Robert Colescott
born Oakland, California, 1925; died Tucson, Arizona, 2009
Colescott traveled to Egypt in 1964, a trip that had an important impact on his work. By the late 1960s, he had relocated to California and was earning critical acclaim for depictions of the African American experience through ironic retellings of history and art history taking well-known images and changing white figures to Black. In the 1980s he embarked on another major series of history paintings recording forgotten or erased contributions of African Americans. Toward the end of his career, his works became increasingly abstract.
Colescott’s work has been exhibited and collected internationally. Among his many extraordinary accomplishments, he was the first African American artist to represent the United States in a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1997. Additionally, he received numerous grants, including a Guggenheim Foundation grant, and National Endowment for the Arts Award.
[source: Portland Art Museum, TAM library]
Person TypeIndividual
Terms
- Oakland
- Tucson
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