Abner & Alleane

Artist Gerald Williams (American, born 1941)

Date1975

MediumAcrylic on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 33 1/4 × 29 5/8 inches (84.46 × 75.25 cm)
Framed: 36 1/2 × 32 7/8 × 2 3/8 inches (92.71 × 83.5 × 6.03 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the George H. and Elizabeth O. Davis Fund

Object number2019.7

SignedAt bottom left corner in red paint: “GerW”

On View

Not on view

Collections

Contemporary Art

Terms

DescriptionAbner and Alleane is a vertically-oriented portrait of a man and a woman that is also a highly abstracted composition of vibrant colors from across the spectrum, deployed in a manner that is not naturalistic. The man’s face and shoulders are in the upper right corner of the canvas, and the woman’s face and shoulders are just to the left of and below the center of the canvas. Abstract shapes and designs cover the canvas and are layered on top of and between each other. Smaller shapes coalesce to form the features of the sitters’ faces while larger zigzags, circles, triangles and other shapes fill the space around them. Touching bases of several triangles painted in red, green, blue, orange, and pink are lined up to form an arc that swoops downward from one end at the upper left of the picture, then moves back up to meet the right edge of the canvas. This arc sits under the faces and shoulders of the sitters.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

M.F.A. thesis exhibition, Howard University, Washington, D.C., 1976.

Gerald Williams, Kavi Gupta, Chicago, IL, September–November 2017.

AFRICOBRA 50, Kavi Gupta, Chicago, IL, September–October 2018.

American African American, Phillips Auctioneers, New York, January 10–February 8, 2019, no. 10.

Gallery Label

Gerald Williams

American, born 1941

Abner & Alleane, 1975

Acrylic on canvas

Gerald Williams is a founder of AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), an artists’ collective founded on the South Side of Chicago in the late 1960s. AfriCOBRA sought to counter negative representations of African Americans and emphasize that “Black is Beautiful.”

Here, Williams used principles of the AfriCOBRA manifesto, including an emphasis on “the abstract and the concrete” and “Coolade colors for coolade images for superreal people,” to create a vibrant painting of his parents.

Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the George H. and Elizabeth O. Davis Fund, 2019.7

Provenance

The artist, Chicago, 1975–March 8, 2019 [1];

Purchased from the artist, through Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago and Phillips Auctioneers, New York, by The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, March 8, 2019.

NOTES:

[1] While Abner & Alleane remained in the artist’s legal possession during this period, he left it with his parents Abner and Alleane Williams from November of 1977 until the death of Abner in 2005. The artist’s sister then took possession of the painting from 2005 until June 29, 2017, when it was transferred to Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago (which represents Gerald Williams) in advance of their exhibition of Williams’ work from September to November of 2017. Kavi Gupta has maintained possession of the work since that date. On Williams’ behalf, they consigned Abner & Alleane at Phillips at the time of the Nelson Atkins purchase.

Published References

Philip Barcio, Gerald Williams, exh. cat. (Chicago, IL: Kavi Gupta, 2017).

American African American (New York: Phillips, 2019), no. 10 (repro.).

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