Oil on canvas mounted to board, 1970. 939x1219 mm; 37x48 inches. Signed and dated "1/20/70" in oil, lower right.
Provenance: the estate of Edward and Bettiann Gardner, Chicago.
Chicago's great mural artist, Don McIlvaine is known for his large street paintings of everyday struggles. Born in Washington, DC, he attended Sunday morning art classes as a youth with Loïs Mailou Jones. She later assisted him in getting a scholarship to study at Howard University. After studying at the Corcoran Art School and the Newark Academy of Art, McIlvaine moved to Chicago in 1957. Working with youth in his Lawndale neighborhood, he elevated mural art to national attention in 1969-1970 with six dynamic and politically-conscious street paintings. Interviewed for a 1970 Time magazine article about diversity in visual art, he declared, "People decorate the street because that's where their life is." His mural, Black Man's Dilemma, is illustrated in the 2000 publication Walls of Heritage/Walls of Pride: African-American Murals.
