<I>Ceremony</I>
date: label: Date
content: 1993
name: label: Created by
content: Herbert Alexander Gentry, American, 1919 - 2003
notes: label: Caption
content: "I work with my subconscious…. The figures come into it, the faces come into my work, that I don’t calculate to be the types that appear, but they are the types that I’ve met in my life. My base is African American also it’s in my paintings the people I’ve met throughout the world, American, African American … who are my friends who actually I love and we’ve done things together so this appears in my work." - Herbert Gentry
label: Caption
content: The compositional structure of Ceremony is deeply indebted to Herbert Gentry’s connection with COBRA, a loosely organized, avant-garde, mid-20th-century European artist collective. The acronym derives from the artists’ cities: Copenhagen, Brussels, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam. Members were inspired by "primitive" European art forms and children’s art in their quest to form a new aesthetic philosophy that promoted the creation of free-associative art.
label: Description
content: This expressionist painting juxtaposes faces and masks. The frontal facial views and profiles are delineated by swirling brush strokes in shades of red and orange with blue, white, and purple accents. There is a large frontal facial image at the center top margin flanked by two profiles. There is another facial profile at the center right and a fourth abstract face at the bottom center. It is signed on the bottom right by the artist.
topic: label: Topic
content: African American
label: Topic
content: Art
label: Topic
content: Identity
setName: label: See more items in
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection
label: Classification
content: Visual Arts
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Ronald and Monique Ollie in memory of Thelma and Bert Ollie
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Object number
content: 2010.67ab
objectType: label: Type
content: acrylic paintings
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: © Estate of Herbert Gentry
label: Restrictions & Rights
content: Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: acrylic on canvas
label: Dimensions
content: H x W x D (framed): 33 3/4 × 27 11/16 × 1 9/16 in. (85.8 × 70.3 × 3.9 cm)
label: Dimensions
content: H x W (unframed): 12 5/8 × 10 1/4 in. (32 × 26 cm)