Robert Colescott (1925-2009)

At the Bathers' Pool: Inter-racial Blues

Details

Robert Colescott (1925-2009)
At the Bathers' Pool: Inter-racial Blues
signed and dated 'R Colescott 84' (lower left); signed again, titled, inscribed and dated again '"AT THE BATHERS' POOL: INTER-RACIAL BLUES" Oct. 1984 Robert Colescott San Francisco' (on the stretcher)
acrylic on canvas
84 x 71 ¾ in. (213.4 x 182.2 cm.)
Painted in 1984.

Provenance

Semaphore Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1986

Literature

C. Berwick, "The Most Erotic Artworks," ARTnews, 1 January 2004 (illustrated).

Exhibited

New York, Semaphore Gallery, At the Bathers' Pool, 1985 (illustrated on the exhibition announcement).
San Jose Museum of Art, Robert Colescott: A Retrospective, 1975-1986, April-May 1987, pp. 8, 21 and 31, fig. 26 (illustrated).

Lot Essay

"I thought about Cezanne's bathers and Matisse's bathers, and thought I would do some bathers. They're about competing standards of beauty, and also about the intrusion of the white world on a black world. It also poses the idea of a beauty parade. […] And it refers to 'The Demoiselles d'Avignon.'" –Robert Colescott

At the Bathers' Pool: Inter-racial Blues

Lot Essay

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