Oil on canvas, circa 1948-50. 457x406 mm; 18x16 inches. Signed in ink on the verso, upper edge.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; private collection.
This charming painting is a scarce example of Haywood "Bill" Rivers's brief but celebrated late 1940s figurative period. Influenced by Horace Pippen, Rivers recalls a strong female figure from his quilt-making family in Morven, NC. He left his family as a young teen and moved to Baltimore; he later moved to New York and studied at the Art Students League from 1946-48. In 1949, Rivers left for Paris and joined the cooperative Galerie Huit. He then studied at the École du Louvre in Paris from 1950-52. Rivers went on to receive many awards for his work, including the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in 1948 and the John Hay Whitney Fellowship in 1952. His two solo exhibitions--in 1948, at the Baltimore Museum of Fine Art, and in 1983 at the Ann Weber Gallery in Georgetown, ME--bookend a long, distinguished career. Today, his works are in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art and La Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris. The Baltimore Museum's The Drape Maker and Tailor Shop, both acquired from his 1948 exhibition, were included in the 2009-10 traveling museum exhibition, A Force for Change: African American Art and the Rosenwald Fund.
