Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Apr 2, 2016–Apr 2, 2017

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Entry Gallery, Floor 7

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Selected works from the seventh-floor entry gallery appear in this section.

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HUEY NEWTON, 2007

A Black man wearing a black beret, suit jacket, and slacks sits in a peacock chair. The back of his chair is various shades of grey and features glimpses of newspaper clippings throughout. He holds a spear in his left hand and a rifle in the other. The floor is rust colored with an irregularly shaped zebra print rug. The wall behind him is off-white with rust colored intersecting lines.
A Black man wearing a black beret, suit jacket, and slacks sits in a peacock chair. The back of his chair is various shades of grey and features glimpses of newspaper clippings throughout. He holds a spear in his left hand and a rifle in the other. The floor is rust colored with an irregularly shaped zebra print rug. The wall behind him is off-white with rust colored intersecting lines.

Henry Taylor (b. 1958), Huey Newton, 2007. Acrylic and collaged photocopies on canvas, 94 9/16 × 76 1/4 in. (240.2 × 193.7 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg in honor of Adam D. Weinberg 2016.86. © Henry Taylor

Henry Taylor’s subjects range from family and friends to preeminent African American figures. The artist based this painting on historical material, a 1967 photograph of Huey P. Newton, one of the founders of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The source image first appeared in the Party’s newspaper, which disseminated the group’s call for a more militant response in the face of discrimination against black Americans than the nonviolent civil rights movement advocated.

Taylor’s composition includes collaged text fragments from news reports of the 2006 death of Sean Bell. Bell was an African American man who was shot and was fatally shot the eve of his wedding by plainclothes detectives in Queens, New York. Taylor’s reference to this incident—which sparked a public outcry that grew louder after all of the officers involved were acquitted of any crime—links the activist movement of the late 1960s with current patterns of police violence toward men of color.

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Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

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