UNDERSTANDING. 28” X 35”, OIL ON CANVAS
George Lewis Wilson was an artist and a painter. His interest in art began in his hometown of Windsor, North Carolina. He attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and went on to New York to study at the School of Visual Arts and the National Academy of Fine Arts. After working for an advertising agency, he decided he preferred the liberty of a freelance artist.
(Medgar Evers College. (19–). The Medgar Evers College art collection. Brooklyn, NY: MEC)
NOTHING IS REAL TO US BUT FREEDOM. 60” X 40”, OIL ON CANVAS
Gaylord Hassan was a founding member of the Weusi Artist Collective. Formed in Harlem in 1965, using the Swahili word for “blackness,” it was described by fellow collective member Ademola Olugebefola as “the philosophy of black art for black people.“
Gaylord Hassan, born in Harlem, studied at Pratt Institute and Bob Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop. Today he is a painter, printmaker, potter and teacher.
Hassan’s work has been featured in exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, all New York. (Source)
SUNDAY AT THE HARBOUR. 40” X 50”, WATERCOLOR
Eric Girault was born in Jeremie on Haiti’s southern peninsula, on December 4, 1937. After his primary classes under Christian instruction, he completed his secondary education in Lycee Nord Alexis and College Saint Louis of Jeremie.
Girault had a passion for drawing at a very young age. Every year, the Lycee organized a drawing competition on the “Haitian Flag Day”. In 1956, he participated and won the Second Prize. In 1959, Girault moved to Port-au-Prince and met Isaa El Saieh, who encouraged him to join the Brochette Studio (School of Art). Girault studied there until 1961 and met the artist Lazard, Ti Ga and Cedor, who became his best friends.
Girault joined the Foyer Des Arts Plastiques in 1967. Two years later, he discovered his own impressionist style. The artist Jean Renee Jerome introduced him to art dealer Georges Nader. In 1973, Girault had his first exhibit with two other Haitian artists at the Nader Art Gallery and then participated in several international exhibits.
In 1976, Girault moved to the United State with his family and continued to paint. He did not change his style, but he watched American life and his works reflect it. Twelve of his productions were on view for the month of July, 1977 at: La Librarie De France” at Rockefeller Center. After this exhibit, French critic Jean Pigon took a few paintings to
Paris where they enjoyed a wild success.
In 1978, Girault participated with ten other Haitian artists in an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, where his paintings were a great hit. This show launched the successful recognition that Girault continues to enjoy today in the United States and abroad.
From 1980 through 2004 Girault was consistently active in exhibits several times a year at different galleries, museums, art events and fundraisers. (Source)
Painting, to me, is like a poem in color; it makes me feel that I am in constant communication with nature and others around me. I can’t imagine my life without painting. It really gives the illusion of “la joie de vivre”. (Source)
PEOPLE IN THE FIELD. 52” X 70”, OIL ON CANVAS
Mr. Placide began his formal training in Haiti. Enock’s earlier works are primarily watercolors. From the beginning, Haitian religious symbols and folk life have been predominate themes in his work. All of his work is, however, of the classical romantic mode.
(Medgar Evers College. (19–). The Medgar Evers College art collection. Brooklyn, NY: MEC)
Some of the most outstanding and ambitious pieces are by Enock Placide, the one painter here who explores illusionistic as well as flat space. In large examples like ”Mountaineers” and ”Market Place No. 2,” he combines delicate strokes and soft, nicely orchestrated tonalities with a sun-drenched white light.
In more complex, multi-unit paintings, Mr. Placide proves he can also star in a more visionary role. These are very original works that interweave spiritual, historical and symbolic imagery and seem to blend the characteristics of mural art with the best aspects of spiritualism. (Source)
Woman in the Woods
After Enock Placide’s painting
When I first saw her
I was young enough to believe
the artist erased her face on purpose
a cloth taken to still-wet canvas
brown acrylic smudged gently
erasing her smile
Laughter caught mid air
I imagined where he began
Her dark eyes, doorway to her soul
Was this knowing woman being swallowed whole
by muslin balled up tightly
floating above dappled, muted greens and
browns of the forest in this painting?
Or was her breath snatched away
with a quick wipe of sponge?
Did her nose leave her face the same way?
Or was she in the act of seeking the flowery
pink bursting spores exploding on canvas?
Placide, the Haitian visionary
whispered in moods shifting
between the faceless woman and I
As I grew older, even though still faceless, this
woman in white speaks to me of futures and pasts
Seeks my counsel as the soggy floor on which I stand
disappears, sending me into a downward spiral
until I land at the beginning of my thoughts
once again allowing myself to be led there
where the question of erasure comes and goes
Trusting that, even without a face
she knows what she saw. (Source)
MEDGAR WILEY EVERS. 5’ X 8”, BRONZE AND OAK
Born: Baltimore, Maryland, 28 March 1925. Education: University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1946-51, B.A., M.A.; University of North Carolina, 1961. Military Service: United States Air Force, 1943-46: private first class. Family: Divorced; two children. Career: Chairman and vice-chairman, Department of Art, North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central University), Durham, 1953-64, State University of New York at Binghampton, 1968-72, 1974-77, 1982-85. Artist-in-residence, Yaddo, 1966, Western Michigan University, 1969. Traveled in Italy, 1975-76. Awards: Carnegie Foundation grant, 1952-53; Maryland Artists Annual Prize for Portraiture, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1956; research grants, North Carolina College, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962; State University of New York Fellowship, 1966, 1968. Died: 26 November 1996.
(Nzegwu, N. (1997). Wilson, Ed(ward N., Jr.): American sculptor. In T. Riggs & Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. St. James guide to Black artists. (pp. 576-578). Detroit: St. James Press)
Mr. Wilson had been deeply involved in the civil rights struggle in North Carolina, and the experience influenced his art. Many of his works also reflected his early interest in painting. For all their varied shapes, the focal points of a Wilson sculpture are often small-scale images on a sometimes hidden surface.
At Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, for example, the message of Mr. Wilson’s ”Middle Passage,” ostensibly three gently curving slabs of concrete nestled together outside the school, does not become apparent until one takes a second, closer look, squeezing between the slabs to examine narrow bands of bronze depicting the horrors of a slave ship. (Source)
Mr. Wilson produced some two dozen sculptures, working variously in bronze, aluminum and red hickory, but the very aspect of his work that made him a prized local artist in Binghamton helped keep him from receiving serious critical notice.
That’s because Mr. Wilson worked primarily on civic commissions, and as a result his sculptures were generally not displayed in galleries or museums, but in public spaces — parks, schoolyards and college campuses — where they rarely receive more than a passing glance or are such a part of the landscape that they are really not seen at all by those who pass them very day.
Those who did take a second look at Mr. Wilson’s work were generally impressed. In their book, ”A History of African-American Artists” (Random House, 1992), Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson devoted a chapter to Mr. Wilson, ranking him as a significant artist and citing works like ”Second Genesis” and ”Jazz Musicians,” both at schools in Baltimore, where he was born. (Source)
Doris C. Davis Price, born in Delaware, received her B.S. in painting and writing from Empire State College (State University of New York). She also studied at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She worked with sand and gesso and used acrylics. Price’s paintings are on irregular shaped boards mounted on transparent plastic that make them adapt to any room.
(Medgar Evers College. (19–). The Medgar Evers College art collection. Brooklyn, NY: MEC)
Carlton D. Murrell has been painting for over forty years with well over one hundred exhibitions to his credit. As a child growing up in Barbados, Carlton began exploring his artistic talent by drawing and painting the various lifestyles of his Island nation. He began his painting career at 18, inspired by the richness of Caribbean living and the world beyond. He traveled to many distant places in search of a universal sense of art, which led him to immigrate to capital city of art – New York City. While there, Murrell was awarded a scholarship to pursue additional advanced studies at the Art Students League. He later attended the Pan American School of Fine and Pel’s School of Commercial Art and Illustration. He has exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, the National African American Museum, the United Nations and Howard University, as well as numerous galleries throughout the United States.
Master Impressionist painter Claude Monet tremendously influences his painterly style. Drawing on the influence of European Impressionist painters, Murrell’s layering of paints, short strokes and usage of color emerges with a unique painterly style. His ability includes a rare understanding of the effects of light on color. Murrell combines his rich Caribbean heritage with traditional island and urban living to impact upon the viewer thought provoking visual messages.
His works hang in permanent collections of Carver Federal Savings Bank, the Copper Corporation of Chile, South America, Howard University, The Central Bank of Barbados, among others. Mr. Murrell has to his credit received numerous awards, prizes and citations. He has served as curator at art exhibitions at the Community Gallery which was formerly located within the Brooklyn Museum and the Skylight Gallery. He also works his skills as an art consultant and art teacher. His work can be found in the homes of many collectors in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Europe and South America. (Source)
