Auction Record: 3 Ernie Barnes Paintings Exceed $100K for First Time, Plus Bob Thompson and ‘White Male For Sale’
THREE 1970s PAINTINGS by Ernie Barnes (1938-2009) sold for more than $100,000 each on Oct. 1, marking the first time a work by Barnes sold for more than six figures at auction. Two of the paintings sold for nearly $300,000 each. The results were more than three times the artist’s previous record and set...
From California to Chicago, Tennessee to Maine, 15 of Summer’s Best Museum Exhibitions Remain on View This Fall
A BROAD SELECTION of exhibitions opened at art museums throughout the United States over the summer months. A great number of these shows remain on view, some through September, others further into the fall and beyond. Major traveling exhibitions of Bob Thompson, Joseph Yoakum, and Alma Thomas are underway. The first solo museum exhibitions...
The Week in Black Art, March 1-7, 2021: Two Museums Will Acquire Amy Sherald’s Portrait of Breonna Taylor, Text From Obama Speech Will Grace Facade of Presidential Museum
This post will be updated with the latest news in Black art throughout the week AMY SHERALD (b. 1973), “Breonna Taylor,” 2020 (oil on linen, 137.2 x 109.2 cm / 54 x 43 inches). | © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Joseph Hyde March 7, 2021...
Showcasing Works by Bob Thompson, Benny Andrews, and Robert Colescott, Here’s What Michael Rosenfeld Gallery’s Frieze New York Booth Would’ve Looked Like
THE ARCHITECTURAL MODEL envisions what might have been. A large-scale painting by Bob Thompson (1937-1966) dominates an expansive wall on the exterior of the art fair booth. Painted three years before the artist’s death at age 28, “The Golden Ass” (1963) is a complex entanglement of silhouetted human and animal figures rendered in a...
Whitney Museum’s ‘Spilling Over’ Exhibition Celebrates Color and Calls to Mind an Earlier Moment in Art History
INSTALLED ON THE EIGHTH FLOOR of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, a group exhibition celebrates color. “Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s” considers the technical, formal, and substantive possibilities of painting with bold, neon, and saturated hues. Drawing exclusively on the Whitney Museum’s collection, the show brings together 18...
The Week in African American Art: Kehinde Wiley Signed with a Hollywood Agent & More
The following review of the past week presents a snapshot of the latest news in African American art and related culture: Kehinde Wiley has signed with a Hollywood talent agency. Shown here, he attends the opening for his 2017 exhibition “Trickster” at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York City. | Photo by Johnny...
Speed Art Museum Acquires Bob Thompson Painting, a Self-Portrait of the Louisville Native
Bob Thompson, 1964 | Smithsonian Archives of American Art 1960 WAS A PIVOTAL YEAR for Bob Thompson (1937-1966). He had his first solo exhibition at the Delancey Street Museum on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The same year, he made a rare self-portrait, depicting himself in his Clinton Street studio surrounded by his...
Gallery Openings: 21 Fall Exhibitions Featuring Black Artists
EACH FALL BRINGS A NEW SLATE of art exhibitions, usually the best of the calendar year. This season, commercial galleries are showing an interesting mix of African American and African diasporic artists working in a range of mediums and addressing a diversity of issues. Following William Pope.L‘s “Trinket” exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art,...
Treadway Toomey Auctioning Works by 74 African American Artists in Chicago
WHILE THE ART WORLD GATHERS IN MIAMI BEACH for Art Basel, those interested in work by African American artists should be attuned to what is happening in Chicago. Tomorrow Treadway Toomey Auctions is offering paintings, drawings, photography and sculpture by 74 black artists. The group includes well-known 20th century figures Charles Alston, Richmond Barthe,...
