he really is one of America's premier
modernists you know you want to be a
part of this nightclub in Paris or a
nightclub in Chicago you want to be
drinking at 1:00 a.m. and dancing and
having a wonderful time I like to call
Molly
the painter laureate of the black modern
cityscape when we talk about Archibald
motley we're talking about an artist
that is aesthetically a part of a
particular moment in time the early to
mid 20th century our Jubal Mata is a
product of the Art Institute of Chicago
and that school was a renowned school
for educating students to the rules of
color of composition of light of just
all of the things that a good artist
knew and as Picasso said you had to know
the rules in order to break the rules
and blues is a good example of Archibald
motley not only knowing how to paint in
an academic traditional way but then
improvising on that having fun with that
altering it pushing and pulling so that
you have these Reds against whites you
have these Blues against Pink's in fact
he's pushed against basic notions of
representational ISM they are literally
people of color they they have pink
skins they have magenta skins they have
blue black skins and and and so
Archibald motley as I said knows the
rules and breaks the rules in order to
make a major modern artistic statement
he adopted a style that's much broader
in some ways much less academic in
nature and and you see it in blues which
is right behind me here he is choosing
to paint in this style because we know
from his portraits that he was a master
painter so I think that this choice that
he made to sort of break with academic
convention was a way of approaching
different audiences there was a review
done
of blues in Chicago in the early 30s and
the reviewer who was based here in
Chicago was kind of taken aback that
Archibald motley would be so brazen to
take on a subject so risque and at the
same time give it the seriousness of
heart and so while there are
transgressive elements in these works
that that perhaps rubbed very very
snooty people the wrong way I think many
people vicariously were delighted and
excited by the idea that here is an
artist who takes on this subject and
doesn't just do it in a in a simplistic
way but does it in a serious way treats
it serious and raises it to the level of
a major modern artistic statement
you