Object number2023.7.1
Remember: David Bowser, Tanner and Thompson
Date2021
Artist
Mario Moore
(American, born 1987)
CultureAmerican
MediumLithograph on BFK Rives paper
EditionEdition 6 of 25
DimensionsImage: 22 x 30 in. (55.9 x 76.2 cm)
Credit LinePurchase, gift of Mrs. Frederick Ferris Thompson, by exchange
Period21st century
Classification(s)
SignedOn recto, signed lower right edge in pencil: Mario Moore
InscribedOn recto, by artist, lower right edge in pencil: 21; lower center edge: Remember: David Bowser, Tanner and Thompson; lower left edge: 6/25
Label TextDetroit-based artist Mario Moore created this lithograph as a memorial to three trailblazing Black American artists, offering a personal lineage of figures too often omitted from narratives of art history. The central portrait features David Bustill Bowser (1820–1900), an activist and painter from Philadelphia, who designed signs for volunteer organizations and banners for regiments of Black soldiers during the Civil War. On the right, Bob Thompson (1937–1966) bends down in his New York City studio, where his 1964 painting The Assumption leans against a wall. Working in the late 1950s to 1960s, Thompson developed a style of bright figurative abstraction, often taking inspiration from hallowed subjects of European art history. On the left, Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937) contemplates an unfinished canvas. Tanner left the United States in the 1890s and spent much of his career in France, where he found great success for his paintings, which were often of religious subjects. You can find a landscape by Tanner, View from Palestine, in our gallery featuring art of the nineteenth century.
DescriptionA black and white composition with a large oval bust portrait of a man in a suit at center, a man painting in a studio at right, and a contemplative man seated in an interior at left.Terms
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