Using an innovative technique he called “rough collage,” Benny Andrews created vivid portraits of everyday people that mixed painting with pieces of clothing and other textural materials.
Andrews grew up in a family of sharecroppers in rural Georgia, his creativity nurtured by his father, who was a self-taught artist, and his mother, who believed in the importance of education. He was the first in his family to complete high school and attended Fort Valley State College on a 4-H Club scholarship. Andrews was limited by the lack of art courses available to him at Fort Valley, and in 1950 he enlisted in the Air Force and served in the Korean War. On the G.I. Bill, he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). While fellow students focused on Abstract Expressionism, Andrews developed his own expressive style; one of his earliest portraits was of the janitors at SAIC. After he graduated in 1958, he moved to New York. Andrews’s first solo show was in 1960 at Paul Kessler Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Visibility and social justice were at the forefront of Benny Andrews’s paintings, which meditated on scenes of daily life, drawing on memories of the artist’s childhood in the South. His subjects included his family members as well as other artists, such as Alice Neel, Norman Lewis and Howardena Pindell.
A longtime educator, including for three decades at New York’s Queens College, Andrews avidly promoted opportunities for Black artists, such as cofounding with Clifford R. Joseph the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition in 1969, which advocated for inclusion in museum exhibitions. One of his final works —completed between 2004 and 2006 — was the Migrant Series in which he retraced the forced relocation of Indigenous people on the Trail of Tears, the Dust Bowl migration and the displacement of Hurricane Katrina survivors.
Andrews’s work has continued to garner acclaim after his death in 2006, with posthumous exhibitions including “Benny Andrews: Portraits, a Real Person Before the Eyes” at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York in 2020.
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Rollo Mixed Media Artwork, Contemporary, Signed, 1971, Framed, 24x15"
By Benny Andrews
Located in New York, NY
Benny Andrews was an African-American artist, activist and educator. Born in Plainview, Georgia, Andrews earned a BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1...
Foil
Upim Mixed Media Artwork, Watercolor and Gouache on Paper, 1971
By Benny Andrews
Located in New York, NY
Benny Andrews was an African-American artist, activist and educator. Born in Plainview, Georgia, Andrews earned a BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1...
Foil
$2,100
H 18 in W 24 in D 1 in
Brood (Collage Landscape of Chicken Farm and Reclining Female Figure)
Located in Hudson, NY
Brood (Collage Landscape of Chicken Farm and Reclining Female Figure) by Olan Quattro 2024, gouache, paper, and acrylic on wood panel, 18 x 24 inches Olan Quattro's subtle and sophi...
Paper, Acrylic, Gouache, Wood Panel
$4,200
H 22 in W 30 in
"Samsum Starburst" Painting, collage, metallic paint, foil, patternmaking paper
Located in New York, NY
22’’ x 30" mixed media collage: ink, watercolor, origami paper, gold foil, pattern-making paper on paper, framing options available. Linda Ganjian's artwork captivates with its orna...
Foil
$2,900
H 24 in W 36 in D 1 in
Float (Whimsical Landscape Collage of Swans and Figure Against Blue Sky)
Located in Hudson, NY
Float (Whimsical Landscape Collage of Swans and Figure Against Blue Sky) by Olan Quattro 2024, gouache, paper, and acrylic on wood panel, 24 x 36 inches Olan Quattro's subtle and so...
Paper, Acrylic, Gouache, Wood Panel
$2,100
H 24 in W 18 in D 1 in
Summer Lawn (Elegant Collage of Three Female Figures Playing Croquet)
Located in Hudson, NY
Summer Lawn (Elegant Collage of Three Female Figures Playing Croquet) by Olan Quattro 2025, gouache, paper, and acrylic on wood panel, 24 x 18 inches Olan Quattro's subtle and sophi...
Paper, Acrylic, Gouache, Wood Panel
"Marsh Rising" - Abstract Landscape Cyanotype - Kapoor
By Caroline Bullock
Located in Atlanta, GA
"Marsh Rising" is a work on paper that features hues of green, blue, gold, pink, yellow and orange. Caroline Bullock is inspired by the work of Agnes Martin, Anish Kapoor, Katharina ...
Paper, Watercolor, Gouache
$1,600
H 16 in W 12 in D 1 in
Nesting Season (Whimsical Collage of Female Figure and Birds in the Forest)
Located in Hudson, NY
Nesting Season (Whimsical Collage of Female Figure and Birds in the Forest) by Olan Quattro 2025, gouache, paper, and acrylic on wood panel, 16 x 12 inches Olan Quattro's subtle and...
Paper, Acrylic, Gouache, Wood Panel
Fish in the Sea, Contemporary Mixed Media Painting, 24x18in, 2025
By a.muse
Located in New york, NY
Two translucent « diamond dust » fish shimmer on the waves surface in a 24 x18in contemporary work on rag paper by a.muse. Fish in the Sea, 2025 translates the rhythmic energy of wa...
Acrylic, Gouache, Rag Paper
"Interstellar I" - Celestial Abstract Cyanotype - Kapoor
By Caroline Bullock
Located in Atlanta, GA
"Interstellar I" is a work on paper that features hues of green, violet, blue, gold and yellow. Caroline Bullock is inspired by the work of Agnes Martin, Anish Kapoor, Katharina Gros...
Watercolor, Gouache, Paper
$2,100
H 24 in W 18 in D 1 in
Meander (Female Figure in Quilted Dress with Collage Lake Landscape)
Located in Hudson, NY
Meander (Female Figure in Quilted Dress with Collage Lake Landscape) by Olan Quattro 2025, gouache, paper, and acrylic on wood panel, 24 x 18 inches Olan Quattro's subtle and sophis...
Paper, Acrylic, Gouache, Wood Panel
"Istanbul Rising" abstract, mixed media collage - framed
Located in New York, NY
12"x9" mixed media collage: acrylic, metallic watercolor and papers, ink, collage dressmaking patterns, framed in a black shadowbox frame. Linda Ganjian's artwork captivates with it...
Foil
$299
H 15.36 in W 21.07 in
Swifts - Papercut & gouache artwork, Colorful Animal, Fairy tale, Figurative
By Marianna Oklejak
Located in Warsaw, PL
MARIANNA OKLEJAK (b. 1981) – Polish illustrator and graphic designer. Author of children books. Graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 2006....
Paper, Gouache
$1,430
H 15 in W 15 in D 1 in
The Haveli-2, Gouache & Gold Leaf on Handmade Paper by Indian Artist "In Stock"
By Yugal Kishor Sharma
Located in Kolkata, West Bengal
Yugal Kishor Sharma - The Haveli-1 15 x 15 inches (unframed size) Gouache & Gold Leaf on Handmade Paper. (Unframed & Delivered) Yugal Kishore Sharma The Haveli-1 Gouache & Go...
Gold Leaf
"The Reaper" Abstract Assemblage Figurative Painting
By Benny Andrews
Located in Houston, TX
Painting of an African American woman with short hair standing next to an abstract tree by southern artist Benny Andrews in 1975. Signed and dated in lower right corner. Hung in a decorative frame with a simple white mat. Dimensions Without Frame: H 29 in. x W 21 in. Artist Biography: Born in 1930, one of ten children in a Georgia farming family, Benny Andrews grew up desperately poor. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago on the G.I. Bill. He differed from his fellow students, mostly Abstract Expressionists, by going off to jazz clubs to draw. In 1958, he moved to New York, where his artist friends included Red Grooms, Bob Thompson and the Soyer brothers. For two years (1982-84), he served as director of the Visual Art Program for the National Endowment for the Arts, after which he returned to full-time painting. Two kinds of influence coexist in Andrews's art. The first is an exuberant regionalism that takes into account the lives of the poor; Andrews sees a precedent in the work of Thomas Hart Benton. The second is the narrative impulse of much African-American painting...
Mixed Media, Watercolor