Fri September 20, 2019
Opening Reception: Mike Henderson: Honest To Goodness
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at San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) - closed
(see times)
Mike Henderson: Honest to Goodness celebrates the work of pioneering African American artist Mike Henderson (b.1944, Marshall, Missouri; lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area), bringing together a selection of key works from a dynamic practice that spans more than fifty years.
In 1965, Henderson left behind a rural farming community in the Midwest to attend San Francisco Art Institute (BFA 1969, MFA 1970), where he found a vibrant community of artists and friends that would nourish his creativity for decades to come. Galvanized by a new atmosphere of protest and possibility, the young artist set to work producing a breakthrough series of large-scale, figurative paintings-some overtly political, others joyfully depicting his San Francisco scene. Remarkably, as Henderson was completing his education, works from this series were included in two important exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art: Human Concern / Personal Torment: The Grotesque in American Art (1969, traveled to the Berkeley Art Museum, 1970) and Contemporary Black Artists in America (1971). These shows brought Henderson's early works into dialogue with a range of artists concerned with social justice.
Henderson received his MFA degree from San Francisco Art Institute in 1970, a year that marked a dramatic change in the form and content of his work. Like many African American artists searching for new modes of expression following the tumult of the previous decade-Joe Overstreet, Frank Bowling, and Raymond Saunders among them-Henderson left behind his figurative style and turned his artistic vision towards abstraction. In following decades, he developed a set of creative inquiries that continue to fuel his practice to this day. With their lushly built-up surfaces and striking palettes, the more recent paintings included in Honest to Goodness will offer viewers an opportunity to view Henderson's evolution as he explores the tension between gestural and geometric abstraction.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/opening-of-mike-henderson-honest-to-goodness-tickets-67536287855
show less
In 1965, Henderson left behind a rural farming community in the Midwest to attend San Francisco Art Institute (BFA 1969, MFA 1970), where he found a vibrant community of artists and friends that would nourish his creativity for decades to come. Galvanized by a new atmosphere of protest and possibility, the young artist set to work producing a breakthrough series of large-scale, figurative paintings-some overtly political, others joyfully depicting his San Francisco scene. Remarkably, as Henderson was completing his education, works from this series were included in two important exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art: Human Concern / Personal Torment: The Grotesque in American Art (1969, traveled to the Berkeley Art Museum, 1970) and Contemporary Black Artists in America (1971). These shows brought Henderson's early works into dialogue with a range of artists concerned with social justice.
Henderson received his MFA degree from San Francisco Art Institute in 1970, a year that marked a dramatic change in the form and content of his work. Like many African American artists searching for new modes of expression following the tumult of the previous decade-Joe Overstreet, Frank Bowling, and Raymond Saunders among them-Henderson left behind his figurative style and turned his artistic vision towards abstraction. In following decades, he developed a set of creative inquiries that continue to fuel his practice to this day. With their lushly built-up surfaces and striking palettes, the more recent paintings included in Honest to Goodness will offer viewers an opportunity to view Henderson's evolution as he explores the tension between gestural and geometric abstraction.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/opening-of-mike-henderson-honest-to-goodness-tickets-67536287855
Mike Henderson: Honest to Goodness celebrates the work of pioneering African American artist Mike Henderson (b.1944, Marshall, Missouri; lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area), bringing together a selection of key works from a dynamic practice that spans more than fifty years.
In 1965, Henderson left behind a rural farming community in the Midwest to attend San Francisco Art Institute (BFA 1969, MFA 1970), where he found a vibrant community of artists and friends that would nourish his creativity for decades to come. Galvanized by a new atmosphere of protest and possibility, the young artist set to work producing a breakthrough series of large-scale, figurative paintings-some overtly political, others joyfully depicting his San Francisco scene. Remarkably, as Henderson was completing his education, works from this series were included in two important exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art: Human Concern / Personal Torment: The Grotesque in American Art (1969, traveled to the Berkeley Art Museum, 1970) and Contemporary Black Artists in America (1971). These shows brought Henderson's early works into dialogue with a range of artists concerned with social justice.
Henderson received his MFA degree from San Francisco Art Institute in 1970, a year that marked a dramatic change in the form and content of his work. Like many African American artists searching for new modes of expression following the tumult of the previous decade-Joe Overstreet, Frank Bowling, and Raymond Saunders among them-Henderson left behind his figurative style and turned his artistic vision towards abstraction. In following decades, he developed a set of creative inquiries that continue to fuel his practice to this day. With their lushly built-up surfaces and striking palettes, the more recent paintings included in Honest to Goodness will offer viewers an opportunity to view Henderson's evolution as he explores the tension between gestural and geometric abstraction.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/opening-of-mike-henderson-honest-to-goodness-tickets-67536287855
read more
In 1965, Henderson left behind a rural farming community in the Midwest to attend San Francisco Art Institute (BFA 1969, MFA 1970), where he found a vibrant community of artists and friends that would nourish his creativity for decades to come. Galvanized by a new atmosphere of protest and possibility, the young artist set to work producing a breakthrough series of large-scale, figurative paintings-some overtly political, others joyfully depicting his San Francisco scene. Remarkably, as Henderson was completing his education, works from this series were included in two important exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art: Human Concern / Personal Torment: The Grotesque in American Art (1969, traveled to the Berkeley Art Museum, 1970) and Contemporary Black Artists in America (1971). These shows brought Henderson's early works into dialogue with a range of artists concerned with social justice.
Henderson received his MFA degree from San Francisco Art Institute in 1970, a year that marked a dramatic change in the form and content of his work. Like many African American artists searching for new modes of expression following the tumult of the previous decade-Joe Overstreet, Frank Bowling, and Raymond Saunders among them-Henderson left behind his figurative style and turned his artistic vision towards abstraction. In following decades, he developed a set of creative inquiries that continue to fuel his practice to this day. With their lushly built-up surfaces and striking palettes, the more recent paintings included in Honest to Goodness will offer viewers an opportunity to view Henderson's evolution as he explores the tension between gestural and geometric abstraction.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/opening-of-mike-henderson-honest-to-goodness-tickets-67536287855
show less
Date/Times:
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) - closed
800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco, CA 94133
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