Little Canarsie (Primary Title)
Thornton Willis, American, born 1936 (Artist)
Fifty Works for Fifty States: In 2008, in a unique partnership with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Vogels distributed twenty-five hundred works across the country, giving fifty works to one art museum in each of the fifty states. This exhibition, The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, showcases the fifty works VMFA received as part of that initiative, which bears the same title. As a diverse and rich body of work, the Vogels' generous giftattests to their passion and commitment to sharing contemporary art with the public.
Thornton Willis In the 1970s and early '80s, Willis rose to prominence with an ongoing series of paintings he titled The Wedge. The works consist of either a rectangle with an angled top or a triangle "wedged" into a plain background. As with Little Canarsie, his loose, rough brushwork provides a vulnerable, slightly irregular edge to these geometric shapes. He used contrasting colors, such as red and black, to explore the relationship between figure and ground, but the variations in scale and slight alternations to the shape of the wedge provided seemingly unlimited variations on the same theme. His titles, which often reference places, people, music,or objects, emphasize the fine line between abstraction and representation, as even the simplest of abstract shapes might evoke literal associations in a viewer.
Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.