Archibald biography motley
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Summary of Archibald J. Motley, Jr.
Archibald Motley captured the complexities of black, urban America in his colorful street scenes and portraits. Painting during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, Motley infused his genre scenes with the rhythms of jazz and the boisterousness of city life, and his portraits sensitively reveal his sitters' inner lives. His use of color to portray various skin tones as well as night scenes was masterful.
His depictions of modern black life, his compression of space, and his sensitivity to his subjects made him an influential artist, not just among the many students he taught, but for other working artists, including Jacob Lawrence, and for more contemporary artists like Kara Walker and Kerry James Marshall.
Accomplishments
- Motley more often cited the Old Masters such as Rembrandt and Frans Hals as his influences, and his painting of light and skin tone reflect his careful study of these artists. His paintings, though, are thoroughly modern with their sense of space and rhythm.
- At the time when writers and other artists were portraying African American life in new, positive ways, Motley depicted the complexities and subtleties of racial identity, giving his subjects a voice they had not previously had in art before. Motley's painting
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In January 2017, three years after the exhibition opened at Duke, an important painting by American modernist Archibald Motley was donated to the Nasher Museum.
Motley was 70 years old when he painted the oil on canvas, Hot Rhythm, in 1961. Hot Rhythm explores one of Motley’s favorite subjects, the jazz age. The artist loved to walk the streets of Bronzeville, a once-thriving neighborhood in Chicago’s South Side, where he would gather characters and group scenes – cabarets, street festivals and clubs informed by African American music and culture – for his paintings.
The gift came from two of the artist’s heirs, Dr. Mara Motley and Valerie Gerrard Brownein honor of Professor Richard J. Powell and C.T. Woods-Powell and in memory of Archie Motley.
“We are extremely proud to accept the gift of this dazzling painting by Archibald Motley, now recognized as one of the preeminent American artists of the 20th century,” said Sarah Schroth, Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum. “This acquisition is an endorsement of our program to champion works by artists of African descent, as we have since the museum opened in 2005. We fell in love with ‘Hot Rhythm’ while it was here during the Motley exhibition and now it’s come home. This painting is truly a crown je
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Archibald Motley
American painter
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