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work of the month

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"I want to evoke the sense of place, to be able to feel the spirit of
the past for a moment, to feel the presence of these people.
I want it to be a kind of ancestor worship.
I want beliefs to be handed down."

Four worn, wooden boards were used as a “canvas” to capture this image of an African-American gentleman. Imperfections in the wood, the heads of nails, holes left from now missing nails, and fabric strings create an unusual surface quality. The rendering of the gentleman is timeless, making it difficult for the viewer to determine his age, experience, or wisdom. A pocket square, matching his white shirt and tie, appears from his ill-fitting jacket. A rifle rests near the bend of his elbow.

Does this artwork tell the story of a fearful or an anxious man?

Does it speak to his right to bear arms?

Whatever your conclusion, there is no right or wrong answer.

Many artists experience life-altering events that become catalyst for change; Whitfield Lovell experienced several. Over the course of five years, he lost four beloved family members. He attended Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture, which offered a rigorous and stimulating environment for artistic creativity, provided a structured period for the creative process, and extended the assistance of its distinguished faculty. Later, he would visit an artist’s retreat in Italy once owned by a slave trader. Those catalysts led Lovell on a path of discovery, introspection, and acknowledgement.

Discovery

Imagery and portraiture have always been a part of Whitfield Lovell’s life. As a child, he enjoyed sifting through stacks of family photo albums and the images captured by his father, an amateur photographer. The maternal side of his family came from rural South Carolina, and the paternal side from Barbados, West Indies. He later embraced each side’s cultures, traditions, and ethnicities. In response to the untimely deaths of his sister, maternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, and great-uncle, he began a series of work on people in bereavement. Newspaper obituaries and tabloid clippings were used as inspiration for paintings, thus creating colorful artworks filled with narrative imagery.

Introspection

In 1985, Lovell enrolled in the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture, an intensive summer residency program for emerging visual artists located in Maine. The “experience” of Skowhegan had a profound effect on the work and lives of the artists-in-residence there:

"In Skowhegan I had time to really think about what I wanted to do with my work. I felt the formal issues about color were fighting with the narratives I was getting at… So I narrowed down the color and began to work monochromatically. I had all of my father’s old photographs mailed to me, and I began a process of looking through these images each day before starting to work. The work became more personal and a reflection of the way I saw myself as an artist."

Graduate studies and fellowships encouraged Lovell to travel abroad, initially to France, Germany, and the Netherlands. In 1993 he visited an artist’s luxurious villa in Italy originally built by a trader of African slaves. During his one-month stay, he began painting on the villa’s interior surfaces to honor those held captive there. He also incorporated existing images and remnants from the Africans in these works. In one of these works, for example, Lovell painted hands below a ring that may have once held shackles.

Acknowledgement

Upon returning to the United States, Lovell began looking through his grandmother’s photography collection, focusing on portraits from the 1920s and 1930s. His quest led him to gather images of African Americans from the 1940s at antique shops, flea markets, and yard sales. This effort continued as he collected African-American material culture such as quilts, books, furniture, kitchen utensils, pots, personal adornment, etc. Eventually, Lovell used these artifacts to create tableaux that honored African Americans. These tableaux were a mix of old and new artistic methods: old wooden wallboards were used in place of a canvas, while he mixed conté crayon and charcoal to execute formally precise chiaroscuro drawings. Once the vintage photograph was recreated on the wallboard, material culture was added. A timeless image of an unknown African American was thus captured, acknowledged, and honored.

Tableau—A graphic description or representation of a scene which is left to the reader to imagine, producing a picturesque effect and the sudden creation of a striking or dramatic situation.

Chiaroscuro—Pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color.

In an effort to engage the mind of the viewer, Lovell created simplistic titles for his tableaux. When you think of this work’s title, Freedom, what images come to mind? Use the word in a sentence.

Now, take a moment to observe this artwork. What might the word “freedom” mean to the artist himself?

- Channon M. H. Dillard

SOURCES

Collischan, Judy, Ph.D., ed. Whitfield Lovell—Portrayals. New York: Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, 2000.

Lippard, Lucy R., Jennifer Ellen Way, et al. The Art of Whitfield Lovell: Whispers from the Walls. San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2003.

Whitfield Lovell: Recent Tableaux. New York: DC Moore Gallery, 2000.