Painting Collection


Simmie Knox

A Place: Suspended

 

(b. 1937)
A Place: Suspended
1970
acrylic and enamel on canvas (diptych)
61 3/4 x 71 1/2 inches (each panel)
 

In 2000, Simmie Knox became the first African American artist to paint the official portraits of a U.S. President and First Lady, when he was chosen to capture the likenesses of both Bill and Hillary Clinton. The commission rocketed the Washington-area artist to the national stage, though Knox had long been known for his work as a prominent portraitist, painting for renowned sitters such as U.S. Supreme Court justices Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as well as Oprah Winfrey and famed baseball player Hank Aaron. This abstract diptych by Knox from 1970, entitled A Place: Suspended, represents a different, earlier moment in the artist’s career before his focus on portraiture. The large-scale work is composed of two panels covered with surging waves of color, from rich, earthy reds and yellows to deep, vibrant blues and greens. A Place: Suspended was included in the 32nd Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1971, where David and Carmen Kreeger first saw the work before acquiring it. Fresh from earning his B.F.A. and M.F.A. at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Knox moved to the Washington area the following year, in 1972, and soon turned away from abstraction to focus exclusively on portraiture. While Knox has remarked that the change was driven by his penchant for capturing the human figure, he attributes his time working in abstract painting as important to his understanding of space and color.


 

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