1 / 1

zoom is not available
image compare is not available
download is not available

Painted mostly with areas of flat, vibrant color, eight people or animals, or possibly hybrids, span and fill this horizontal, abstracted composition. The people and creatures’ features are simplified and stylized into bold forms. To our left, a winged woman holds out her arms and grips an uprooted tree, which creates a diagonal up the center of the composition. The woman has fire engine-red hair and grayish-green shadows on her pale, peach face. Her royal-blue dress has a low, sweetheart neckline and her breasts are outlined in a thick black line. The tree she holds has three roots and one branch, which holds a round disk covered in colorful dots, like a nonpareil candy. In front of her, a lemon-yellow person overlaps or becomes a pink, lizard-like creature. The yellow being has red eyes and nostrils, a black cap or hair, and black outlines around the eyes and nose. The creature at the back end has wide red lips, a red-rimmed, black eye, the suggestion of black hair, and red, presumably blood, trickling out of its parted mouth. Closer to us and seen from the waist up, a person with red eyes and lips, brown skin, black hair, and a pink bodice stands with arms overhead, as if holding opposite elbows. The eyes and mouth make wide-open Os. On the right half of the picture, a scarlet-red person with its lower jaw drooping open sits on a white form like a ghost, and plunges one hand, wrist-deep, into the ghost-like form’s mouth. The white creature has red eyes, blue hair, and lies on its back. A brown creature with sharp teeth and a red tongue and eyes reaches up from the bottom edge of the canvas. One clawed hand clutches the white figure’s face over the left ear and the other nails or talons snag onto the red creature’s knee. The final creature has red lips, nose, eyes, hands, and yellow teeth, and it lurks in the background above and behind the red and white pair. Resembling an octopus, it has two arms and three legs, and is mottled with violet purple and carnation pink. The areas around and behind all the figures are expanses of grass green, bubblegum pink, butter yellow, blue, dark gray, or white to suggest a landscape.

Bob Thompson

Tree, 1962

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 198.6 x 274.8 cm (78 3/16 x 108 3/16 in.)

Credit Line

Collection of Barney A. Ebsworth

Accession Number

2000.39.3

Artists / Makers

Bob Thompson (painter) American, 1937 - 1966

Image Use

This image is unavailable for download.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .
Contact us about image usage .

Inscription

upper left: B Thompson '62; upper right reverse: B Thompson / '62 Paris

Provenance

The artist [1937-1966], New York; his estate;[1] purchased 3 June 1998 by Mr. and Mrs. Barney Ebsworth, St. Louis; gift 2000 to NGA.

[1] The artist's estate, managed by his wife, Carol Plenda Thompson, was represented first by Vanderwoude Tananbaum Gallery and then by Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, both in New York City. The Ebsworths purchased the painting through Michael Rosenfeld Gallery.

Associated Names

Ebsworth, Barney A.

Exhibition History

1963: Probably Bob Thompson, Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, 1963-1964, no cat.

1965: Figuration: Appel, Cruz, Goldberg, Johnson, Kreznar, Lane, Lobdell, Lopez, Milder, Thompson, Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, 1965, no cat.

1969: Bob Thompson, Wollman Hall, New School Art Center, New York, 1969, no. 26.

1978: The World of Bob Thompson, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, 1978, no. 7.

1983: Bob Thompson 1937-1966: Major Works of the 60's, Vanderwoude Tananbaum Gallery, New York, 1983, no. 4, repro.

1984: Underknown: Twelve Artists Re-Seen in 1984, The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, New York, 1984, unnumbered checklist.

1986: Bob Thompson: MATRIX 90, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, 1986, unnumbered checklist.

1988: Bob Thompson, Vanderwoude Tananbaum, New York, 1988, no. 8.

1991: Bob Thompson: Major Paintings of the 1960's, Vanderwoude Tananbaum, 1991, no. 2.

1997: Bob Thompson: Heroes, Martyrs & Spectres, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, 1997, unnumbered checklist.

1998: Bob Thompson, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1998-1999, no. 83, repro.

2000: Twentieth-Century American Art: The Ebsworth Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Seattle Art Museum, 2000, no. 70, repro.

Bibliography

1971: Landsell, Sarah. "Bob Thompson's Edens." The [Louisville] Courier-Journal & Times Magazine (21 February 1971): 23-24, repro.

1983: H[enry], G[errit]. "Bob Thompson." Art News 4 (April 1983): 161, 164.

1983: Wilson, Judith. "Myths and Memories: Bob Thompson." Art in America 71 (May 1983): 139-143, repro.

1985: Wilson, Judith. Sam Gilliam & Bob Thompson. Exh. brochure, South Campus Art Gallery, Miami Dade Community College, 1985.

1986: Crouch, Stanley. "Meteor in a Black Hat." The Village Voice 31 (2 December 1986): repro. 23, 28.

1988: L[yon], C[hristopher]. "Bob Thompson: Vanderwoude Tanabaum." Art News 8 (October 1988): 182, repro. (incorrectly identified as Sorcerer).

1998: Vetrocq, Marcia E. "Bob Thompson: Taking Liberties." Art News 12 (December 1998): 69.

2000: Robertson, Bruce, et al. Twentieth-Century American Art: The Ebsworth Collection. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; Seattle Art Museum. Washington, 2000: no. 70, repro.