Bob Thompson
1937–1966
Bob Thompson’s painting career was brief but prolific. He began showing his work in 1959 and over the next seven years completed several hundred canvases. During this time he developed a style that combined the imagery of Old Master painting with an explosive chromatic palette. In Triumph of Bacchus Thompson borrowed compositional elements from Renaissance depictions of this mythological subject, exchanging the descriptive clarity of the originals for a vividly hued arrangement by alternating passages of flatly applied and loosely brushed color. In modernizing these historical sources, Thompson participated in the jazz idiom practiced by his contemporaries, who based their improvisations on a thorough understanding of preexisting styles. Saxophonist Steve Lacy, a friend of Thompson’s, referred to the artist as “jazz himself,” explaining that “the way he painted was like jazz—taking liberties with colors.”
Thompson also updated the symbolism in his mythological paintings, often using avian imagery to represent various states of the soul. Here a massive winged creature replaces Bacchus’s triumphal chariot, and the processioners hold birds in their hands. In the ancient story, Ariadne falls in love with Bacchus only after the duplicitous Theseus abandons her. In this work the birds can be interpreted as embracing Bacchus and the joy of the present while, by tethering birds from flight, Ariadne remains anchored to Theseus and her past. Thompson admired how Renaissance artists could “relate” to and “educate the public.” His canvases perform a similar function by merging reverence for these painters with a desire to depict his experience of modern life.
Introduction
Bob Thompson (June 26, 1937 – May 30, 1966) was an African-American figurative painter known for his bold and colorful canvases, whose compositions were influenced by the Old Masters. His art has also been described as synthesizing Baroque and Renaissance masterpieces with the jazz-influenced Abstract Expressionist movement.
He was prolific in his eight-year career, producing more than 1,000 works before his death in Rome in 1966. The Whitney Museum mounted a retrospective of his work in 1998. He also has works in numerous private and public collections throughout the United States.
Wikidata identifier
Q4934184
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed December 6, 2024.
Country of birth
United States
Roles
Artist, painter
ULAN identifier
500080773
Names
Bob Thompson, Robert Thompson
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed December 6, 2024.
