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Lot Essay
Henry Taylor's pigment laden brushstrokes perfectly encapsulate the exuberance of the artist himself. His canvases, painted in a style that has been described as "fast, loose and sensuous" by the New York Times (K. Johnson, 'A Visual Equivalent of the Blues, in Warm Shades,' The New York Times, February 2, 2012, accessed via www.nytimes.com, June 12, 2014), often include the artist's friends, art-world acquaintances and his heroes from the worlds of sports and politics.
Born in Los Angeles, he began his formal artistic training at the California Institute of Arts in 1995 when he was nearly 40 years old. With his considerable life experience, his paintings are imbued with a sense of both reality and realism, as evidenced in the laudatory reviews for his recent solo exhibition at MoMA's PS1. "He paints roughly the rough world of his own experience, but he does so with a rare spirit of generosity and love. Visual equivalents of the blues, his paintings may resemble those by an Outsider, but they also call to mind Alice Neel, Robert Colescott and Bob Thompson, among others" (Ibid.).
Born in Los Angeles, he began his formal artistic training at the California Institute of Arts in 1995 when he was nearly 40 years old. With his considerable life experience, his paintings are imbued with a sense of both reality and realism, as evidenced in the laudatory reviews for his recent solo exhibition at MoMA's PS1. "He paints roughly the rough world of his own experience, but he does so with a rare spirit of generosity and love. Visual equivalents of the blues, his paintings may resemble those by an Outsider, but they also call to mind Alice Neel, Robert Colescott and Bob Thompson, among others" (Ibid.).