Details:

This painting envisions an intimate scene from the daily life of a significant historical figure. The artist’s masterful use of the medium—including piles of paint and a range of techniques—guides viewers' eyes while allowing them to create their own interpretation.
Framed: 26.0 x 26.0 x 2.2 in.
Signed

① Artwork:

Frederick Douglass Appealing to Lincoln

Part of a series, this painting envisions an intimate scene from the daily life of a significant historical figure. Each composition in the series depicts a private space, such as an artist's studio, a quiet gallery or a US President’s office. The artist's light and airy compositions establish the figures' relationships—from tension to endearment, while the artist’s masterful use of the medium guides viewers' eyes while allowing them to create their own interpretation.

Bradford's paintings employ a wide range of formal techniques that the artist perfected over an active painting life of over 50 years, including: graphic tonalities and intense chromatic colors; palette knife scrapes and hits; bangs and touches of his brush and fingers; and, above all, piles and piles of paint. Bradford uses techniques to create his own brand of personal American chronicles that glorify the ephemeral nuances of air, light and space. 

About his work, Bradford says: "I employ violent scraping, palette knifing, dabbing, dripping, reducing, tearing apart, cutting through and building up so the paint overwhelms with something very specific, yet distantly remembered from somewhere else. This process of abstracting and excavating these oft-told American histories simultaneously asserts my formal, absolute control of the surface and allows me to retreat from the field. At the end of the process, I want to leave an open space to enjoy in which different takes, sensibilities and meanings can live."  

Specs:

24 inches
24 inches
with frame
26 inches
26 inches
2.25 inches
26 inches

③ Artist:

John Bradford

John Bradford controls the surface of his abstracted paintings to create an open space where different takes, sensibilities and meanings can exist simultaneously. The artist employs a wide range of formal techniques perfected over a 50-year active painting life—including graphic tonalities, intense chromatic colors, palette knife scrapes, and hits, bangs and touches made with both brush and fingers and, above all, his signature use of piles and piles of paint. Bradford uses these techniques to create his own brand of personal American chronicles that glorifies the ephemeral nuances of air, light and space.

BIO:

John Bradford was born in Wilmington, Delaware in 1949. The artist received a BFA from Cooper Union in New York City in 1971 and an MFA from Yale University School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut in 1978.

Solo exhibitions of Bradford’s work have taken place at: Anna Zorina Gallery in New York City; Claryville Art Center in New York City; Bowery Gallery in New York City; and 55 Mercer Gallery in New York City; among others. The artist’s work has been shown nationally in numerous group exhibitions.

Bradford is the 2011 recipient of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Painting. 

Bradford’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, New York Magazine, New Criterion, ArtNews, Village Voice, The Jewish Press and Hudson Review.

Bradford lives and works in Leonia, New Jersey.

John Bradford:
Frederick Douglass Appealing to Lincoln, 2020
Acrylic, oil on canvas
24.0 × 24.0 inches /