Sale 2487 - African-American Fine Art, October 4, 2018

This monumental photograph is a significant, early work by Rashid Johnson and one of three works that the Chicago artist made his New York debut with in Freestyle , the seminal exhibition of 28 contemporary artists curated by Thelma Golden at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Holland Cotter in his May 11, 2001 New York Times art review describes “three large-format portraits by the 24-year-old photographer Rashid Johnson hang on another. Hand-brushed with mineral pigments to rich old master sheen, their subject is a homeless man the artist met in Chicago.” Johnson use of the Van Dyke Brown process, an early photographic technique that dates from the mid-19th century, gives these portraits a unique richness. [7,000/10,000]