Three Graphic Artists

Charles White

David Hammons

Timothy Washington

Acknowledgments

This exhibition owes its being to theexemplary cooperation and generosity of thelenders as well as to that of the artiststhemselves. We should like here to expressour deep appreciation to Mr. BenjaminHorowitz, of the Heritage Gallery, and toMessrs. Alonzo and Dale Davis, of theBrockman Gallery, for their unfailing supportand assistance every step of the way, andto the many lenders to the exhibition, includingMr. and Mrs. Andy Bookman; Mr. and Mrs.M. T. Bryant: Mr. and Mrs. William Cosby, Jr.;Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo Davis; Forum Gallery,New York; Dr. and Mrs. Edmund W. Gordon;Mrs. Lee Graff ; Mr. and Mrs. David Hammons;Heritage Gallery; Dr. and Mrs. StanleyHoffman;Dr. and Mrs. Bertram V. Karpf;Mr. and Mrs. lrving Monarch; Dr. and Mrs.Ernst Plesset; Mr. Lawrence Roberts; BettyeSaar; Dr. and Mrs. George Sealy; Mr. and Mrs.Edwin H. Seigel; Mr. Alan Sieroty; Mr. andMrs. lsaac D. Sinaiko; Mr. and Mrs. GeorgeSlaff ; Mr. and Mrs. Jack L. Stein; Mr. andMrs. Payson Wolff ; Dr. and Mrs. William C.

Wright; and an anonymous lender.

Sincere thanks are extended to theLos Angeles County Museum of Art'sTechnical Services staff, headed by JamesAllen; to the Photography Laboratory directedby Ed Cornachio; to the Registrar's Officeheaded by Mrs. Gloria Cortella; to VincentRobbins and Richard Hattori of the GraphicDesign Department; to the staff of theExhibitions and Publications Department;to Mrs. Annette Epstein, Secretâry to theDepartment of Prints and Drawings formultitudinous duties; and to Joseph E. Young,the Department's Assistant, for hiscomprehensive and illum¡nating catalog.Finally, the Department is profoundly gratefulto the Director and the Board of Trustees formaking the exh¡bition and catalog possible.

Foreword

It is a pleasure for the Los Angeles CountyMuseum of Art to present Three GraphicArfisfs, an exhibition which juxtaposestraditional and contemporary techniques ina most arresting and compelling manner.The power of these three black artists, eachrepresented by a distinctive style, resides intheir profound human concern and theirvigorous, often novel, search for forcefulmeans of expressing it in graphic language.

Striking among the phenomena of our timesare the inexhaustible "new ways of gravure"which have enabled printmaking to emerge asone of the most dynamic art forms of thetwentieth century. Printmaking has, throughoutits history, lent itself to radical developmentand innovation thanks to the sculptural andchemical aspects of its processes. The artof making incisions in a hard súrface toremove parts of the material, whether ascarving or in decoration, is as old as antiquity.Suetonius tells us that Julius Caesar was anavid collector of "gems and engravings;" butin ancient times engravings meant, as theymean to one of the artists in the presentexhibition, metal surfaces designed with anengraving tool. Furthermore, the term"engraving" referred originally to the metalplate and not to the print taken from it.

With the introduction of acid etching in thesixteenth century, printmaking was radicallyaltered from its quasi-sculptural, or carving,technique, preparing for the freedom ofRembrandt. Even more revolutionary was thediscovery of lithography, or chemical stoneprinting, which, in the time of Daumier,changed the face and form of communicationand illustration. Today, many artists believethat prints should be lhree-dimensional, thatthe use of material is unrestricted, andthat techniques and concepts should begoverned solely by the creative spirit,

Thus, the unorthodox processes of DavidHammons and Timothy Washington reflect thecontinuing vitality of the metamorphosingworld of graphic art. Traditional def¡nitionsand categories are not pertinent to the bold,independent techniques of these artists whoemploy their fresh, striking methods to extendthe boundaries ofvisual impact andemotional stimulus. Hammons' dramaticprocess of "self-printing" literally involveshis whole physical being, while Washington'sreturn to the classical presence of theengraved metal itself is the all-encompassingfact of his intaglio technique.

ln contrast to these newer forms of graphicexpression stands the monumental work, thequieter drama of the doyen of American blackartists, the profoundly human Charles Whitewho preserves the image of man in theRenaissance sense and ennobles him with alarge and timeless approach. Drawing is themost autographic of all the arts and, as a

medium, requires the most intímate andrefined response to be understood andappreciated. lt retains the magic of immediacy,whether created in the spontaneity of theinitial idea or elaborated into a finished work.White's calm, heroic figures embody thechangeless, enduring bedrock of humanity-itsage-old sorrows, its redeeming compassion.While the works by David Hammons andTimothy Washington included in thisexhibition were all created within the last twoyears, White's drawings shown here cover aperiod of some seven years. ln his recentdrawings, paralþled in terms of complexity bythe lithographs he executed at the TamarindLithography Workshop, lhe images are woveninto a brilliant kaleidoscope of modulatedplanes and shapes. This break-up of thebackground field behind his patient figuresseems like a symbolic and echo¡ng refractionof their changing human condition,

Ebria Feinblatt

Three Graphic Artists

"Three Graphic Artists" is an exhibition ofprints and drawings by contemporaryLos Angeles artists whose productions areoften of a public rather than a private natureand whose effectiveness in appeallng to alarge audience is increased by their utilizatlonof the human figure in their compositions.ln spite of their many thematic affinities, eachart¡st has produced works that are easilydistinguishable and that bear the unmistakablestamp of but one person. lt is this impressivemark of originality which imparts to thisexhibition so much of its stirring vitality.

A decisive factor contributing to the selectionof these works was their technical andaesthetic excellence. These qualities, inconjunction with their visual impact, enabledthem to enter the domain once inhabitedsolely by painting. Consequently, one is almosttempted to refer to many of the works onview as "paintings," which they are not.Moreover, the formal expression of all threeartists has evolved from the long-standingtradition of the graphic arts. ln this exhibitiondry-point is not used to make intaglio printsbut is employed to create engravings onaluminum plates. ln the same defiance oftradition, oil-based pigments are used to createlarge-scale drawings on mounted paperrather than oil paintings. And, one artist useshis own body to create unique images whichare related to, but differ strikingly from,conventional monoprints.

Another hallmark of this exhibition is thedegree to which each artist acknowledges hisawareness of man in relation to society andthe role of the community in relation to manhimself. Although occasionally the traditionaldevice of using a particular contemporaryincident to imply the general dilemmaconfronting mankind is employed, forthemost part the prints and drawings exhibitedare not specifically derived from the events ofcontemporary society. All of the worksdisplayed are intended by the artists subtlyto invite the viewer into a thoughtful,contemplative state of awareness-of himselfand the larger role he plays as a socialcreature. lndeed, it is the universal expressionof man's basic humanity which makes thisexhibition significant for all persons who aregenuinely interested in the continuingexpansion of Western art.

Charles White

My work takes shape around images and ideasthat are centered w¡thin the vortex of a blacklile experience, a n¡tty-gtitty ghetto expeilenceresulting in conlradiatory emotions: anguish,hope, love, despair, happiness, taith, lack otlaith, dreams. Yet stubbornly holding on to anelus¡ve romantic belieî that the people otthis land cannot always be insensible to thedictates oÍ justice or deat to the voice othumanity.t

Charles White was born in Chicago, lllinoisin 1918 and, as a young boy, painted reality ashe knew it-the community in which he livedwith its dilapidated buildings and ¡ts ghettostreets. This was White's "landscape" as thestreets of New York were for the earlierAmerican Ashcan School of painters. When hewas fourteen years old, White became aprofessional sign painter, and in his last yearof high school he was granted a year'sscholarship at the Art lnstitute of Chicago. Helater joined the Works Project Administration,and in 1940, when he was twenty-two, theyoung artist was commissioned to do a muralon the history of the American Negro Press.2The following year Charles White was therecipient of a Rosenwald grant which he usedto go to the southern states where he madesketches for a mural depicting thedevelopment of the Negro in American history.The finished paint¡ng resulting from thesesketches now hangs in the Hampton lnstitutein Virginia.r By 1947 White had his firstone-man show in New York, and during theensuing years his works have been widelyexhibited and acquired by collectors andmajor museums throughout the United Statesand Europe. ln 1956 he came to California andin 1965 began to instruct at the Otis Artlnstitute where he continues to teach the craftwhich has made him world renowned.

At seventeen, while studying at the Art lnstituteof Chicago, White made his first lithograph.Since that time, the artist acknowledged:"l've always been turned on by lithography,but there hasn't always been the opportun¡tyto do it because of the physical difficultiesinvolved. I haven't always had the availabilityof a press, but whenever I have had theopportunity, I've always been excited aboutlithographs."r One such opportunity came in1966 when the artist was commissioned toexecute Exodus // at Gemini G.E.L. inLos Angeles. This work presents a monolithicimage of a single figure and formally contrastswith the 'l 970 series of lithographs by theartist which integrates the two-dimensionalbackground with the three-dimensional humanimage. The crouched figure found in twoof last year's series of lithographs evolvedfrom a related figure in White's earlierdrawing, Wanted Series fi10. This drawingdepicts an infant in swaddling clothes and,above the Christ-like child, a horizontally-placed crouched figure convincingly integratedinto the composition. Regarding this image

which later appears in the two lithographs,the art¡st stated:

The concept ot a c¡ouched ligure intriguedme when I d¡d the initial drawing, and I thoughtthat it would be very exciting to do a doubleimage of it. You know, sometimes I want Ioexplorc the possibilities of a given image andinvestigate and possibly estab!¡sh a newmeaning lor that image in a new medium.

ln contrast to his many years of experience inlithography, dry-point is a relatively newmedium of expression for White who madeMatriarch, his first print using this technique,in 1970. The artist originally planned to workin etching, but when he found that he couldnot safely expose himself to the acidsnecessary for this technique, he naturallyturned to dry-point which does not dependupon chemicals to produce its effect. ln thisprocess a dry-point tool is employed to inciselines into a copper plate, thereby producinga "furrow" similar to those found in plowedfields. A dry-point "furrow" is called a "burr."This ridge of metal catches and holds theink in the wiping of the plate for printing,creating an especially velvety and rich effect.

About his use of conté crayon or charcoal,Mr. White related:

I begin to work lightly ìn halttones.whích I fixvery strongly. I then work trom that and tixanothet layer as I keep building up thecomposit¡on. ln th¡s way, when I work withconté or charcoal, I can get very strong blacksbecause ol the chem¡cal reaction oî thefixative to the medium that I'm working ontop ol. Using this method I can get a tar moreextensive range of values than I wouldordinarily.

As with all of his drawings, those executed byWhite in oil colors may take six weeks orsomet¡mes even longer to create because theartist constucts his pictures very slowly andcarefully, one layer upon another. His initialstep, since he does not use models, is toestablish his preliminary composition on heavyarchitectural trac¡ng paper. The carefullydevised composition is then transferred to thesupport which is often paper mounted onartificial board because, says the artist:

I can go prcctically any size that I l¡ke to workon. Besides, I vety often abuse a suilaceharshly since I scrub ¡nto ¡t with tags and aIot of tools. For instance, in my monochro-mat¡c o¡l drawings, / use Q-tlps, Kleenex, rags,balsa wood, þrushes, and a whole slew olother things besides-all in one given work.

Once his drawing is transferred to themounted paper, White no longer refers to hispreliminary tracing paper studies. He com-mences anew as if he had just started therebyinsuring a spontaneity and a freshness in his

works wh¡ch the mechanical transfer of his

preliminary study would necessarily lose.

ln talking about his early work, Mr. White

reminded the author that he had beenprimarily a pa¡nter, although he added:

Drawing has always been a particularlyexcit¡nE medium for me, and I've always teltthat to think of one medium as superior toanother or more impottant than another is a

lalse concept. Lately l've been drawing in a

monochromatic burnt umber, and though it isan oil color, ! consider these works drawingsbecause I approach them in the same manneras I do my drawings executed in other media.

Because graphic images are more easilyreproduced than paintings and, therefore,can more easily be disseminated to the public'Charles White, who has a profound respectand admiration for the human race,increasingly has turned to drawing as a means

of communication. This desire to produce an

art which the many rather than the few can

enjoy also stems from the influence of anotherculture to the south of the United States, a

culture which has deeply influenced theheritage of California in the past and is once

again through Charles White transmittingits message of life and man.

It was in the late 1930's that White f irstbecame aware of Diego Rivera, who was thenexecuting his murals in the United States:

I lound a strcng atfinity in tetms ol my goals

as an art¡st and what they tepresented' And Icould think of no better th¡ng to happen to

me than to have the opportun¡ty to go toMexico. And I never dreamed that lwould.It ¡ust worked out.

ln later years White was invited to make printsat the internationally acclaimed Taller de

Grálica in Mexico City. He lived at that timewith David Siqueiros and consequently metthe other leading Mexican artists of the timesuch as Rivera and Orozco. This was in 1946

when foreign artists throughout the worldwere being invited as guests to partake ofthese prestigious facilities. Charles Whitewas highly esteemed by his hosts; he stayedtwo years, and was invited to become a

member of their group. lndeed, the admirationand respect of the Mexican people wasreciprocated by White who was profoundlyaffected by this contact. At the Mexicangraphic workshop the artists involved wereprimarily dealing with linoleum prints andlithography as a natural outgrowth of theearlier concept of Posada who was one of theworld's greatest popular printmakers. lt wasalso at this time, said White, that he realized:

Mexican arfists sucå as Diego Rívera andOrozco were doing the same thing as I, but inan even more social way than lwas orientedto. . . . And lor the f irst time I realized that

another ethnic group was drawing upon itsculture, whercas previously I hadn't lelt that

strongty about it when I related to the art otJohn Stoan or George Luks. . . . And here was

the more intimate waY ol a Person whoseIite it was. He wasn't iust the observet as the

Ashcan Schoo/ painters were. The Mexicana¡lisf was the partic¡pant, and this wasanothq plateau tor me to arrive at, and thiswas the tirst time that I became consciousol how I was actually relating to my ownscene, but at the Taller de Gráfica they gave

me the tools to articulate bettet, more so than

the Ashcan Schoo/.

Back in the United States White began to

realize that most of the people who had

purchased his art had been either uppermiddle class individuals or museums and thatthis had not been his intention:

The primary audience that I was addressingmyself to was really fhe masses ol blackpeople, and they were not turning out inhundreds to see my shows, and I had to findsome way of reaching them, since my subiectmatter was related to them and should be

made avaílable to them, particularly in anational way.

Later, when White was approached to have aportfolio of his drawings reproduced, he

immediately recognized the offer as theopportunity he had been looking for.Consequently he created a suite of drawingsespecially for his 1953 Portlolio ol SixDrawings-The Art ol Charles Whife' This wasfollowed by the '1961 Portlolio 10/CharlesW hite and the 1 964 Porttolio 6 / -Charles Wh¡te.

The themes that Mr. White explores centerabout the universal conflicts that involve all

mankind. They include, among others, theretationship of man to man, social or economicdislocations, the opposition of love and hate,

and the never-ending problems of justice

and injustice. For, as the artist stated:

I deat withideas as an educator or a philoso'pher. This is my lile's work, and I treat thisresponsibility very seriously. Consequently,I don't release works that I am not comfortablewith mysett,ln the sense that I have tulfilledmy responsibility of having dealt with an idea'

I am concerned about my Íellow man. I am

concerned with the survival ol man. I am

concerned with the progress that man has

made in relation to his lellow man, in relationto nature, in trying to lind a more beautitulway of tife. . . . I am ttying to f ulfill my responsi-bitity to mysetf and lo express my gratitudeÍor the privilege that I've had of living withmy Íetlow man. I want to pour something intolile-perhaps a liltle bit more than l've goUen

out ot it. Now that sounds awÍully platitudinous,but that's really the way I Íeel about it.

--.....-i

ü

David Hammons

lfeelthat my ail rclatesto my total environment

-my being a black, political, and socialhuman being. Although I am involved withcommunicating with.others, I believe that myart itself is really my statement. For me ithas to be.s

David Hammons was born in 1943 inSpringfield, lllinois and, finding his hometownrather small and dull, came to Los Angeleswhen he was twenty. Having seen so manyHollywood movies, he expected to find thelandscape littered with skyscrapers andeveryone living in apartment buildings, andwith his arrival in Los Angeles in 1963 themisconception was quickly dispelled. Afterattending Los Angeles City College for a year,he transferred to the Los Angeles Trade-Technical College where he studied adver-tising art from 1966 to 1968 and simultaneouslytook evening and weekend classes at theOtis Art lnstitute. Then, according to the artist:

I had my fitst commercîal art iob, and th¡sblew my head olÍ. I couldn't belìeve íf-tñosedeadlines and everything. Like, every iobI did you had to put down the statting timeand the ending time too. So I dropped out otthat and went to Chouinard.

When asked about those artists whom heconsidered as an influence on his own work,Hammons replied that he had taken a drawingclass with Charles White at the Otis Artlnstitute in Los Angeles because:

I never knew therc were'black' palnters, orarfists, or anything until I found out about him

-which was maybe three yearc ago.There'sno way I could have got the inlormatìon inmy att h¡story c/asses. lt's like I just lound outa couple ot yearc ago about Negro cowboys,and I was shocked aboutthat,¿

ln a more recent interview, Hammons statedof White:

He's the only artist that I really rclaled îoöecause he is black and I am black, plusphysically seeing him and know¡ng him. Like,he's the Íirst and only artist that I've everrcally met who had any rcal stature. And ¡ustbeing in the same rcom w¡th someone likethat you'd have to be dircctly intluenced.t

Before he studied with Charles White,David Hammons had become familiar with thesenior artist's work through exhibitions andreproductions. He was especially drawn toWhite's figures with their exaggeratedgestures, often enlarged hands, and generallyunsmiling visages which, for Hammons,possess an "agonized" look:

ln most ol Charles White's art there aren'ttoo many people smiling, and I like that in histhings. There's always an agon¡zed kindof look, I think, because there arcn't many

pleasant lhings ¡n his pasf. He's gone lhrougha lot oÍ Hell. I know he has.

Unlike White's pictures, which over the yearshave presented an heroic, idealized, andseemingly timeless panorama of humanity, theimages in David Hammons' "body prints"appear to capture a single moment in time,as if, in many instances, they have been frozenin actual movement. Hammons has statedthat he prefers to create his art without anymessage at all, feeling that messages areaesthetically restrictive.e Nevertheless, he isdeeply affected by the events of our times:

I just can't sit down with something politicalin mind and tty to make something.l can'twork like that. . . . l'm still political at times,but I don't want to be; but there arc somany political issues fhaf come up, and . . .they bother me.

Contemporary events have already influencedHammons' art which, on occasion, doesseem to have political and/or social overtones.An example is Black First, American Secondwhich results from the artist's belief thatan American Negro for the sake of personalsurvival must consider himself first as aNegro and second as an American. Otherworks by Hammons, such as lnjustice Case,refer to civil liberties abuses and politicalinjustices. More often, however, Hammons'pictures border on the surreal. This is trueof C/ose Your Eyes and See Black wherevarious imprints of the artist's body arerepeated and formally integrated to createa new vision which seems to inhabit theworld of art alone.

The monotype technique, originated byG. B. Castiglione in the seventeenth century,was widely employed during the nineteenthcentury by many notable artists ¡ncludingWhistler, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, andDegas. A traditional monotype or monoprintis a single, unique impression made from animage which has been painted or drawn, oftenwith printers' ink or oil paint, on a hard surfacesuch as glass, wood, or metal. The actual printis achieved by placing a sheet of paper on thedrawn image and then either running thepaper and the "plate" through a press or, asone does for a woodblock print, rubbingthe paper from behind to pr¡nt the image.Like monoprints, Hammons' picturesare unique works of art. But, contrary lothe traditional monotype technique, his"body prints" employ powdered pigmentsrather than oil paint or printers' ink, andthe actual "plate" from which the artistprints is his own pliable body insteadof a hard surface.

"l draw a lot f rom live models," Hammonsrecently stated, "because I'm really surprisedhow much it helps when I make 'bodyprints.' That's what I really love-drawing the

nude, and I've been doing this for about

eight years now." Even so, he does not make

a preliminary sketch for his prints, preferringto work directly on the smooth surface ofillustration board which he finds especiallyresponsive. As a preliminary step to "printing,"the art¡st lightly coats his body, his clothing,and even his hair with margarine, havingfirst selected the fabrics that he wearsaccording to their physical structure:

I generally fry fo use corduroy in all ol mythings because ol the textwes it produces.Thaf s why I like to use my wile's lacetablecloths, since the'body print' techniqueseerns fo rccrcate evety thrcad.

The artist has stated that in some of hispictures he has been able to reproduce even

the veins in his body and the textureof his skin.

Having fírst coated with margarine thosesurfaces that he will "print," Hammons nextpresses his clothing and his body againstthe illustration board which he places eitheron the floor or on the wall depending onthe intensity of the image he desires.A lighter impression is produced when thepaper support is placed against the wallsince this position enables Hammonsto more easily control the pressure ofhis margarine-coated surfaces.One of the many difficulties involved in theproduction of "body prints" is the hazard ofsmudging the picture while it is beingproduced. This is especially the case whenHammons creates his images on the floor:

When I lie down on the paper whìch is lirstplaced on the lloor, I have to careîully decidehow to get up altù I have made the impressíonthat I want. Somefimes I lie there lor perhapsthrce minutes ot even longet ¡ust Íiguringout how I can get oll the papü withoutsmudging the image that l'm trying to print.

Once he has physically disentangled himselffrom the illustration board, Hammons siftspowdered pigments through a strainer to makea fine mist that completely covers the workstill in process. As the fine pigment slowlydescends like a cloud of dust, the coloris captured more intensely in those areasof the paper which have absorbed the"printed" margarine film. Simultaneously,the "unprinted" background of the paperoften acquires a slight haze of color.This situation occurred in lniustice Casewhere the artist chose to erase thebackground around the "printed" image.However, when Hammons employscertain types of illustration board, suchas the black board used in Sfars on Sleeveand Black First, American Second, thewhite powdered pigment does not adhereto the background to any noticeabledegree, and, therefore, it is not necessaryfor him to erase the background.

8

Like the pastel drawings of other art¡sts,Hammons' "body prints" are sprayed with afixative. But, unlike most pastel drawingswhich have a tendency to become lessbrilliant after being so treated, the colorsof Hammons' prints, when sprayed witha fixative, tend to become more intense,especially when he uses oil-base ratherthan water-base pigments.

ln many of his pictures, particularly thosein which he utilizes the image of the Americanflag, Hammons combines "body printing"and the silkscreen technique:

! always do the 'body pünt' f¡tst. Then I decidewhere the image oÍ the llag will be.l mustprint in lhls seguence because the'body pilnt'technique is so uncertain as to how itwill actually turn out.

What is remarkable in his works is thesuperior formal and aesthet¡c unity that he

is able to achieve while integrating twotechniques. From a distance such works asSfars on S/eeve and Black First, AmericanSecond appear to have been producedby a single method of printmaking.

For David Hammons one of the mainenjoyments of his craft is the elementof "surprise":

That's why I love pilnl¡ng, because therc'sa surprise. You really can't lell what you'vegot until you litt up the paper. You know,in painting you work w¡th ¡t, and you seethe resu/fs as you are working so that you

can't really see lñe p¡cture when you'refínished with it unless you put ¡t away lora month or so. Then you can look at yourpainting again and see it frcm a d¡tlercntangle. And 'body pt¡nting' is no difterent aslar as the element of surprise is concerned.Especially when I use cloth that I havewrapped around mysell. I had no ideaoriginally that all those wrinkles and allfhose folds would actually turn out lÌkethat. I ¡ust couldn't believe it. I still can'tbelieve what I see sometimes.

Hammons is constantly impelled to seeknew means of expression. His most recentworks have begun the rather complexinvestigations of multiple colors in a single"body print;" and he is, at present,considering working on a grand scale "wherethe artist is so small in relation to hiswork - like an architect looking up at a hugebuilding that he designed." lt was originallythis same sort of adventurous searchfor new imagery that led David Hammonsto develop the "body print" into a

significant graph¡c expression.

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Timothy Washington

I am deating with message art: it Ís informativeand rclates to a postet in that it givesinlormation. However, I want lhe inlormat¡onto be discovered; thereÍore the messagers subt/e. I tty to ask quesfions and make theviewer think and ¡n turn look closet.

I leel that there are no shortcuts in lile,We have to stop and gather up bits olknowledge as we go atong, to lorm a total.My separate, dìrect strokes-each lineis an eÍto¡t to lorm a whole.

I am not try¡ng to change sociely but crcatean awareness, because awareness cancurb or change rcact¡ons in the luture.

I am also concerned with bringing peopleback to naturc. I tty to make people awareot plant and animal lile.

I use simpte slrapes because moden societytrends deal toward simplicity. The ovalLcircularl eyes are because they can capturcseveral goals, bel¡els, norms, andmysteries.They have a tendency to leavean imprint on your brain, or an altetimage. I am concerned with the eltect mywork leaves on people and theirrcactions. Each piece says someth¡ng,whether tor or against the establ¡shment.

Technology has advanced, and I want towork w¡th a materíal fhat says 'today.'I stailed workíng with aluminum becauseI wanted to work on a cold material.It is a challenge to crcate warmth lroma cold, hard material.e

Timothy Washington was born in the Wattsarea of Los Angeles in 1946. He relatesthat when he was in the third grade at theVirginia Road Elementary School andwas working on a mural with the otherstudents he had his first chance to reallyexpress himself through art. Accordingto Washington:

For some rcason most oÍ the other kidsin the class weren't loo ¡ntercsted in doingthe mutal, and so I had to do mostot it. Surprisingly, the resf of fhe c/asswas vety much ¡mprcssed.to

Following this auspicious beginningWashington found himself in Mt. VernonJunior High School and later in DorseyHigh School. By the twelfth grade he recallsthat, "l was the only one who had LifeDrawing Vll or Vlll or whatever it was.

Nearly everyone else in the class wastaking Life Drawing I or ll." As a senior in

high school, he won a scholarshiP tothe Chouinard Art School. This he renewedfor four years until he graduated witha B.F.A. degree in 1969. While the artist wasstill attending Chouinard, his style wasrapidly acquiring its now distinctive mark.

He was even then "redesigning" thehuman figure. "l would change the way I sawthings," he related, "to give the picturemore visual impact." And, in the latter partof 1967 a class assignment was giventhat was to change the course ofWashington's future:

I was in c/ass, and our problem was to dosomething that we would consider verypersonal. And I think it was the vety same daythat I went home and found lhat I wasreclassilied f ot the dtalt as 1-A. So, I knewthat I was going to make somethingrelating to the army or war. lwanted towork on a subslance that was cold and hard,and I thought of aluminum as a materialthat I would l¡ke to wotk on. The lirst piece thatI did on aluminum was a triptych which was'a social commentaty against wars.

A technique present in the artist's firstaluminum picture is still found in his laterworks. Washington initially sprays asheet of aluminum with enamel paint andthen carefully scratches the plate withan etching needle. Most artists wouldconsider this a "dry-point" technique,would ink the resultant plate, and wouldprint from it. This, however, is not thecase for Timothy Washington though heis fully aware that he could print frommany of these engraved plates:

But I also teel that it I tried to prínt fromthem they would lose a grcat deal. I like themas they exist right now without ttyingto print frcm them, because papet says a

cettain thing to me, and aluminum saysanothet, and to pilnt on paper would takeaway trom the luminous qualÍty youhave in aluminum.

Washington is no stranger to traditionalprintmaking, having practiced etching,dry-point, and silkscreen techniques, buteven as a student he discovered:

When I had an etching class,the plateseemed much more lascinating to me thanthe print itselt. And lwondered aboutboundaries in art. Why should the plate beconsidered someth¡ng fo use to make a

paper pilnt when I loved the plate so muchmore? The plate said so much moreto me because ¡t had me within it.

lgnoring artificial boundaries in art,Washington has created many recentdry-point engravings on aluminum panelswhich combine with other materialsto create complex pictorial collages. RawTruth, Why Povetty? and Gñefto are allexamples of his efforts to combine variousmedia. Faw frufh integrates a sculpturalsection of a wooden yoke for cattle intoa composition of a standing figure and anexquisitely drawn cow. Why Poverty?

F

incorporates an actual wheel of a child'swagon ¡nto the physical structure ofthe picture. Gheflo is still another exampleof the artist's juxtaposition of differentmaterials-in this case leather against metal.The figure in this picture is that of awoman whose extended left arm holdsa rat and from whose neck protrudesthe head of a cat. The woman's hair is madefrom a ragged leather baseball m¡tt.ln talking about his mixed-media pieces,Washington stated:

ln these works there's a large amount ol handsanding and consttuction. ln some pieces/lke Exist I have f o¡med the metal itsell. Thatwhole piece was aluminum, and I sandedand worked back and lorth and shapedfñe breasfs with a hammer, And in muchol my wotk therc are some arcas thatarc otten painted on, and there are alsoso many applications of othet materialsthat I don't think they can really becalled drawings ot even given a speciliclabel because they seem to go so muchbeyond any speciÍic categoty.

Even when Washington's dry-point engravingsincorporate sculptural elements, theyremain unquestionably pictorial becausethere is always a sense of containment.This stems largely from the artist's respectfor the framing edge of his pictures.ln describing his collage-approach to hismetal engravings, Washington said :

/f seems to me that it you ¡ncotporatedifterent media into one work, the visualimpact will be greater because you beginto see îorm. AIso, I can incoryotate thedilferences ol the cold metal and the warmthot leathet. I Íeel that by using all ot thesemateilals it will, hopetully,'pull the viewer in.'Jusf as therc arc dillerences in liletoday, I teel that some of tåese diflercncescan be applied to att.

This artist has chosen to work with the figurebecause it allows him to communicatemore easily with his audience. He considershis role as a creator to require him tocomment on issues and events of the presentand the past. This he does as gently aspossible because one of his basic premisesis that most people "resent being toldanything" and have a better chance ofre-examining their thinking if they canmake their own discoveries. He believesthat by referring subtly in his picturesto present and past events he will createmessages with a timeless quality:

Often,l comment about things of the past,but I try to bring things up to date ina manner which will be signilicant tor today,although the event itself may haveoccurred in |he past. I belìeve that somethinglike the Bible may talk about things

of the past, but ¡t also has messages tåafcan be relaled to today.

Washington's pictures also employ highlypersonal symbols. For example, the cattle yokeincorporated into r9aw frufh representsto him an aspect of the past which can bere-interpreted in our own time. Contemporarysociety is represented in this work bya f igure which is bending a stick:

I teel that a given society or the systemthat we lìve in can only bear a certain amountof pressure beîore it breaks down.That's why ln Raw Truth there is the bendingol the stick. The cow in relation to thefigure applies to lile itselt and its relationshipto knowledge. The cow demands a certainamount ol rcspons¡b¡l¡ty, and ¡n rcturn we getmílk trom it. fåls ís a give-and-take situat¡onwh¡ch lfeel should be applied to lile.

That the highly personal content ofWashington's works is somewhat elusivedoes not disturb the artist who feels that ifhis work stimulates thought of any kind,it has succeeded. For those persons whoknow and love the graphic arts-especiallywhen they utilize highly accomplishedand sophisticated draftsmanship-TimothyWashington's enigmatic pictures shouldeasily provide the aesthetic stimulation andenjoyment which we experience from muchof the signif icant graphic art of the past.

Joseph E. Young

Notes

rCharles White, "Wanted Poster Series,"portfolio of drawings (Los Angeles:Heritage Gallery,'l 970).

2Benjamin Horowitz, "lmages of Dignity:The Drawings of Charles White," inCharles White Drawings (Washington, D.C.:Howard University, 1967) p. 9.

zlbid. p.14.

¡Unless otherw¡se cited, all remarks by theartist are from an interview with the author onDecember 16, 1970.

sStatement prepared by David Hammonsespecially for this catalog.

6Joseph E. Young, "Los Angeles," Art lnter-national, XIV (October 20,1970), p.74.

TAll statements by David Hammons in thisessay are taken from interviews theartist granted the author on May 2, 1970and December 28,1970. Portions ofthe first interview have been published in"Los Angeles," Att Internat¡onal, XIV(October 20, 1970), p. 7 4.

elbid. p.74.

eStatement prepared by Timothy Washingtonespecially for this caialog.

toUnless otherwise cited, all remarks bythe artist are from an interview with the authoron December 26,1970.

10

J'ACCUSE #5, 1966Charcoal drawing, 50" x 36"Lent by Dr. and Mrs. Ernst Plesset

Charles White

INJUSTICE CASE, 1970Mixed-media, 63" x 4gyr"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

12

David Hammons

ONE NATION UNDER GOD, 1970Engraving on aluminum and added color,35" x48"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

Timothy Washington

13

aCatalog Listing

Charles White

1 ROOTS,1964lnk drawing, 36V2" x53Vz"Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Payson Wolff

2 NOW I LAY DOWN MY HEAVY LOAD,1964Chinese ink,47V2" x28"Lent by Mr. and Mrs. lsaac D. Sinaike

3 MICAH, 1964Linocut, 48" x39"Lent by Mr. and Mrs. George Slaff

4 I'M ON MY WAY TO CANAAN, 1964

Charcoal drawing, 51" x40"Private Collection, Los Angeles

5 SATURDAY'S CHILD, 1965lnk drawing, 671/2" x 41V2"Lent by Dr. and Mrs. Stanley Hoffman

6 J',ACCUSE #1, 1966Charcoal drawing, 50" x 36"Lent by Dr. and Mrs. Bertram V. Karpf

7 J'ACCUSE #2, 1966Charcoal drawing, 34" x24"Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Jack L. Stein

I J'ACCUSE #5, 1966Charcoal drawing, 50" x 36"Lent by Dr. and Mrs. Ernst Plesset

9 J'ACCUSE #7,1966Charcoal drawing, 48" x 60"Lent by Mrs. Lee Graff

10 J'ACCUSE #8, 1966Charcoal drawing, 42tt x511/2"Lent by Mr. Lawrence Roberts

11 PAPER SHELTER,1967Mixed-media drawing, 48" x60"Lent by Mr. and Mrs. William Cosby, Jr.

12 I HAVE A DREAM SERIES #3, 1968Charcoal drawing, 48" x60"Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Edwin H. Seigel

13 r HAVE A DREAM SERTES #5, 1968Charcoal drawing, 15" x153/t"Lent by Mr. and Mrs. lrving Monarch

14 SEED OF LOVE, 1969lnk drawing, 51" x 36"Los Angeles County Museum of Art,Museum Acquisition Fund

15 WANTED POSTER SERTES #7,1970Oil drawing, 38" x48"Lent by Heritage Gallery, Los AngelesForum Gallery, New York

WANTED POSTER SERIES #10, 1970Oil drawing, 40" x 60"Lent by Dr. and Mrs. Edmund W. Gordon

WANTED POSTER SERIES #16, 1970Oil drawing, 60" x40"Lent by Dr. and Mrs. William C. Wright

WANTED POSTER SERIES #17,1971Oil drawing, 60" x 30"Lent by Heritage Gallery, Los Angeles

David Hammons

EAST SIDE WEST SIDE, 1969Body print, 40" x30"Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Andy Bookman

A CRY FROM THE INSIDE, 1969Body print, 3O" x40"Lent by Bettye Saar

MAN IN GRASS, 1970Body print, 52" x34"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

MULTI-COLORED FIGURE, 1 970Body print, 40" x32"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

BLACK FIRST, AMERICAN SECOND, 1970

Body print and silkscreen, 40" x30"Collection of the Artist

DRINKER, 1970Body print, 40" x3O"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

CLOSE YOUB EYES AND SEE BLACK,1970Body print, 37" x26"Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo Davis

STARS ON SLEEVE, 1970Body print and silkscreen,28" x19"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

BLUE FEMALE FIGURE, 1970Body print, 60" x 40"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

SEXY SUE,1970Body print, 60" x 40"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

INJUSTICE CASE, 1970Mixed-media, 63" x 401/2"

Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

SPADE,1970Body print and silkscreen, S3th" x35Vc"Lent by Mr. Alan Sieroty

Timothy Washi.ngton

31 INTRODUCTION TO LIFE, 1969Engraving on aluminum, 36" x 36"Lent by Dr. and Mrs. George Sealy

32 INTRODUCTORY TITLE, 1969Engraving on aluminum, 36" x 36"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

33 RAW TRUTH, 1970Mixed-media, 35" x 35"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

34 EXtST,1970Mixed-media, 35" x 35"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

35 INQUISITIVE PRESENTATION, 1970Engraving on aluminum, 30" x20"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

36 PRECAUTION, 1970Engraving on aluminum, 35" x 35"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

37 WHY POVERTY?, 1970Mixed-media, 36" x 36"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

38 PARAKEETS,.I9TOEngraving on aluminum, 35" x 35"Los Angeles County Museum of Art,Museum Acquisition Fund

39 ONE NATION UNDER GOD, 1970Engraving on aluminum and added color,35" x48"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

40 GHETTO,1970Mixed-media, 35" x 35"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

41 LIBERTY,1971Engraving on aluminum, 35" x 35"Lent by Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles

16

17

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Los Angeles County Museum of Art

January 26, 1971- March 7, 1971

Santa Barbara Museum of Art

March 20,1971-April 18, 1971