Pontchartrain, 1997

Phyllis Kind Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of Works on Paper by Robert Colescott.

The work will be on view through June 7, 2008.

One will see in this body of work a consistent and ever-growing examination of the relationship between artistic representation and cultural meaning. Colescott frequently reduces figure construction to abstraction at the same time exposing the painful impact of racial and sexual stereotyping.

After studying in Paris with Fernand Léger and living in Cairo, Colescott returned to America to play a significant role in the resurgence of figuration on the West Coast during the 1960s.

He began drawing heavily upon his experience as an African-American in the mid-1970s, using images from popular culture and making racial parodies of masterpieces from art history which presaged the emergence of appropriation in the 1980s.

Now 82, Mr. Colescott continues to produce vitally significant work which has become more and more biting, provocative and, at times, even savage.

No one has been more important as a role model for a younger generation of African-American artists exploring the relationship between the self and the burdens imposed on African-Americans in the United States of America.

In 1997 Robert Colescott was the first painter to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale since Jasper Johns in 1988, and the first African-American artist to represent the United States in a solo exhibition at the U.S. Pavilion. Following its premiere at the 47th Venice Biennale, the exhibit toured the U.S. for two years.

The artist is represented in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, as well as numerous other public and private collections.