|
|
Ad Code: 4
|
from Auction House Records.
Untitled (Workers Picking Cotton)
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
|
|
|
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  An African-American painter and teacher, Ann Tanksley has lived
primarily in New York state but spent her youth in Pennsylvania and
also did some work in New Jersey. Her teaching career includes
being an art instructor at Queens Youth Center for the Arts, New York,
1959-62; Instructor of art, Art Center Northern New Jersey, 1963; and
substitute Instructor of art, Malvern Public Schools 1971-.
Exhibitions:
15 Women, North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, 1969;
Freedomways Exhibition, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers New York, 1971;
United States 1971, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1971; Acts of Art,
New York City, 1972; Black Women Artists, Mount Holyoke College, South
Hadley, Massachusetts 1972; Acts of Art, New York City, 1970s; Kaufman
Gallery, Pittsburgh; Hewlett Gallery; Devon Gallery
Source:
Peter Hastings Falk, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art
| | Source:
|
Biography from Avisca Fine Art Gallery:
| Ann Tanksley was born in 1934 in Homewood, Pennsylvania. She
received a BFA (1956) from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now
Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, PA. She moved to New
York where she did additional studies at the Art Student League,
Parsons School of Design, the Printmaking Workshop and the New School
for Social Research.
Notable masters with whom she has studied include Norman Lewis, Balcom
Green, Sam Rosenberg, Robert Blackburn and Paulette Singer.
Ann Tanksley’s work tells a story. At times it is an
autobiography - of her inner spirit melded with her experiences and
travels; at other times it is about social injustices and the universal
plight of rural workers. She has also interpreted stories that
have been told by others as she did in her visual interpretations of
the prose of Zora Neal Hurston. She sees herself as a “social
commentator” who would like people to understand her through her work
and to understand her point of view. This is perhaps why she has
chosen to communicate through the figures of the painting rather though
abstract expression, even though her method is not unlike that of the
Abstract Expressionists.
An experienced technician and a deeply
intuitive artist, she characteristically disregards the visual rules of
perspective and proportion and deliberately distorts physical features
for psychological reasons. She often incorporates certain
childlike characteristics into her work and her figures generally lack
detail.
She feels a great deal of responsibility as an artist,
and as a member of a minority community. As a part of her life’s
mission she embarked on the epic undertaking of following the route of
the African slave trade in her own travels. These travels took
her to far-flung places from the African continent, to the Caribbean,
to Brazil, and throughout the U.S. South. Much of her work
mirrors her travels, working through what she experiences, her
reflections, her awareness and contemplation.
Her professional
career is highlighted by numerous honors and artistic achievements. One
of her major accomplishments was the creation and publication of a
portfolio of monoprints based on the writings of Zora Neale Hurston
entitled “Images of Zora”. The prints were unveiled at two New York
exhibitions and went on a national tour. She has received numerous
commissions including Coors Brewing Company, Pepsi Cola Company,
Absolut Vodka and Colgate-Palmolive. Her work is in several
permanent collections including the Johnson Publishing Company and the
Studio Museum in Harlem, National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the
Hewitt Collection.
Publications in which the artist and her work have been featured are: Gumbo Ya Ya: Anthology of Contemporary African American Women Artists; Time Capsule: A Concise Encyclopedia of of Women Artists by Robin Kahn; The Art of Black American Women: Works of Twenty Four Artists of the Twentieth Century by Robert Henkes; Forever Free: Art by African-American Women 1862-1980, Edited by Anna Alexander Bontemps.
She lives and works in Great Neck, NY.
|
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|