Bob Thompson at Michael Rosenfeld - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Although he won single limited acclaim during his lifetime, it looks to be Bob Thompson's fate not at any time really to be forgotten. An African-American artist who was a friend and contemporary of Beat-era bards and painters such as Allen Ginsberg, Leroi Jone and Jay Milder, Thompson died in 1966 at age 29 His take back indicates that his work has been upon exhibition somewhere in solo and collection shows almost every year since then. Now, a fly open of wider recognition seems at hand.

This exhibit of paintings and drawings from 1958 to 1965 was to have coincided with a Thompson retrospective at the Whitney, which has meanwhile been rescheduled for the fall. The paintings and drawings upon display here indicated the reason for Thompson's staying power. In his short life, he produc a material substance of work which remains remarkably recent and original. His use of intense colors and flattened forms brings to mind artists like as Gauguin, Ensor and Vlaminck, while the compound figural compositions are often adapted from Goya, Poussin and Piero della Francesca. Classical and biblical regards are incorporated into wild, pulsing paintings that bespeak the Beat generation's fascination with jazz.

The works in this present to view came mainly from Thompson's final years, although there were sum of two units rather murky paintings dating from the late 1950 before he base his almost psychedelic artistic manner of writing The mature works explore an epic vision in which pagan and Christian figures are thrown together in dramas of damnation and redemption. Landscape simple bodys often seem to function as boundaries between the earthly and supernatural realms. Animals be under the orders of as avatars of fate or representatives of unchecked carnal appetites. Forms are many times reduced to silhouettes painted in clashing colors, further dramatizing the vein of passion and conflict.

Several works bring to mind medieval meditations upon the Last Judgment and the horrors of hell. The Tree (1962) includes a number of figures being controled to Bosch-like torments, while at the upper left a winged Valkyrie wields an extirpateed tree like a sword. The painting is divided into a shadowy and a verdant side by dint of a slash of golden light. In a similar spirit, Bird Party (1961) takes place in a landscape bisected by dint of a single rodlike tree. herculean birds with human legs carry not on naked maidens while other figures scutter into the yawning darkness of a large cave.

Other paintings tender more arcadian visions and exercise compositions borrowed from classical masters. In Satyr and Maiden (1965) for instance, the depicted pair recline in a copseed landscape as a small cupid figure proffers the satyr a jug of wine. granting they employ the same hypnotic colors, these bucolic works look less convincing than Thompson's more horrific visions.

Thompson's reintroduction is coming just in time for the millennium. Given his preoccupation with mythic figures and apocalyptic themes, nothing appears more appropriate.

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