- Mavis
Overall: 62 1/2 × 46 1/2 × 2 1/4 in. (158.8 × 118.1 × 5.7 cm)
Frame (each): 31 1/4 × 23 1/4 × 2 1/4 in. (79.4 × 59.1 × 5.7 cm)
Explore Further
Photographs from the Harlem
Renaissance by James Van Der Zee at the Metropolitan Museum’s 1969 exhibition
“Harlem on My Mind” inspired the teenaged Dawoud Bey to spend nearly two
decades portraying African Americans on the streets of modern-day Harlem and elsewhere.
In 1991 he struck out in a new direction, working with one of Polaroid’s five
20 x 24-inch cameras. “I wanted to bring in some aspect of Rembrandt and
Caravaggio, whose work I always loved,” he explained, “but outside of a
controlled environment like the studio it was impossible.” In his monumental,
multipanel Polaroids, Bey was able to achieve the “heightened, singular,
dramatized sense [of] an individual person” that he found in the Old Masters but
that was uncommon in representations of young men and women of color.
ProvenanceArtist; principal dealer, Stephen Daiter; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, 2015
Exhibition HistoryDawoud Bey: Portraits 1975 - 1995 (see back label copy for list of venues), September 1995 - July 1997
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Dawoud Bey: Portraits 1975 - 1995 / Organized by Walker Art Center // Walker Art Center, Minneapolis: September 17 - December 10, 1995 / Albright Knox Art Gallery: January 12 - February 25, 1996 / Chicago Cultural Center: March 30 - June 2, 1996 / Virginia Beach Center For The Arts: September 22 - November 10, 1996 / El Paso Museum of Art: January 12 - March 9, 1997 / The Newark Museum in association with the Jeersey City Museum / and the Robeson Center Gallery at Rutgers, Newark: April - July 1997
Checklist # 88.1 Checklist # 88.2 Checklist # 88.3 Checklist # 88.4 Crate # 35 / Mavis / Polacolor ER photographs / Courtesy Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago
.D) Printed label on verso backboard: Davoud Bey / Mavis, 1995 // A group of four Polaroid photographs. / Signed and dated by the artist. // 48/ x 40 in. x 101.6 cm / 663.437.3.13 / (signature)
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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