Richard J. Watson

Abstract painting w/ collage & photographs, Black African American history

2020

Please contact me with zip code for precise shipping rates. "And the Beat Goes On" is a large acrylic collage painting with photograph portraits integrated into it, as well as found objects, and text. It includes imagery that references African American history and cultural references on the Black community. Signed by the artist. PROVENANCE: Exhibited in "Portals + Revelations: Richard J. Watson," the African American Museum in Philadelphia, Oct 2021 - Mar 2022. "Most of my works are supported by memories of the past and suggested realities. Issues of social politics, ancestral references, and astral projections are presented with fragmented elements of 'real life' collaged and collapsed, as dreams are prone to do. If connections are made, all the better. I feel that life should remind us of our dreams." - Richard J. Watson Richard J. Watson is an icon in the Philadelphia art world. Much of his work relates to his experiences as a Black African American man. He is a graduate of Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1968), has taught at his alma mater, and has served in the Exhibitions Department at the African American Museum in Philadelphia since the 1980s. He has been exhibiting his work for decades, and has an extensive bibliography. His work is held in the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the Uniworld Corporation; Sony; the Federal Reserve Bank; the City of Philadelphia; Sprint; the Church of the Advocate; the poet Dr. Sonia Sanchez; and the Woodmere Museum...

"A Majority of One" is a large, vertical acrylic painting with a photograph portrait of Tupac Shakur and a number of found metal objects integrated into t...

This depicts civil rights icon MLK, the Statue of Liberty, Iwo Jima, an assemblage of mixed media photographic images and painted collaged elements. A powerful, moving work, an ode to the black civil rights movement. John M. Mitchell is originally from North Carolina, and as an art student at North Carolina Central University, he was involved with the Civil Rights movement including participating and getting arrested at a sit-in protest in Durham in 1963. After graduating, he was one of the first art teachers to take a position at the newly integrated schools in his home state. Mitchell continued his education in the 1990s and earned an MFA in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1993. He later served as a professor there from 1998-2006. Of his inspiration to create, Mitchell says: "A lot of my work is based on my experiences during the Civil Rights movement," he says. "I see art making as a 'record' of experiences. My bittersweet past, growing up in the segregated South, inspires the content, focus and narrative of my work." Savannah-based artist John Mitchell believes that a home is more than a simple edifice. Rather, he argues that the sociological, psychological, architectural, and historical associations embedded in the structure “tell us about our culture, our lives. It tells us about where we come from.” Mitchell's signature shotgun house constructions, crafted from found materials and scraps of newspaper headlines, reference his childhood in North Carolina, where such modest architectural structures were once commonplace. In "ALA 1963," he uses the shotgun shape to create a heartfelt memorial to a group of African-American girls killed in a racially motivated church bombing in Alabama nearly 50 years ago. He also incorporates the shotgun symbol in "Victims," a powerful reflection upon crime in Savannah in the early 1990s, which reveals how little has changed over the past two decades. Mitchell's mixed media constructions operate, in many ways, like memory itself. Scraps, fragments and pieces loosely cohere around a central idea, making symbolic and metaphorical connections. In these richly narrative and boldly stream-of-conscious assemblages, the whole truly is greater than the sum of its parts. Mitchell's jazz collages - carefully crafted from scraps of newspaper, sheet music, magazines and tissue paper - celebrate key players in Savannah's jazz scene, from sultry female vocalists to wiry male saxophone players. A tribute to the late jazz bassist Ben Tucker, a true Savannah legend, is especially moving, incorporating a pencil sketch of the standing bass player as well as newspaper clippings of other Savannah jazz musicians. Mitchell grew up in a shotgun house in North Carolina, a style of vernacular architecture that is particularly prevalent in the South. Mitchell fills his sculptural homes with objects of metaphorical and symbolic, iconic, importance. In Home Sweet Home he includes the American flag, a photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and a china plate depicting The Last Supper, among other items that convey a personal and historical narrative. He notes that making art acts “as a ‘record’ of experiences. My bittersweet past, growing up in the segregated South, inspires the content, focus, and narrative of my work.” While this contains elements reminiscent of folk art and outsider art this is a quite sophisticated tour de force. He was included in the show Complex Uncertainties, Telfair Museum: Modern and contemporary art comprise painting, prints, drawing, photograph, sculpture, and works in new media, representing American artistic achievement from 1945 to the present day. The exhibition includes works by artists such as Bruce Davidson, Elaine de Kooning, Carrie Mae Weems, Sam Gilliam, Ethel Schwabacher, Radcliffe Bailey...

John Rozelle (American, 1944-) Grant Series II #5, Collage, 1988 Hand signed, dated and titled in pencil Provenance: Isobel Neal Gallery, Chicago, Measurements Matted to approximately 20 by 16 Sight: 11 by 9 inches Layers of torn ripped, and painted paper with music notes are overlaid on top of each other in this contemporary collage assemblage composition with a jazz sensibility. The pieces of paper have been arbitrarily arranged while in contrast, the artist has applied color in this piece in a very thoughtful way. John Everette Rozelle is an internationally renowned artist from St. Louis, Missouri now living in Banyoles, Girona. He is a masterful collagist, painter and sculptor included in museums and private collections worldwide. John Rozelle was born in St. Louis, Missouri and holds a B.F.A with a major in painting and a minor in sculpture from Washington University and a M.F.A from Fontbonne College. John Rozelle is currently tenured Associate Professor in the Drawing and Painting Department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to joining the Art Institute faculty he taught drawing, design, painting, and sculpture as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Fontbonne College. Rozelle has served on numerous occasions as curator, juror, and artist-in-residence for several exhibitions. His twenty years of solo and group shows have included those in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. His work is housed among various corporate collections some of which include: Anheuser Busch, Citibank Corp., AT&T, Borg-Warner, Price Waterhouse, Saks Fifth Avenue, the Seven-Up Company, Ralston Purina, the Westin Hotels and ARCO. Rozelle is currently tenured Associate Professor in the Drawing and Painting Department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His art can be found in over 20 public collections and in over 50 private collections throughout the United States. He has been in many important exhibitions including Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Layers of Meaning: Collage and Abstraction in the Late 20th Century. Included: Romare Bearden, Moe Brooker...