Bob Thompson, Artist: A Shooting Star in a Brief Life

I love this painting by Bob Thompson, which reminds me of Romare Bearden
and Jacob Lawrence, but whose inspiration is uniquely Thompson's. Thanks
to Peter Stebbins and the Studio House at Walbridge, DC, for sharing this. 

An important new traveling exhibition, "Bob Thompson: This House is Mine," is offering a rich reconsideration of a visionary African-American artist. 

Robert Louis Thompson (1937–1966), born in Louisville, KY,  earned critical acclaim in the late 1950s and 1960s "for his paintings of figurative complexity and chromatic intensity." He lived in New York, and travelled to and lived in Europe for long periods of time. Representation by the pioneering Martha Jackson Gallery in New York City while he was painting and creating his oeuvre, not only after he died, assured his recognition in the art world. 

These galleries deserve more recognition as well. Martha Jackson (1907-1969) was born in Buffalo, New York, attended Smith College, and opened her gallery at E. 65th Street in Manhattan in 1953.  She was far-sighted, ahead of her times.                 

"Blue Madonna." A unique figurative style.

Forever young.

 This House is Mine is the first museum exhibition devoted to the artist in more than twenty years, organized by the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine.  The New England college museums are doing good work these days.* 

The Whitney Museum in New York held a retrospective of his work in 1998, important to mention because the Whitney, like Gallery owners such as Martha Jackson, pioneered in presenting black and women artists early on. Also worthy of acknowledgement is the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in Chelsea, NYC, the owner of the Estate of Bob Thompson I learned. Thompson's works are in Rosenfeld's collection, and also in numerous private and public collections. 

I must say I am only now discovering him. What's amazing to me is how much wonderful art Thompson created in his too-brief life, dying from drug addiction and complications of gall bladder surgery when he was only 28 years old and living in Rome.  Thompson created more than 1,000 works in an eight-year career, and has influenced and inspired several generations of young African-American artists. A shooting star in the darkness. 

According to the Colby museum, the traveling exhibition is significant for several reasons: 

"This House Is Mine traces Thompson’s brief but prolific transatlantic career, examining his formal inventiveness and his engagement with universal themes of collectivity, bearing witness, struggle, and justice. Over a mere eight years, he grappled with the exclusionary Western canon, developing a lexicon of enigmatic forms that he threaded through his work. Human and animal figures, often silhouetted and relatively featureless, populate mysterious vignettes set in wooded landscapes or haunt theatrically compressed spaces. Thompson reconfigures well-known compositions by European artists such as Piero della Francesca and Francisco de Goya through brilliant acts of formal distortion and elision, recasting these scenes in sumptuous colors. On occasion, familiar individuals appear: the jazz greats Nina Simone and Ornette Coleman, and the writers LeRoi Jones (later Amiri+ Baraka) and Allen Ginsberg."

For me, an interesting aspect of Thompson's work is the source of his inspiration. I immediately associated his colorful expressionist works with fantastic African-American painters like Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, William H. Johnson, Lois Mallou Jones, Beaufort DeLaney and so many others whose figurative paintings, depictions of African- American daily life and culture, and use of shapes and color stand out as distinctive and unique contributions to expanding the Western art canon.  Many of these artists, icons of the Harlem Renaissance, were around when the young Thompson was in NY, many still painting and exhibiting their art. 

And yet, everything I've read about Thompson's inspiration points to his love of the art of the Western canon, the Baroque and the Renaissance, Italian painters, the old masters. Still, he did riff off of these artists to create his own interpretation and images, a blend of traditions. I would like to know how he viewed the African-American art tradition, There seems to be some connection for sure. Thompson was good friends with jazz singer Nina Simone, saxophonist Ornette Coleman, the poet Amiri Bakara and Allen Ginsburg, all  precious and singular voices.  He must have known of the works of contemporary and older generations of Black artists. Maybe there's more to discover in his private collections and communications.  I checked to see if Thompson was included in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Art's fabulous catalogue, "Twentieth Century African American Painters," but he's not there. 

This House is Mine exhibition will surely garner more public recognition of a shooting star who left an important legacy. Here is the current exhibit catalogue, which looks beautiful. There are also earlier catalogues of Thompson's work, like the one for the Whitney exhibit, that are still available.    

The Yale University Press Catalogue. The title of the exhibition

           is taken from this painting, which Thompson called "This House is Mine."

 "Thompson drew upon the Western art-historical canon to formulate a highly personal, expressive language. Tracing the African American artist’s prolific, yet tragically brief, transatlantic career, this volume examines Thompson’s outlier status and pays close attention to his sustained engagements with themes of community, visibility, and justice. As the contributors contextualize the artist’s ambitions and his unique creative process, they reposition Thompson as a predecessor to contemporary artists such as Kerry James Marshall and Kehinde Wiley. Featuring an array of artwork, and never-before-published poems and archival materials, this study situates Thompson’s extraordinary output within ongoing dialogues about the politics of representation." Yale University Press

 

Thompson, "An Allegory."

Sources:  

*  https://www.artfixdaily.com/artwire/release/2174-reshaping-the-field-arts-of-the-african-diasporas-conference?  Bard is another NE college focusing on black art. This is a conference, "Reshaping the Field." So is the University of Vermont, Fleming Museum, which mounts regular exhibitions.  https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/fleming-opens-its-doors-visitors-and-conversations-about-institutional-racism.  And here's another, a Bowdon college collaborative exhibit of  photographer Marcia Resnick: https://www.artfixdaily.com/news_feed/2021/11/07/3623-first-museum-retrospective-of-martha-resnick-examines-the-photogr?  Thanks again to Peter Stebbins of the Studio House at Walbridge and the Earle and Lily Pilgrim Foundation in DC for keeping me posted. 

1. https://www.artfixdaily.com/news_feed/2021/11/01/8095-bob-thompson-exhibition-examines-his-brilliant-artworks-from-a-to?  

"Bob Thompson: This House Is Mine is organized by the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine, and will travel after debuting at Colby (on view now through January 9, 2022) to: Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Chicago, February 10–May 15, 2022; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, June 18–September 11, 2022; Hammer Museum at UCLA , Los Angeles, October 9, 2022–January 8, 2023....Bringing together paintings and works on paper from more than fifty public and private collections across the United States, This House Is Mine centers Bob Thompson’s work within expansive art historical narratives and ongoing dialogues about the politics of representation, charting his enduring influence. The exhibition is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue featuring scholars, artists, and poets, published in association with Yale University Press."

2.  https://americanart.si.edu/artist/bob-thompson-4784 

3.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Thompson_(painter)

4.  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/arts/design/bob-thompson-influence.html

5.  https://www.michaelrosenfeldart.com/about. This gallery is now in Chelsea. Hope to visit next time I'm in New York with Doris Wohl! 

6. https://www.albrightknox.org/art/collection/major-gifts-collection/martha-jackson-collection Martha Jackson was a Buffalo, NY native and a far-sighted gallery owner in NYC, ahead of her time in her time. Her own collection of artworks went to the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, NY, after she died, where she had maintained a long and close relationship. 

7.  https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/20th-century-african-american-art  - This exhibition is still travelling, going to Yonkers, NY end of 2021 to January 2022. I'd love to see it.

"This exhibition presents nearly 50 paintings and sculptures by 32 African American artists from SAAM’s collection. These artists came to prominence during the period bracketed by the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights movement. The means of these artists varied—from modern abstraction to stained color to the postmodern assemblage of found objects—and their subjects are diverse. Benny Andrews, Ellis Wilson and William H. Johnson speak to the dignity and resilience of people who work the land. Jacob Lawrence and Thornton Dial, Sr. acknowledge the struggle for economic and civil rights. Sargent Johnson, Loïs Mailou Jones, and Melvin Edwards address the heritage of Africa, and images by Romare Bearden celebrate jazz musicians. Sam Gilliam, Felrath Hines and Alma Thomas conducted innovative experiments with color and form."