Dragon
© Estate of Hale Woodruff / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
At a time and place—New York City in the 1950s—when the style of painting called Abstract Expressionism had more to do with the gestural movements of the artist’s brushstrokes and emotions than it did with portraying an appreciable subject matter, Woodruff diverged. He was influenced by African sculpture, textiles, and folklore—things he had been introduced to and began collecting as a student of Modernism in Paris, France. In Dragon, Woodruff references the mythical creature that appears universally in folklore around the world. Perhaps best known in Asia and Europe, dragons are also seen in African mythologies, tribal stories, and religions, where a serpent-like dragon is often used to tell the creation story. A dragon can also be a figure that brings about death. Woodruff’s talent and curiosity took him around the world and placed him amidst multiple modernist artists, including Henry Ossawa Tanner, Diego Rivera, Franz Kline, and Jackson Pollock. In 1963, Woodruff, along with Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, and Norman Lewis, founded Spiral, the African American artistcollective.
Exhibition Title: Asheville Art Museum: An Introduction to the Collection
Label Date: 2021
Type: Catalogue Entry
Written by: Whitney Richardson
- Intersections in American Art , 9/11/2019 - 00/00/00
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