Autobiography Series

The upper torso of a figure, its right arm raised overhead, hovers against a purple-black background. A red line speckled with white and blue cuts above their head. Thin, horizontal, diagonal, and vertical strings cross the canvas. Bands of color, ranging from a hazy blue, yellow-green, and a light gray, outline the central rectangle.

Phillip J. Hampton’s work transitioned to abstraction around the 1950s. The artist read The Painter’s Mind (1969) by Romare Bearden and Carl Holty in the 1970s. The book explored the technical aspects of painting such as perspective and color, elements that became increasingly important to Hampton.