Walter Sanford, African American Artist, Black Chicago Renaissance, Pencil Drawing on Paper, Man's Portrait, 1963

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Walter Sanford
African American Chicago and Detroit Artist
Black Chicago Renaissance, Pencil Drawing on Paper
Signed and Dated 1967

This … Read more Walter Sanford
African American Chicago and Detroit Artist
Black Chicago Renaissance, Pencil Drawing on Paper
Signed and Dated 1967

This is a wonderful pencil drawing of a melancholy man in an expressionist style, by the known artist "Sanford" (Walter Sanford). It's drawn on slightly yellowed paper, mounted and matted with a cream border that is 13 inches wide by 14.5 inches. The exposed art area is 8 inches by 9 inches. It has the Sanford signature, with a small 63 next to it.

The paper is not very well mounted inside the matte border. There is a uneven edge near the top (the shadow of this is visible in the 3rd photo), and there is even a piece of what seems to be tape creating another bump near the bottom edge (near the signature). The matte frame is a bit yellowed around the edges, with slightly bent corners.

From the Sanford Biography at AskArt:

Walter Sanford, also known as Sanford, (30 January 1912 – 3 July 1987), was an American artist who spent almost every day of his adult life painting in Chicago and Detroit. He was one of the first and only black social realism and abstract expressionist artists of the 20th century.

He was heralded “Black Picasso” and “Detroit’s Picasso” for his cubist figure paintings and in 1958 he won the Prix de Paris La Grande Saison de Paris at the Raymond Duncan Galleries. He opened the first black-owned art gallery and exhibited at the first Negro Art Exhibition and Negro History Week in Detroit. Sanford was hailed as one of Michigan’s foremost modern art painters in 1952.

Sanford was part of the Second Wave (1941-1960) of the Black Chicago Renaissance of African-American artists and embraced a range of styles and influences. An expressionist until 1945, Sanford was clearly influenced by and followed Pablo Picasso’s cubism in his paintings, then switched to abstract expressionism for 18 years. See less