Oil on linen canvas, 2014. 914x559 mm; 36x22 inches. Signed in oil, lower right recto. Signed, titled and inscribed "oil painting" and "36x22" inches in ink on the upper stretcher bar, verso.
Provenance: estate of the artist, New York.
Trilogy No. 1 is a significant and beautiful example of Eldzier Cortor's late career oil painting. It demonstrates the remarkable continuity of his practice. In the summer of 2014, at the age of 98, Cortor completed his Trilogy series of oil paintings, each a composition of a trio of women - invoking the classical subject of the three graces. The artist described this trio as the "3 goddess of art: truth, beauty and goodness."
The subject fits into Eldzier Cortor's over six decades-long series of "classical compositions" celebrating the form and beauty of African-American women. With his characteristic dense layering of brush and palette work, this composition show the influences of his study of African sculpture and 19th-century French painting. Unlike his social realist counterparts, Cortor investigated both the formalism and symbolism of the African-American female figure.
