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Lot Essay
Born in 1891 in New Orleans, Louisiana, Archibald Motley soon settled in Chicago, Illinois, with his family. Part of the Great Migration, the Motley family’s move contributed not only to the artist’s significant inspiration derived from the Midwest, but to the changing position of the African American community in the United States at large. From a young age, Motley was passionate about art. Honing his innate talents at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the artist was met with acclaim from teachers and peers alike. “Under Motley’s aegis the various peoples and places he encountered were transformed into chromatically charged scenes of compositional dynamism, artistic matters imbued with nonillusionistic colors…Motley rendered flesh and brick alike in a fiery spectacle, a hothouse of urban energy whose painterly facades betrayed a modern dystopia.” (Sarah Schroth, Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist, exhibition catalogue, Durham, North Carolina, 2014, p. viii)
Motley has become a sensation not just as a leading African American artist, but as a 20th century icon. Recognized in the expansive solo exhibition from 2014-16 traveling to the Whitney Museum of American Art and Amon Carter Museum of American Art, among others (in which the present work was exhibited), Motley’s considerable influence is at last being recognized. Motley is featured prominently in the Metropolitan Museum’s ongoing exhibition The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, commending his expansive oeuvre and undeniable influence on black identity in American Art. His work can be found in a number of prominent museum collections, including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.
In the 1950s, the subjects of Motley’s work began to focus on Mexico, where he visited his nephew, novelist Willard Motley, several times throughout the 50s and 60s. “While in Mexico, Motley continued to paint portraits, landscapes, and genre scenes, including cabarets…and his palette lightened considerably in response to the Mexican light, climate, and environment.”
(J.T. Robinson, “The Life of Archibald J. Motley, Jr.,” The Art of Archibald J. Motley, Jr., exhibition catalogue, Chicago, Illinois, 1991, p. 24) Indeed, painted in 1959-60, After Fiesta, Remorse, Siesta epitomizes Motley’s exploration of Mexico’s vibrant culture—specifically its nightlife. Sketching these variable scenes in his notebook, Motley actively immersed himself in the environments that he would eventually dramatize in paint.
The present work emphasizes Motley’s ability to elevate the everyday to the surreal, engaging the viewer beyond the visual, evoking the aural, atmospheric experience of the mysterious night club. Indeed, the pianist’s song fills the vacant space, with the half-empty drinks and unworn red heels (a recurring motif of Motley’s) suggesting the close of a lively evening that contrasts his earlier cacophonous nightlife scenes. Dominated by mystical blues and purples, only one intoxicated patron fills the background, subtly illuminated by small table lights, a streetlamp and the shining stars.
Motley centralizes a nude woman pianist, who appears to play to no one. With the man behind her passed out and the couple in the far background engaged with only each other, perhaps the pianist plays for the onlooking viewer. Richard J. Powell writes: “After Fiesta, Remorse, Siesta brought these assorted Mexican impressions together, along with Archibald Motley's signature satirical perspective on life. More absurdist than many of his previous artistic send-ups, this painting spoofed the Mexican love ballads of regret (los corridos de lamentos), here visualized in a dreamy, kitsch-filled space of blue adobe, cacti and palm trees…The cluster of unmanned musical instruments near the center of this mostly vacant, but set for action, open-air bar…interjected a surrealistic touch and nod to Motley's earlier paeans to blues and jazz.” (Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist, exhibition catalogue, Durham, North Carolina, 2014, p. 135)
After Fiesta, Remorse, Siesta is a remarkable example of Motley’s exploration of Mexican imagery, from the fantastical tropical atmosphere to the stereotypical bullfighting poster in the background. Creating a melodramatic, almost cinematic mood, Motley juxtaposes love (as emphasized by the couple at back) with a permeating sense of isolation and mortality. As the night comes to a close, one is reminded of the finality of life and love.
The present work was formerly in the collection of Thurlow Evan Tibbs, Jr., a leading force in the celebration of African-American art on the national stage. As The Washington Post stated, “His Evans-Tibbs Collection, featured in a Smithsonian exhibit that traveled to more than 20 museums, was regarded as one of the most important private collections of African American art ever assembled.” (C. Levy, January 16, 1997)
The Evans-Tibbs Collection featured hundreds of paintings, sculptures, works on paper and photographs dating from the 1890s to 1990s, and including artists such as Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, Hughie Lee-Smith, Betye Saar, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, Hale Woodruff and James Van Der Zee. Tibbs transformed his family’s historic home in Washington, D.C. into a gallery to exhibit the collection, and in 1996 he donated a group of 32 works to the Corcoran Gallery, which have since joined the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
Tibbs was not only a passionate collector, but also an archivist and advocate for the history of Black artists in America. “I want to provide options for art historians and writers when they start their revisionary studies,” Tibbs explained. “And they will. In the 1990s all the periods of American art are going to be reanalyzed and recalculated. There needs to be material so that they can say, ‘Oh here’s an artist who was working in the 1960s. He wasn’t covered before but he’s pretty good. Maybe we should put him in our anthology this time.’” (as quoted in J.A. Allen, “Thurlow Tibbs: A Man with a Mission,” Washington Times, July 30, 1985) In line with this goal of sharing new stories about Black art with the public, he organized exhibitions such as 1983’s Surrealism and the Afro-American Artist as well as shows focusing on African-American women artists. Highlights from the collection also toured to twenty museums across the nation in a Smithsonian traveling exhibition 1989-1992.
Motley has become a sensation not just as a leading African American artist, but as a 20th century icon. Recognized in the expansive solo exhibition from 2014-16 traveling to the Whitney Museum of American Art and Amon Carter Museum of American Art, among others (in which the present work was exhibited), Motley’s considerable influence is at last being recognized. Motley is featured prominently in the Metropolitan Museum’s ongoing exhibition The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, commending his expansive oeuvre and undeniable influence on black identity in American Art. His work can be found in a number of prominent museum collections, including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.
In the 1950s, the subjects of Motley’s work began to focus on Mexico, where he visited his nephew, novelist Willard Motley, several times throughout the 50s and 60s. “While in Mexico, Motley continued to paint portraits, landscapes, and genre scenes, including cabarets…and his palette lightened considerably in response to the Mexican light, climate, and environment.”
(J.T. Robinson, “The Life of Archibald J. Motley, Jr.,” The Art of Archibald J. Motley, Jr., exhibition catalogue, Chicago, Illinois, 1991, p. 24) Indeed, painted in 1959-60, After Fiesta, Remorse, Siesta epitomizes Motley’s exploration of Mexico’s vibrant culture—specifically its nightlife. Sketching these variable scenes in his notebook, Motley actively immersed himself in the environments that he would eventually dramatize in paint.
The present work emphasizes Motley’s ability to elevate the everyday to the surreal, engaging the viewer beyond the visual, evoking the aural, atmospheric experience of the mysterious night club. Indeed, the pianist’s song fills the vacant space, with the half-empty drinks and unworn red heels (a recurring motif of Motley’s) suggesting the close of a lively evening that contrasts his earlier cacophonous nightlife scenes. Dominated by mystical blues and purples, only one intoxicated patron fills the background, subtly illuminated by small table lights, a streetlamp and the shining stars.
Motley centralizes a nude woman pianist, who appears to play to no one. With the man behind her passed out and the couple in the far background engaged with only each other, perhaps the pianist plays for the onlooking viewer. Richard J. Powell writes: “After Fiesta, Remorse, Siesta brought these assorted Mexican impressions together, along with Archibald Motley's signature satirical perspective on life. More absurdist than many of his previous artistic send-ups, this painting spoofed the Mexican love ballads of regret (los corridos de lamentos), here visualized in a dreamy, kitsch-filled space of blue adobe, cacti and palm trees…The cluster of unmanned musical instruments near the center of this mostly vacant, but set for action, open-air bar…interjected a surrealistic touch and nod to Motley's earlier paeans to blues and jazz.” (Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist, exhibition catalogue, Durham, North Carolina, 2014, p. 135)
After Fiesta, Remorse, Siesta is a remarkable example of Motley’s exploration of Mexican imagery, from the fantastical tropical atmosphere to the stereotypical bullfighting poster in the background. Creating a melodramatic, almost cinematic mood, Motley juxtaposes love (as emphasized by the couple at back) with a permeating sense of isolation and mortality. As the night comes to a close, one is reminded of the finality of life and love.
The present work was formerly in the collection of Thurlow Evan Tibbs, Jr., a leading force in the celebration of African-American art on the national stage. As The Washington Post stated, “His Evans-Tibbs Collection, featured in a Smithsonian exhibit that traveled to more than 20 museums, was regarded as one of the most important private collections of African American art ever assembled.” (C. Levy, January 16, 1997)
The Evans-Tibbs Collection featured hundreds of paintings, sculptures, works on paper and photographs dating from the 1890s to 1990s, and including artists such as Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, Hughie Lee-Smith, Betye Saar, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, Hale Woodruff and James Van Der Zee. Tibbs transformed his family’s historic home in Washington, D.C. into a gallery to exhibit the collection, and in 1996 he donated a group of 32 works to the Corcoran Gallery, which have since joined the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
Tibbs was not only a passionate collector, but also an archivist and advocate for the history of Black artists in America. “I want to provide options for art historians and writers when they start their revisionary studies,” Tibbs explained. “And they will. In the 1990s all the periods of American art are going to be reanalyzed and recalculated. There needs to be material so that they can say, ‘Oh here’s an artist who was working in the 1960s. He wasn’t covered before but he’s pretty good. Maybe we should put him in our anthology this time.’” (as quoted in J.A. Allen, “Thurlow Tibbs: A Man with a Mission,” Washington Times, July 30, 1985) In line with this goal of sharing new stories about Black art with the public, he organized exhibitions such as 1983’s Surrealism and the Afro-American Artist as well as shows focusing on African-American women artists. Highlights from the collection also toured to twenty museums across the nation in a Smithsonian traveling exhibition 1989-1992.