Bob Thompson: "A Portrait of Them While They Rule the World"

NEW YORK, NY -- Hailing from Louisville, Kentucky, Bob Thompson (1937-1966) spent much of his teen years dealing with illnesses and trauma exacerbated by the loss of his father at age 13. Surviving encephalitis, mumps and a brief coma, Thompson would soon discover art, and by the late 1950s would find himself living and studying in Provincetown. Invited by his teacher, the painter Mary Spencer Ney, in Provincetown Thompson met Red Grooms and Gandy Brodie among others -- artists with whom he would retain close friendships with going forward. It was in Provincetown where Thompson was introduced to the work of Jan Muller, a similarly unclassifiable painter whose idiosyncratic work provided Thompson a pathway between representational art and abstraction. While completing his studies at the University of Louisville, Thompson grew fixated on European painting of the 16th century, further advancing the young artist's usage of color as well as narrative.

Arriving in New York in 1959, Thompson was at the meeting point of several related yet disparate factions of creativity and expression during his time in the city. Witness to the incredible talent, as well as the fierce activism, of close friend Nina Simone, Thompson would go on to create multiple portraits of the legendary singer-songwriter. Thompson would also be first-hand witness to the exploding experimental jazz scene, led by another close friend, Ornette Coleman. Created in 1960, the same year as Game #2, Thompson's masterpiece, Garden of Music, depicts not only Coleman, but also Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell, luminaries both then and now. Participating in several of Allan Kaprow's earliest 'Happenings' alongside fellow artists Red Grooms, Mimi Gross, Lester Johnson and others, Thompson saw the beginnings of a new performance art. Thompson also maintained important friendships with the intersecting Beat Literature movement, most notably an inseparable relationship with poet Amiri Baraka (previously LeRoi Jones).

Avoiding pure abstraction, Thompson modeled representational forms in an abstract manner, using fields of color and developing a picture plane that implies Hofmann's "Push-Pull" technique. There is depth in his compositions, though simultaneously there is the sort of flatness championed by the Abstract Expressionists. Like his friends and peers Red Grooms and Gandy Brodie, Thompson found his own way, avoiding the foremost New York trends of the time to instead focus on representational imagery.

There is a great deal of mystery in Game #2. Thompson often used the forest as a stage of sorts, presenting his allegorical compositions within a bright wooded expanse. The fantastical settings Thompson employed create the effect of timelessness. Thompson gives us few clues as to where or when Game #2 occurs; the amoebic figures lack defined apparel and reveal little more than their surroundings. Black branches slice diagonally through the busy fields of color, creating depth and motion. Figures ride horses, with the horse at forefront carrying two bodies. They ride while embracing one another. The winding path leads to an egg-shaped white expanse; the riders and their steeds seemingly directed there by the standing golden figure at center. Her arm is raised, waving the riders onto and through the passage. Nearby, a single horse, hidden like a shadow, rides alone and free of passengers.

Thompson would succumb to his vices in 1966, overdosing on heroin, a fate many jazz musicians and Beat poets in his circle sadly shared. Written to be read at his funeral, Amiri Baraka's The Occident finds the great poet angry, lamenting the loss of his dear friend. "A portrait of them while they rule the world. For my brothers dead living and yet unborn." With his anachronistic passion for the Old Masters, his rejection of the pure abstraction prevalent in his era, his notable friendships and participation in nearly every avenue of the arts, Thompson seemed in the world but not of it. A short life, filled with world travel and intense bursts of creativity, Thompson died a month before his 29th birthday while in Rome, pursuing even more study, even more painting. Thompson's body of work is bright, mysterious, timelessly contemporary yet loaded with myth, a legacy of his unbridled creativity and energy.

Important Fine Art

Auction Wednesday, May 14, 2025 at 11am
Exhibition May 10 - 12

A highlight of the May 14 auction of Important Fine Art is Bob Thompson's Game #2, 1960. Est. $80,000-120,000.
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