatest Singers
This is an excerpt from Jonathan Lethem’s introduction to the Greatest Singers of All Time feature in the November 27, 2008 issue of Rolling Stone, available in the digital archive. A panel of 179 experts ranked the vocalists.
There’s something a bout a voice that’s personal, not unlike the particular odor or shape of a given human body. Summoned through belly, hammered into form by the throat, given propulsion by bellows of lungs, teased into final form by tongue and lips, a vocal is a kind of audible kiss, a blurted confession, a soul-burp you really can’t keep from issuing as you make your way through the material world. How helplessly candid! How appalling!
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-singers-of-all-time-19691231#ixzz1q02Nv47j
Comedy Show this Weekend
SOLD – Keepin the Faith by Andrew Turner
SOLD
Keepin the Faith by Andrew Turner
Original Acrylic on Canvas
Size 48″ x 58″Approx
Andrew Turner (1944-2001) was born in Chester, Pennsylvania. He was a graduate of Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. Andrew’s work has been widely acclaimed, with many solo exhibitions and participation in group exhibitions. He has taught art in grades K-1 2 in the Chester, Pennsylvania Public Schools and in correctional centers. His appointments include Artist-in-Residence and Curator, Deshong Museum, Chester, PA; Lecturer, Widener University; Lecturer, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; and, he toured and lectured in The People’s Republic of China. Collections which hold Andrew’s paintings include Woody Allen, Dr. Maya Angelou, ARCO Chemical Company, Bell Telephone Company, Dr. Constance Clayton, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Cosby, Edie Huggins, Eric Lindros, Mr. and Mrs Louis Madonni, Moses Malone, Penn State University, the artist formerly known as Prince, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Sorgenti, Swarthmore College, Mrs. Marilyn Wheaton, and Widener University Deshong Museum, just to name a few. He has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. His Philadelphia commissions include: WDAS FM (1996); Marco Solo, (published by J. Schwinn and G. Harlow, illustrated by Andrew Turner) Reverse Angle Productions, Inc. (I 995); and Robin Hood Dell, Fairmount Park (1985).
Romare Howard Bearden Visual Artist
Romare Howard Bearden was born on September 2, 1911, to (Richard) Howard and Bessye Bearden in Charlotte, North Carolina, and died in New York City on March 12, 1988, at the age of 76. His life and art are marked by exceptional talent, encompassing a broad range of intellectual and scholarly interests, including music, performing arts, history, literature and world art. Bearden was also a celebrated humanist, as demonstrated by his lifelong support of young, emerging artists.