Untitled
- Date
- c.1940s
- Material
- Ink
- probably made in
- United States, North and Central America
- Classification
- Drawings & watercolors
- Collection
- Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
- Current Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- 20 1/4 in. × 13 in. (51.4 × 33 cm)
framed: 29 1/8 × 23 1/8 × 2 in. (74 × 58.7 × 5.1 cm) - Credit Line
- The Thelma and Bert Ollie Memorial Collection, Gift of Ronald and Monique Ollie
- Rights
- © The Estate of Norman W. Lewis; Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY
- Object Number
- 166:2017
NOTES
Short, calligraphic brushstrokes appear in this untitled drawing, reflecting the artist’s interest in East Asian scroll painting with a similar long, vertical format. Norman Lewis’ quick, gestural marks also suggest dispersing figures, like people on a crowded street. After producing artworks for the Work Projects Administration (WPA), a government-sponsored program that provided jobs for Americans during the Great Depression, Lewis migrated away from a representational style. He was among the first African American artists to be associated with Abstract Expressionism, although in early works such as this one, his abstractions still allude to the figure.
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