Wayne Manns

"Pool Hall", Acrylic & Found Objects, African-American Outsider Artist

2012

"The Weary Blues" depicts the interior scene of a Blues bar late at night with a number of patrons socializing, drinking and listening to music. The scene is dramatically rendered in...

"I See Color" is a dramatic psychological study of personal discovery painted in black and white with the face reflected on a window painted in color. Dennis states: It was a time wh...

"Squares and Things" painted by the eminent artist, Charles McGee, literally breaths his African American heritage and his extraordinary vibrant use of colors. Provenance is The Arwin Galleries on Grand River in Detroit, Michigan - label on verso. This early painting of McGee's shows his mastery in creating a painting in the style of the French Impressionist Edouard Manet, "Still Life with Melon and Peaches" located in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and in the style of Fauvist/Expressionist painter Henry Matisse, "Still Life with Blue Tablecloth", located in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia. McGee makes the well-known genre of still life his own creating an exciting marvelous work incorporating the homely quilt - the powerful symbol of the African American road to safety from slavery - as his main focus. Quilts symbolize warmth, comfort, and as shown by the collection of quilts gathered by the artists in Gee's Bend the designs on the quilts hung outdoors at locations along the Underground Railroad showed fugitives the road north and to safety. "Squares and Things" was first shown at The Arwin Galleries, Inc., Detroit, Michigan, one of the stops along the Underground Railroad. This piece is signed by the artist, Charles McGee, and is an extraordinary example of his early work before he moved into Abstract Expressionism and his many sculptural works now located throughout Michigan. Several of these works are: "Noah's Ark: Genesis, 1984," on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts, his brilliant 2005 "Progression" a 45-foot wide aluminum sculpture at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, Michigan, and his stunning 2016 "United We Stand" sculpture at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History . His genius can be seen in sculpture installments throughout the city of Detroit. . He was born into a family of sharecroppers. While helping his grandfather tend the land, "he observed firsthand the order and harmony that exists within nature." He had no formal schooling until moving to Detroit at age 10, where he found that "everything was on the move and it hasn’t slowed down yet." in 2017 he observed, "I learned something not being in school — because life is school . . .I learn something every time I move. Every time I go around a corner, something new is revealed to me.” McGee took advantage of the GI Bill to attend classes at the Society of Arts and Crafts, now the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI. Other College for Creative Studies (formerly Center for Creative Studies) faculty and graduates include Richard Jerzy, Harry Bertoia, Doug Chaing (currently director of Lucas Film), Stephen Dinehart (game maker, writer, designer connected with The David Lynch Foundation), Tyree Guyton (international artist), Herb Babcock, Jerome Feretti, Kevin Siembieda (writer, designer and publisher of role-playing games), Renee Radell, and Philip Pearlstein. After retiring from the Corps of Engineers, McGee spent 1968 studying art in Barcelona. Despite not knowing the language at the outset, he immersed himself in the culture and opened himself to a whole new range of experience that would play out in his artwork. "If you free yourself, you have this kind of opportunity to have those experiences, horizons, and new vistas." (per interview with Nick Sousanis author of a book on Charles McGee.) He returned to Detroit and curated "Seven Black Artists" at the Detroit Artists Market in 1969, which along with McGee himself, included Lester Johnson, Henri Umbaji King, Robert Murray, James Lee, Allie McGhee...

"Red Chair," though an interior scene, is arranged like a still-life with the furniture and objects slightly off-kilter in the creative manner of Marc Chagall's interiors, the Russian-French artist of Belarusian Jewish origin. These non-fixed objects lend a floating energetic atmosphere and the brilliant colors contribute to the liveliness of this warm inviting interior. Richard Jerzy was a well-known watercolor artist from the Detroit, Michigan area. His signature works were figures and still lives, and many famous Michigan families are collectors. "He was probably the most promising, successful, exciting artist in the state of Michigan," said Miriam Parel, a fellow artist and friend for more than 30 years. He grew up on Detroit's east side and developed an interest in painting as a teenager. He attended Detroit's Center (now College) for Creative Studies. Other well- known CCS faculty and graduates are Susan Aaron-Taylor, Harry Bertoia, Doug Chaing, Stephen Dinehart, Tyree Guyton...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY "Grid No.8" is a multi-material canvas work that is part of his series on creating discontinuous storyboards that reflect the the way an innocent mind is forced to process the confusing, muddled, and discordant images of media and society. The piece was painted in acrylic, watercolor, and pastel on canvas and is 78 in by 90 in. Sun Wang is from Chengdu, China. He is currently based in Detroit, Michigan after receiving his M.F.A from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2019. He is currently in a residency at Carrie Able Gallery in Williamsburg, New York. He was chosen as one of the 10 Artist Fellows for Playground Detroit...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY Complicated exchanges between individuals engaged in conversations, an argument, boredom, a caring exchange, toasting, so many human interactions within an almost five and a half foot square painting containing up to 25 people has been magnificently composed and is continuously captivating. The dynamism and flow of humanity in “Mirror, Mirror” can be compared to the dynamism and flow of humanity found in Breughel’s “Wedding Dance” owned by and located at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Frederick Harold Cress was a British painter who migrated to Australia and won the Archibald Prize in 1988 with a portrait of John Bread. Cress was born in Poona, British Raj, but went to England with his parents in 1948, when he was ten. He was educated at the Birmingham College of Art in England, and migrated to Australia in 1962 as a "ten pound Pom", meaning that he only had to pay ten pound for his fare to Australia. Cress met the painter Anne Judell and married her in 1967; they divorced in 1991. He started his career painting figuratively, but became well known for his abstract work in the late 60s and 70s. He returned to figurative painting in the late 80s after he won the Archibald Prize with a portrait of his friend and colleague, John Beard...

This painting is one of various works by the artist depicting narratives in a narrow vertical format primarily influenced by the works of the German artist Max Beckmann . It is a lar...

"Home from Work" by Wisconsin artist Robert Richter is an oil painting on wood, signed on the verso. The frame was created and hand-carved by the artist, making it an integral part o...

oil on linen on mounted board *ABOUT Stephen Basso Stephen Basso's highly original pastels and oil paintings are romantic, yet thought provoking fantasies. His whimsical works a...

First of a series of totem like images by the artist dealing with everyday objects. Oil on canvas titled signed and dated on reverse

Stephen Basso's highly original pastels and oil paintings are romantic, yet thought provoking fantasies. His whimsical works are alive with boundless imagination, wry wit and fear...

*ABOUT Stephen Basso Stephen Basso's highly original pastels and oil paintings are romantic, yet thought provoking fantasies. His whimsical works are alive with boundless imagina...