Oil and enamel paint on cotton canvas, circa 1970. 610x457 mm; 24x18 inches. Initialed in ink, upper right recto. Signed in ink, verso.
Provenance: private collection.
Born in Atlanta, GA, Gloria Bohanon received a BS in Art Education in 1962, and a MA in Art Education in 1968 from Wayne State University. She also attended Los Angeles City College and California State College in Los Angeles. Bohanon was very much a part of the Los Angeles art scene by 1970; that year she had both a solo exhibition at Alonzo and Dale Davis's Brockman Gallery, was part of Suzanne Jackson's Gallery 32 important exhibition Sapphire Show. She was included in Samella Lewis and Ruth Waddy's 1971 survey Black Artists on Art, Volume 2. Kellie Jones notes that Bohanon also was included in the exhibition Black Mirror, organized by Betye Saar, the first devoted to women of color at Womanspace, the predecessor of the Woman's Building. For thirty years, Bohanon was an influential educator as a professor of painting, printmaking and design at Los Angeles Community College. More recently, Bohanon was included in the 2009 exhibition at Loyola Marymount University Gallery 32 & Its Circle.
This is only the second painting of Gloria Bohanon's to come to auction; the first was sold in the Johnson Publishing Company Collection of African American Art, auction at Swann Galleries, January 30, 2020. .Jones p. 25; Waddy/Lewis p. 51 and 134.
