Out West (Primary Title)
Roy DeForest, American, 1930 - 2007 (Artist)
“I have always been a novelistic painter, and even when I was making abstract painting it was like creating a map, basically, and the map then turns into a landscape and the landscape adds figures, and that is a little bit of the history of my painting, although it is very influenced by abstract painting, Mondrian and what have you.” —Roy De Forest
Bright colors, cartoonlike figures, and richly textured surfaces characterize De Forest’s aesthetic and connect him with California Funk Art, a movement that included other San Francisco Bay Area artists such as William T. Wiley and Robert Arneson.
De Forest considered each painting “the depiction of a little adventure.” The cowboys, dogs, and horses that populate the landscape of Out West are common figures in his work and reflect his childhood on a farm. Their reappearances in De Forest’s works elevate them to archetypal status, creating a mythopoeic narrative.
Selections from the Sydney and Frances Lewis Collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, March 26 – May 10, 1987
Late Twentieth-Century Art from the Sydney and Frances Lewis Foundation Collection, The Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, December 5, 1978 – January 8, 1979; Institute for Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, March 22 – May 2, 1979; The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH, September 13 – November 4, 1979; Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, TN, December 2, 1979 – January 27, 1980; Dupont Gallery, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA, February 18 – March 21, 1980; The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH, September 21 – November 9, 1980; Madison Art Center, Madison, WI, November 23, 1980 – January 18, 1981; Gibbes Art Gallery, Charleston, SC, October 15, 1981 – January 10, 1982; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, January 31 – March 14, 1982; Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, September 10 – October 31, 1982; Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA, November 14, 1982 – January 16, 1983; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, March 25 – May 29, 1983; Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, Lynchburg, VA, November 6 – December 17, 1983; Huntington Galleries, Huntington, WV, June 2 – August 18, 1984; Piedmont Arts Association, Martinsville, VA, February 27 – March 27, 1985; Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, VA, April 5 – May 1, 1985; The Athenaeum, Alexandria, VA, May 7 – June 2, 1985
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