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Arthur Monroe: Rhythmic Abstraction Exhibition
October 11, 2024 @ 8:00 am - January 20, 2025 @ 5:00 pm MST
Announcing the October 11, 2024- January 20, 2025 Arthur Monroe: Rhythmic Abstraction Exhibition at the Blue Lotus Artist’s Collective (BLAC) at 15 E. Pennington Street. Monroe’s works reflect his participation within several of the major cultural movements of the twentieth century. Born in the Bedford Stuyvesant District of Brooklyn, New York in 1935, he became steeped in the NY School of Abstract Expressionism, studied with Hans Hoffman, rubbed shoulders with Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, and frequented the Cedar Bar in Greenwich Village.
Following his service in the Korean War in the 1950s, Monroe moved to California’s Bay Area, and entered the heart of the Jazz and Beat scene of writers, musicians, poets, and painters. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers, gave him his first one-person show at City Lights Bookstore in North Beach.
Monroe’s paintings express a new and personal visual experience. His paintings reflected what was on his mind. Monroe worked directly on the canvas without preliminary sketches or premeditation, His initial concepts were transmuted into visual images and symbolic representations of inner truths. He remained committed to those roots, which continually provided him with a means of expression in his search for personal pictorial realities.
His close friend, the eminent jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd, recalled, “Arthur was a great painter, philosopher, sage, and seer. My last visit to his studio is indelibly etched in my memory bank… Every corner, every surface of his studio held a layer of his consciousness, and in the pure white light of the East Bay, his ‘knowingness’ was revealed.”
The exhibition is curated by art historian Joanne Stuhr in conjunction with the artist’s son Alistair Monroe. Drawing from all decades of Monroe’s artistic career, the dynamic, large-scale canvases and works on paper date from the late 1950s to his death in 2019.
BLAC gallery hours are Thursday-Saturday, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. The Gallery will be open for 1st Saturday Gallery Walk every month.
The exhibit will run until January 20, 2025.
Blue Lotus Artists’ Collective (BLAC) is a non-profit gallery space dedicated to supporting and uplifting black artists. Located on the ground floor of the historic pioneer building in downtown Tucson, Arizona, our gallery is a place where the community can come together to celebrate, appreciate and see the art and talent of black artists. It is a gathering place for the community to view, honor, discuss and appreciate art and ideas.
For more information about the Blue Lotus Artists’ Collective as well as gallery hours, please visit our website or follow us on social media.
www.bluelotusartistscollective.com
Instagram: @blac_tucson