Thursday, March 10, 2016

Bob Tomlinson: Fragments of Myth Exhibition in New York

Bob Tomlinson is a Jamaican-American artist, retired French professor, and long-time Paris resident who made the City of Light his home “by accident.” He lived in Paris during the 1968 student uprising, moved away for several years, and then came back and established permanent residency in the city. He and I share a burning passion for investigating the history of African-American Paris, particularly regarding Black Montmartre during the interwar years. His story is one of 24 African-American and Afro-Caribbean expatriate stories that I feature in the Discover Paris! publication Black Paris Profiles.

Bob Tomlinson and Anna Comnena
Image courtesy of Bob Tomlinson

Viridian Artists, a contemporary art gallery in Chelsea, NY, will be hosting an exhibition of Bob's latest works from March 15 - April 6, 2016. Called Fragments of Myth, the show will feature several complex canvases done in Bob's inimitable style.

Josephine Baker: The Myth of Africa
2016 Oil and collage on canvas
Image courtesy of Bob Tomlinson

Bob combines areas painted in oil with elaborately textured and printed papers, as well as digitally manipulated photographs. His work flows uniquely between the figurative and the abstract. Art critic Lawrence Downes writes that:

The subjects of the paintings are echoes of myths, be they ancient, literary, historical or personal. However, both formally and philosophically, they can reach us only as fragments.

The Expulsion from the Garden
2016 Oil and collage on canvas
Image courtesy of Bob Tomlinson

Bob was born in Brooklyn, New York. He has shown widely in Paris, London, Amsterdam and New York and is represented in many international public and private collections, including those of the Clark-Atlanta University Museum, City University of New York, the late Dr. Maya Angelou, Lord and Lady Hirshfield, M. Franco Trecanni di Montichiari, Mme Linda Weil-Curiel, and Herr Frits Bernard. A graduate of Pratt Institute and the CUNY Graduate Center, he is also a scholar of French Literature and Aesthetics and has lectured and published in both disciplines, as well as in Afro-American Studies.

In addition to Black Paris Profiles (2012), Bob figures in the book entitled 100 New York Painters by Cynthia M. Dantzic (Schiffer, 2006) and is one of the artists studied in a recent Masters Thesis by Charlotte Barat entitled "Artistes noirs américains à Paris (1945-1969). Vie de bohème, liberté artistique et négociations identitaires (Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2014)." He is also the subject of a film project by the documentary filmmaker Louis Massiah.

Fragments of Myth opens March 15 with a reception on Thursday March 17 from 5-8 PM. The work will be on view through April 2. Bob will be at the gallery on Saturday, April 2, the final day of the exhibition, for coffee and conversation from 3-4 PM.

Viridian Artists, Inc.
548 West 28th St #632
NY, NY 10001

Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday 12-6 PM
For further information please contact Vernita Nemec, Director at 212 414 4040 or

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