Clarion Vol 7: Bob Thompson: So let us all be citizens

Curator’s note by Ebony L. Haynes. Text by Rashid Johnson

A colorful, fantastical, and musical body of work by the painter Bob Thompson

“Thompson, who finally seems to be on fame’s doorstep, invents in much the same way: he makes you feel how it might have felt to see a picture of an angel for the first time.” —The New Yorker

Influenced by jazz, Bob Thompson painted spirited, colorful compositions that feature an interplay of bodies, allegories, and natural landscapes while reconfiguring European masterworks. Though his career as a painter spanned only a brief period, from 1958 to his untimely death at age twenty-eight, Thompson left behind a singular and influential body of figurative work that remains vitally resonant. Looking at his particular consideration of color, line, and figuration—developed during a period when abstraction was the dominant trend in American art—this intimate exhibition catalogue, the seventh volume in the Clarion series, pays homage to the friction Thompson generated between his proximity to and deviation from canonical sources.

The phrase “So let us all be citizens,” taken from a speech the artist gave as a teenager, forecasted his passion for the tenets of freedom and expression, and encapsulates the power of Thompson’s work in widening the scope of what is imaginable in contemporary painting and who might engage with it. With an introduction by Ebony L. Haynes and an essay by the renowned artist Rashid Johnson, this publication expands upon Thompson’s dynamic practice and features works that spotlight his signature high-contrast palette.