The Hammer Museum in Westwood, steps from UCLA, is one of the most interesting museums for me to visit. Changing exhibits make it fun to go again and again. While visiting my mom one weekend, we decided to go, and were delighted to find not one, but three fabulous exhibits. I will tell you about one here.
An artist by the name of Bob Thompson was have his first retrospective in 20 years. His short, dynamic, career began in the late 1950's and ended in his premature death from a heroin overdose less than a decade later. He was prolific beyond anything you can imagine during his short life.
Thompson grew up in Boston, after moving there from Louisville at age 13, due to the death of his father in a car crash. He was depressed as a young man, and after beginning his academic career in pre med, he moved to art. He met and befriended all the young artists of the 1960's. He won many awards, and critics proclaimed him the genius of the new, young, African-American artists.
He painted Renaissance themes with a contemporary focus. His paintings were large, figurative, bright, raw and unorthodox. He was influenced by German abstract expressionism, as you can plainly see from his work.
He loved music, and that can be seen in his work. He loved Europe, lived there for a time, and when he died of an overdose in Rome, was getting ready to move to Florence to study Renaissance painting.
I didn't know of him before this exhibit, but I loved his work. Imagine what he might have done had he lived more than 29 years!!
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