Bob Thompson Drawings at STEVEN HARVEY FINE ART PROJECTS

what did mama Gamescom the guy on the bike welcoming our worldwide viewership back for another half assed production and today we're down here at this Steven Harvey fine art project and we're gonna take a look at an exhibition of drawings by the great Bob Thompson come in here and do a quick sweep of the installation oh and they've got a nice painting here I'm not sure anyway Steve just opened his gallery down here is that the northern edge of Chinatown about two or three months ago and I love his program this is untitled nude and forest and it's charcoal on paper from 1958 now one of the things that I love about Bob Thompson is that a lot of ways he was a like a proto version of jean-michel basquiat this piece is also untitled nude I think he grew up in somewhere in the south maybe South Carolina and Sunday show we came north and spent some time in Provincetown while he was there he met a whole group of the Bohemian knew figurative painters people like Buster Johnson this is also untitled figure in still life I like it strips and this is also entitled man and forest Bob Thompson was very successful he started out fairly young came to New York and was picked up some point by Martha Jackson who was probably be considered to marry boon of her time back in the mid 60s late 60s it's called high night em bills John read and me this is from 1958 dedication up there now one of the other great things about Bob Thompson is that he was very much influenced by the masters the Italian masters the Quattrocento and early Renaissance masters this is ladies in waiting outside study for from Piero della Francesca's discovery of the wood of the true cross and mating of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba that's Morris great line work son title self-portrait you know and he I think was pretty much self-taught I I don't think that he spent a lot of time in the Academy but we really did have a natural natural touch for his line and stroke and the rhythms chair skier oh well now we're gonna talk to Steven Harvey help Steven Harvey fine art projects isn't that the name of the space yes tell us a little bit about how you got the show together and why you think Bob Thompson is an important artist at this time well first of all the first show has ever actually been done just the drawings yeah I mean specifically there have been two shows one in the 60s and one of them seventies of his works on paper and if you go in the back you'll see one of these sort of paintings on paper yes from the 60s this was a later period at this week's eight-year career and those those are a little bit more known actually the kind of drawings that we're seeing and charcoal they've never been shown yeah well were they in sketchbooks or stashed away in portfolios or these come from several private collections well and the drawings were given by him to individuals in most cases literally personally given by Thompson to somebody and they were in portfolios and we restored them and frame them and now I also heard you talking about some of these connections with some of the great jazz musicians of the 50s if you want to give us a little beneath explanation that we we did a little category and yes it's beautiful we got heavy Jones too right it was a neighbor of mine when I grew up on pepper Square she was yes holding down the street hoping heavy will come tonight and in her building was Archie Shepp and on one floor and then this guy Mars that Watson another floor and heavy of course is portrayed by Thompson with her then-husband Leroy Jones and a painting that's in the Whitney catalog and it's interesting to Thompson how to profound to actually music he there's photographs of him with moon dog and sure good old moon da Ornette Coleman this is a drawing of Charlie Haden of the bass player over here on clearly they're hanging out and as I was thinking about it today I was realizing that the chef's did a mammoth composition called porter probably Thompson as a young man it's like I mean it's a wild free music well and I found I downloaded it actually to live versions on the ferry and and then I was thinking about the other neighbor who I was always fascinated with this guy Martha Watts was like a just a total cult figure in free jazz and I was reading about him a little comedian turns out he was also a painter and he was painting a bob studio in new beats you know so the connection between painting in music was very heat that's great and a lot of it happened right around this neighborhood - over on the Bowery and two studios like right near here right on Rivington Street exactly how about his early death and the problems he had with maybe some of the bad habits he picked up from the jazz musicians and you know what's interesting is though one friend of his who's just saying to me that actually he had this habit is I had a heroin habit from yes when he was very young before he was involved like from Louisville like as a kid actually he so it was from Louisville yeah get off drugs and alcohol and then later it's like in the pic period the mid-60s he actually went off drugs and alcohol and somehow he had buried yet some physical issues like pancreatic issues the one he was told by a doctor that he couldn't ever use and apparently did now this is Pierre says I'm just being told yes recently by somebody whose friend his and so that apparently happened in Italy like you know 66 of course and that he did drink again and that just cause to his body that this company it also been recognized and was one of the real hot young as figurative expressionistic figurative painters that was really getting a lot of the spotlight and kind of put a lot of pressure on him exactly showing a Mark Jackson yes really well somebody called me yesterday and said that this guy was an old friend of his and he remembered the show that was done around the corner from here like the first show how it was a show and this guy was saying everyone came down this one night before all the painters the first night Wow scene for somebody who looks like a young unknown maybe we'll have some of that happening here tonight all right well thank you Steve and thank congratulations on the new gallery space is beautiful all right thanks Steve Harvey okay so this is their the drawing of Charlie Haden Simpson really has a great sense of line like yeah hot me or maybe a good Matisse I was really yeah and he's got some pattern things going on in there the very beautiful pen and ink well this piece is titled last painting from 1966 I'm in oil on canvas 55 by 63 inches the great things is we really get a chance to see his process how he would build up his images and he's actually he's actually drawing with color then slowly kind of filling things in with his washes is this really his last painting yeah so this was sort of found in his studio after he passed away that our drawings essentially drawings on canvas that are in one in the next to another story without lines on canvas yes drawing with color and okay thanks very nice now I went to see the bub Thompson exhibition that they had at the Whitney I don't know it might have been maybe ten or more years ago and one of the things I really enjoyed about Bob's work is that we had a very good sense of color and was able to do a lot of overlaying and pediment II and we really get a lot of mileage out of a very simple I don't know what the title that one is this is a portrait of Nina Simone and the sparseness adduce is great looks like maybe a felt-tip end a season 1965 you can flip it over we see what the other side looks like beautiful yeah you should charge double for that one it's a beautiful little watercolor on paper waiting figure and you can see that you definitely soap in the water color that's kind of makes me think of a revolt and figure with the balloon it's also you know like the way he's got sort of the dry-brush title grid that's great the blue lines that make up his nose and eyes this one is still and we'll wrap up with this piece it's also untitled man with hat this is oil on paper thirteen and a half by ten and 3/5 inches 1958 so this is a very early piece yeah James calm down here on the Lower East Side looking at Bob Thompson drawings here at the Steven Harvey Fine Arts project too late for side street thanks Kate

Channel: jameskalm

Views: 11,369

Rating: 4.818182 out of 5

Keywords: James, Kalm, Bob, Thompson, Steven, Harvey, Fine, Art, Projects, painting, drawing, sculpture, Expressionism, African, American, East, Village, Jazz, New, York

Id: 58ElJNuQMKc

Length: 14min 33sec (873 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 03 2011