Molded and painted acrylic, in six parts, 1974. Each module 775x705x165 mm; 30½x27¾x6½ inches. Assembled approximately 1626x3048 mm; 64x120 inches. Etched signature on the side of four modules.
Provenance The artist, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Acquired directly from the artist. Private collection, Cleveland, Ohio (2017).
Hazard created a series of hand-molded and spray-painted acrylic sculptures in the early 1970s that he variously called the "Modular Series," the "Sculpture Series," or the "Sweet Dreams Series." Hazard's plastic works, akin to other 1970s California avant-garde sculptures made of unconventional materials, were exhibited nationally at the time, including in the exhibitions Blacks: USA, curated by Benny Andrews for the New York Cultural Center, 1973, and California Black Artists, mounted at the Studio Museum in Harlem, 1977. Art historian and artist Samella Lewis described and illustrated a color-variant of Sweet Dreams in her seminal 1978 African American art history textbook Art: African American.
Hazard told the owner of this work that it is obliquely referencing Catholic church architectural layouts as well as, what the artist called, "sexy forms." The present work (in an alternate color configuration using many of the exact elements in the present lot) was exhibited in Hazard's retrospective exhibitions at the Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, Atrium of State of California Building, Oakland, 2009, and at the University of New Mexico in 2014. The titled of both retrospectives was "Sweet Dreams." The present lot is a unique work, and no other Hazard works that use these design elements in this configuration were made.
Multi-media artist, professor, activist, and arts administrator, Hazard was born in Newport, Rhode Island, and moved to Harlem, New York to live with his aunt after the passing of his mother. He joined the United States Air Force as a sign painter and was stationed in California after completing high school. After his Air Force service, he received his BFA with distinction from the California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland, and completed his MFA from the University of California, Berkeley.
Living in Oakland in the late 1960s, Hazard was inspired by the Black Arts Movement which led him to execute works rooted in the Black experience. One of his seminal works Medal of Honor (1967), was included in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's iteration of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983.
Throughout his career he taught at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; University of Texas, Austin; University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; Merritt and Laney Colleges; and the University of Nevada, Reno, where he was the first full-time Black faculty member in 1969-70 at the age of 29. Hazard went on to become the first Black Curator, Special Exhibits and Education for the Oakland Museum from 1970-81.
Hazard was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the Institute of Museum Service Board in Washington, DC, and sat on panels for the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. From 2011-2016, while on the faculty at the University of New Mexico, he was commissioned to execute monuments to the Tuskegee Airmen, Navajo Code Talkers, and the Buffalo Soldiers, at New Mexico Veteran's Memorial in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2009 he was commissioned to create a portrait of President Barack Obama and his family, which, was displayed in the family quarters of the Obama White House.
