Oil on cotton canvas, 1965. 724x1257 mm; 28 1/2x49 1/2 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower right.
Provenance: acquired at Toomey Auctions, Chicago, private collection, Pennsylvania (2015).
This vibrant oil painting displays Wadsworth Jarrell's interest in music and a figurative art that reflected the lives of the African American community before the founding of AfriCOBRA. Born and raised in Albany, Georgia, Jarrell served in the US Army during the Korean War. Upon his return, Jarrell enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he focused on commercial art and design, earning his BFA in 1958. Staying in Chicago, Jarrell's focus moved from commercial art to fine art, and he became a part of the growing creative Black community on the city's South Side. There, he became acquainted with fellow artists and future AfriCOBRA co-founders Jeff Donaldson, Gerald Williams, Barbara Jones-Hogu, and his future spouse Jae.
Wadsworth Jarrell developed an early interest in painting dense but dynamic scenes of crowded jazz clubs and bar scenes, based on his sketches at these nightspots. In 1964, his watercolor The Art Pub was accepted to the Art Institute of Chicago exhibition "Second Biennial of Prints, Drawings, Watercolors By Illinois Artists" and his career began to grow. By 1965, Jarrell developed brighter and bolder color combinations while his figuration became more expressive. Jarrell's painting had entered this mature period before the 1968 founding of AfriCOBRA.
