Bob Thompson
American, 1937-1966
Beach of Silenus
INV-1468
Bob Thompson
American, 1937-19661964
Beach of Silenus
Bob Thompson American, 1937-1966 →drawings (visual works)prints and drawing
Date
1964
Medium
Acrylic on cream wove paper with commercially printed text
Dimensions
26.1 × 27.6 cm (10 5/16 × 10 7/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Lannan Foundation
Robert Thompson appropriated compositions from Old European Masters, rearranging and integrating them with his own symbolic language and figural style. In his reconfiguration of established themes, he eliminated narrative content and instead created abstract patterns that loosely convey a feeling or an idea. The thick acrylic paint produces a dynamic, textured surface; flat, overlapping fields of color create linear and chromatic rhythms and planes advance and recede in space. Despite deriving inspiration from canonical works of art, Thompson's improvisatoinsal working method demonstrates affinities with the post-bebop jazz of the 1960s.
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