Chorus Lines, Rhythm & Blues: Artist Archibald J. Motley Jr.

Archibald J. Motley Jr. (1891–1981) Hot Rhythm, 1961 Oil on canvas

I think I’ve fallen in love with this art piece.

Excerpt from Nasher, Motley was 70 years old when he painted the oil on canvas, Hot Rhythm, in 1961. This painting explores one of Motley’s favorite subjects, the jazz age. The artist loved to walk the streets of Bronzeville, a once-thriving neighborhood in Chicago’s South Side, where he would gather characters and group scenes – cabarets, street festivals and clubs informed by African American music and culture – for his paintings.

“Archibald Motley was a product of the Art Institute of Chicago, and graduated from that renowned school in 1918. He knew all the rules for color, composition, light – all the things that a good artist knows,” Richard Powell said. “Hot Rhythm is a good example of how Motley painted in an academically traditional way, but then improvised on that, had fun with it.

“Hot Rhythm portrays, literally, people of color – they have pink skins, magenta skins, they have blue, black skins. Motley knows the rules and breaks them to make a major modern artistic statement.”

Sources:

Excerpt from https://nasher.duke.edu/stories/archibald-motley-hot-rhythm-1961/

Image found at link above and Google images.

The information on this web-page is for educational and research purposes.  Article entries and images are not my own. Please review sources and links above for more information. This blog post is for educational purposes only and for sharing valuable information to others interested in the arts.

Thank you.

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