{"data":{"id":"109","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":109,"topgoose_id":2823,"tms_id":109,"display_name":"Forrest Bess","sort_name":"Bess Forrest","display_date":"1911–1977","begin_date":"1911","end_date":"1977","biography":"\u003cp\u003eWith their diminutive scale and formal\neconomy, Forrest Bess’s paintings belie the\ncomplex, highly personal symbology\nfrom which they emerged. Born and raised\nin the small East Texas town of Bay City,\nBess became fascinated by connections\nbetween religion and sexuality while\nan undergraduate at the University of\nTexas, where he read widely on subjects\nsuch as Greek mythology, Hinduism,\nand psychoanalysis. After a psychological\nbreakdown led to his discharge from\nthe US Army in 1946, Bess moved\npermanently to his family’s bait-fish camp\nat Chinquapin, on the Gulf, where he\nlived a meager, isolated existence for the\nnext twenty years, dividing his time\nbetween fishing, painting, and various odd\njobs. He nonetheless maintained extensive\ncorrespondence with individuals in the\noutside world, including the dealer Betty\nParsons, whose New York gallery\nrepresented his work beginning in 1949;\nthe prominent art historian Meyer Schapiro;\nand even the psychoanalyst Carl Jung.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt Chinquapin, Bess had begun to\npaint images, or “inward visions” as he\ncalled them, based on a language of\nsymbolic forms he saw in his mind as he\ndrifted off to sleep. Upon waking, he would\nquickly record these forms in sketches,\nlater elaborating them in richly textured oil\ncompositions such as \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/1902\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eDrawings\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e. Like\nmost of Bess’s paintings, the work is small\nin scale and possesses a frame that\nthe artist fabricated from thin strips of\nfound wood, adding to its intimate,\nhandmade quality. By the late 1950s Bess\nhad developed a radical theory that\nandrogyny was the key to eternal life,\nan idea that pervaded his art and led him\nto perform surgery on himself with\nthe goal of becoming a hermaphrodite.\nWhile Bess identified some of his\nabstract symbols with specific meanings\nrelated to his theory, others, like\nthose in\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;Drawings\u003c/em\u003e, remain mysterious.\nNonetheless, his elemental forms\nevoke the biomorphic archetypes that\nsuffused avant-garde painting during\nthe postwar years—especially in the work\nof the Abstract Expressionist painters.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500099698","wikidata_id":"Q5470435","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:36:57.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-31T07:00:50.616-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/109/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/109/exhibitions"}}}}