Lot 125: RICHARD DEMPSEY (1909 - 1987) Circus in Bogota, SA.

RICHARD DEMPSEY (1909 - 1987)
Circus in Bogota, SA.

Oil on masonite, circa 1967. 315x610 mm; 12 1/2x24 inches. Signed in oil, lower right recto. Signed and titled indistinctly, upper left verso.

Provenance: the artist; Sun Gallery, Washington, DC, with a label and sticker on the frame back; the artist James A. Porter; thence by descent to the artist's daughter, Constance Porter-Uzelac.

Richard Dempsey, known primarily for his work in Washington DC as an abstract painter, had an illustrious and well-travelled career. Born in Indiana, Dempsey had moved to Oakland, CA, and in 1934 was an employee of the Federal Art Project there. In 1941, he moved to Washington, D.C. and studied at Howard University. In 1946, along with Elizabeth Catlett, he was awarded the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship to produce a series of portrait paintings of outstanding African Americans. In 1951, he was part of the 1st Annual Exhibition of the Lois Jones & Celine Tabary Studio Group, which also included Delilah Pierce and Alma Thomas. By 1961, he was of sufficient stature to be included in the important Howard University Gallery of Art exhibiton, New Vistas in American Art, and in Cedric Dover's seminal book American Negro Art.

Dempsey travelled through Africa, Colombia, Haiti and Jamaica in the 1950s and 60s. His works were exhibited in Colombia and Jamaica through the Art in Embassies Program. His work today is found in the Atlanta University Collection of Afro-American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Musuem and the Harriet and Harmon Kelly Collection of African American Art, San Antonio.