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he really is one of America's premier

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modernists you know you want to be a

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part of this nightclub in Paris or a

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nightclub in Chicago you want to be

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drinking at 1:00 a.m. and dancing and

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having a wonderful time I like to call

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Molly

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the painter laureate of the black modern

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cityscape when we talk about Archibald

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motley we're talking about an artist

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that is aesthetically a part of a

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particular moment in time the early to

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mid 20th century our Jubal Mata is a

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product of the Art Institute of Chicago

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and that school was a renowned school

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for educating students to the rules of

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color of composition of light of just

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all of the things that a good artist

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knew and as Picasso said you had to know

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the rules in order to break the rules

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and blues is a good example of Archibald

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motley not only knowing how to paint in

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an academic traditional way but then

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improvising on that having fun with that

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altering it pushing and pulling so that

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you have these Reds against whites you

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have these Blues against Pink's in fact

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he's pushed against basic notions of

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representational ISM they are literally

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people of color they they have pink

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skins they have magenta skins they have

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blue black skins and and and so

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Archibald motley as I said knows the

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rules and breaks the rules in order to

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make a major modern artistic statement

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he adopted a style that's much broader

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in some ways much less academic in

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nature and and you see it in blues which

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is right behind me here he is choosing

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to paint in this style because we know

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from his portraits that he was a master

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painter so I think that this choice that

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he made to sort of break with academic

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convention was a way of approaching

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different audiences there was a review

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done

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of blues in Chicago in the early 30s and

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the reviewer who was based here in

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Chicago was kind of taken aback that

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Archibald motley would be so brazen to

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take on a subject so risque and at the

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same time give it the seriousness of

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heart and so while there are

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transgressive elements in these works

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that that perhaps rubbed very very

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snooty people the wrong way I think many

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people vicariously were delighted and

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excited by the idea that here is an

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artist who takes on this subject and

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doesn't just do it in a in a simplistic

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way but does it in a serious way treats

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it serious and raises it to the level of

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a major modern artistic statement

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you