Thomas Whittaker Kidd

Shoving Off and Dropping In

2015

This painting on wood panel combines abstract and geometric styles. Based on a grid composition, the artist disguises it with movement and brilliant colors, including purple, raspber...

Feel the snow, the textural change is the sky, the gritty freshness that permeates this abstract winter landscape. Trending artist Sonia Grineva combines styles to best reflect her s...

"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...

#5715 Overgrown Barn, 2019 by Harry Orlyk (Impressionistic, en plein air autumn landscape of a sunlit barn in a field) oil on linen mounted on homasote board, ready to hang as is 14.5 x 14.5 inches unframed Signed lower right corner Harry Orlyk is celebrated for his ability to capture rural country landscapes with impressionistic brushstrokes and bright color palettes. Painting daily, the artist drives throughout the upstate New York, stopping to observe and paint 'en plain air' whenever and wherever a landscape strikes him. Orlyk prefers to leave his canvases unframed to reveal the exposed linen which are nailed to sturdy homasote boards for easy installation. This painting is a perfect example of Orlyk's impressionistic aesthetic. Here, the artist captures a quaint country landscape in a range of warm, golden tones. Orlyk's signature use of soft yellows creates a gently luminous atmosphere. The scene is made with gestural strokes of paint that culminate onto a textured, impasto surface. The artist's signature is located in the lower right corner. The artist prefers to leave his paintings unframed. The painting can be installed with one nail, hammered behind the linen and through the homasote board. About the artist: Harry Orlyk was born in Troy, New York in 1947. In 1971 after graduating college, he went on to graduate school at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln . Over the next nine years, he was influenced by several Nebraskan artists. "Still-life painter Robin Smith taught me how to use paint without turpentine - to paint from the tube." He also admits the influence of photographer Lawrence McFarland who taught him what spiritual space was, and how to emphasize it. Lastly he credits well-known Lincoln painter Keith Jacobshagen...