Untitled No. 8
A multi-media artist based in San Francisco, whose expansive practice encompasses painting, sculpture, printmaking, and video, among other materials, Jackson explores his ideas across techniques and often on a considerable scale. This vibrant large painting discreetly betrays the artist’s persistent concern for figuration, one informed by evolving modes of abstraction, steeped in global art history, and responsive especially to mid-twentieth-century American painting (especially the work of Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston. More specifically, the composition attests to Jackson’s deep and enduring investigation of bodily gesture across media. The prominent, dark figure in the lower-right corner, for instance, derives from an inventory of recurring, typically fragmented characters that Jackson developed over time and that variously appear to crouch, reach, fall, and lean as they inhabit environments defined primarily by color and mark. Other gestural references and allusions appear throughout this composition, which characteristically resists explicit narrative or interpretation. As Jackson explained in an interview published in 1989, "we understand states of being by the posture or gesture of the body.… And they carry that without any overlay of talk.… I use them as direct, visual communicative images." Moreover, Jackson’s deliberately inelegant drawing (his incorporation of oil stick here underscores the importance of this medium), is a two-dimensional corollary to an incising technique he pursued in his sculpture around the same time, pointing, once again, to the formal and aesthetic cross-pollination of his holistic approach to making art.
Artwork Details
- Title: Untitled No. 8
- Artist: Oliver Lee Jackson (American, born St. Louis, Missouri, 1935)
- Date: 1985
- Medium: Oil and oil stick on canvas
- Dimensions: 9 ft. × 84 in. (274.3 × 213.4 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gerald D. Kohs, 1988
- Object Number: 1988.427
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
More Artwork
A slider containing 5 items.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Georgia O'Keeffe
1927
Yasuo Kuniyoshi
1924
Edward Hopper
1930
Charles Sheeler
1931
Norman Lewis
1978
Research Resources
The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.