SYLVIA SNOWDEN, “Beverly Johnson,” 1978 (acrylic and oil pastel on Masonite, 121.9 x 243.8 cm). | © Sylvia Snowden. Courtesy Edel Assanti and Franklin Parrasch Gallery. Photo by Andy Keate
On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions
WASHINGTON, D.C. ARTIST Sylvia Snowden (b. 1942) is presenting her first solo institutional exhibition in Europe. “Sylvia Snowden: Painting Humanity” at The Hepworth Wakefield in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK, is a tight survey of 10 paintings dating from the 1970s to 2001. The earliest works were produced in the years following her foundational education. Snowden earned both a BFA and MFA from Howard University, where she studied with David C. Driskell. In the years between her degrees from the HBCU, she studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, France, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.
Snowden paints with a sense of abandon. She is not afraid of engaging with the canvas. Thick with paint and rich with color, the result is incredibly powerful and moving. The abstracted figurative works on view are portraits. Each features a lone subject, such as iconic model Beverly Johnson or Julie Shepherd, a neighbor in the artist’s M Street neighborhood of Shaw in Washington. Snowden’s portraits are not meant to resemble her subjects, rather the amorphous and contorted forms explore their humanity and psychological state. Her dramatic gestures speak to a spectrum of emotions, from triumph and elation to sorrow and pain. “I’m painting how we as human beings maneuver through our lives,” Snowden said in the video below. “I make an effort at painting what we all feel as human beings, no matter what the race, that doesn’t matter about that, in my paintings. What matters is the fact that we are all human beings.” CT
“Sylvia Snowden: Painting Humanity” is on view at The Hepworth Wakefield in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK, from March 16-Nov. 3, 2024
Sylvia Snowden at The Hepworth Wakefield, March 15, 2024. | Photo Nick Singleton
SYLVIA SNOWDEN, “Julia Shepherd,” 1980 (acrylic and oil pastel on Masonite, 243.8 x 121.9 cm). | © Sylvia Snowden. Courtesy Edel Assanti and Franklin Parrasch Gallery. Photo by Andy Keate
SYLVIA SNOWDEN, Elueeta Johnson, 1978 (). | © Sylvia Snowden. Courtesy Edel Assanti and Franklin Parrasch Gallery. Photo by Andy Keate
SYLVIA SNOWDEN, “Steven Thornhill,” 1979 (acrylic and oil pastel on Masonite, 243.8 x 121.9 cm). | © Sylvia Snowden. Courtesy Edel Assanti and Franklin Parrasch Gallery. Photo by Andy Keate
From the gallery where the exhibition “Painting Humanity” is on view at The Hepworth Wakefield, Sylvia Snowden talks about the meaning and inspiration for her paintings and how her childhood experiences seeded her love of color and pursuit of art. | Video by The Hepworth Wakefield
FIND MORE about Sylvia Snowden on her website
READ MORE about Sylvia Snowden in an interview conducted by Joe Bradley, published last summer in BOMB magazine and coverage of a National Gallery of Art artist panel on the African American Art World in 20th century Washington, D.C., on Culture Type
BOOKSHELF
Sylvia Snowden’s work is featured in the recent volume “Beauty Born of Struggle: The Art of Black Washington.” Now out of print, “M Street: Sylvia Snowden” (2022) documents an exhibition at Franklin Parrasch Gallery in New York.
