TIMOTHY WASHINGTON (1946 - )
Kentucky Derby.
Etching on aluminum with spray paint and stencil, mounted on wood panel, 1971. 899x869 mm; 35x34 1/4 inches. Engraved signature "Timothy Errol Washington" and date "June 1, Year of 1971 - GM", lower left recto. Signed and inscribed "4420 10th Avenue, Los Angeles 90043" in pencil, upper left verso.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist, Los Angeles (circa 1973); private collection.
Exhibited: Los Angeles 1972: A Panorma of Black Artists, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, February 8 - March 19, 1972. This significant exhibition was organized by guest curator Carroll Greene, Jr.
Illustrated: Leonore Goldberg, "A Black Panorama", Artweek, February 26, 1972; William Wilson, "County Museum Showing Works by Local Blacks", Los Angeles Times, February 1972; Connie Rogers Tilton and Lindsay Charwood editors,L. A. Object & David Hammons Body Prints, Tilton Gallery, pp. 406-407.
Kentucky Derby is a significant artwork by Timothy Washington and an excellent example of his ground breaking early work on aluminum. Washington made Kentucky Derby a few months after his inclusion in the important LACMA exhibition Three Graphic Artists. Organized by LACMA curator Joseph E. Young, the exhibition of Timothy Washington, David Hammons and Charles White included eleven of his works. At the age of twenty, Washington had pioneered his innovative technique in the later part of 1967 as a BFA student at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. The artist spray first painted the aluminum plates with black enamel paint, and then either etched or incised the imagery with an engraving tool. Washington continued to exhibit his assemblage work, drawings and sculpture at the Brockman Gallery, Gallery 32 and Wylan Gallery in Los Angeles through the 1970s.
Today the significance of this body of work is widely recognized. Washington's work was included in the influential 2011 Tilton Gallery exhibition L. A. Object & David Hammons Body Prints and the 2012 traveling museum exhibition Now Dig This! Art & Black Los Angeles 1960-1980. The Los Angeles artist had his first solo museum exhibition Love Thy Neighbor at the California Craft & Folk Art Museum in 2014. More recently, Washington's artwork was featured in the 2017-2020 important traveling museum exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power organized by the Tate Modern.
