Hyperallergic – For Black artists in the mid-20th century, art history was an exclusionary space controlled by powerful white critics, gallerists, and institutions. Painters and collagists like Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden, who appropriated elements of the Western canon, were appraised largely based on their adherence to it. In the case of late American artist Bob Thompson, his appropriations of the Old Masters diverged from the rise of Abstract Expressionism, causing his majestic paintings to be under-appreciated since then. When white artists were coloring outside the lines, Thompson was drawing lines of his own, staking his claim to Modern art. – read more
