NinaJohnson

TOP TEN of 2021: Charles Moffett and Nina Johnson’s “Highwaymen”

December 21st, 2021
Mary Ann Carrol, Nina Johnson, Charles Moffett, Florida Highwaymen
Mary Ann Carroll, Untitled (Wetland Scene), date unknown, oil on canvasboard, 16 × 20 in.

Johanna Fateman’s highlights of 2021

“HIGHWAYMEN” (CHARLES MOFFETT GALLERY, NEW YORK; CURATED BY NINA JOHNSON AND CHARLES MOFFETT)

Before Bob Ross’s wet-on-wet vistas and Andy Warhol’s Factory, a group of Black painters in Florida, retrospectively known as the Highwaymen, adopted a speedy, sometimes assembly-line approach to production, cultivating a market (often from the trunks of their cars) for their abbreviated, decor-friendly tropical landscapes. This intimate presentation of eleven dusky or candy-colored renditions of coastal wetlands was revelatory for its focused reframing of the output of an aesthetic school historically segregated from the gallery system but gorgeously germane to an expanded understanding of postwar American art.

 

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  • Mary Ann Carrol, Nina Johnson, Charles Moffett, Florida Highwaymen
    Mary Ann Carroll, Untitled (Wetland Scene), date unknown, oil on canvasboard, 16 × 20 in.