67
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SYLVIA SNOWDEN (1940 - )
Untitled (Figure Composition)
.
Color pastel, charcoal, oil and pencil on masonite, 1970. 584x610 mm; 23x24 inches. Signed and
dated in ink, lower right.
Provenance: private collection, Maryland.
This untitled painting by Sylvia Snowden is an early example of the powerful and colorful
expressionist work that she painted through the 1970s. Her painting unflinchingly reflected the
tensions of the period in racial and sexual imagery with an abstract expressionist vigor. Born in
Raleigh, NC, Sylvia Snowden is known for an extensive career as a figurative painter inWashington,
DC area. She earned her BA and MFA for Howard University in 1963 and 1965, where she studied
under David Driskell. She later studied at both the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
and L’Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris, France. Her work is described in both Lisa E.
Farrington’s
CreatingTheir Own Image:The History of African-AmericanWomen Artists,
and Leslie King-
Hammond’s
Gumbo Ya Ya: Anthology of Contemporary African-American Women Artists
. Snowden has
had many solo exhibitions including the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University,
John Hopkins University, Howard University Gallery of Art, Maryland University, the Montclair
Art Museum, the National Museum ofWomen in the Arts and most recently the Corcoran Gallery
of Art in 2000. Farrington pp 195-6; King-Hammond pp. 269-272.
[2,000/3,000]
