YARDE, Richard.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Savoy Ballroom. First and sole edition, limited to 400 copies, of this beautifully produced tribute to the famed Harlem ballroom, reproducing Yarde's vibrant original watercolours, drawing on many of the renowned photographic images of dancers - largely the work of Life photographers Gjon Mili and Cornell Capa - at what was known to the cognoscenti as "The Track". Richard Yarde (1939-2011) studied art at Boston University and later taught there and at a number of institutions before becoming professor of art at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "Yarde dedicated much of his earlier work to the personalities and themes of the African American experience... An individual who truly understands colour, he is able to make it speak almost musically, in tones that vibrate. He is indeed a master of watercolour painting" (Samella Lewis, African American Art and Artists, 2003, p. 295). As Yarde stated in a 1997 interview with Smith College "jazz is an important source of energy and inspiration when I paint. I see the visual structure of my paintings as being very musical. The grid is like the backbeat, it keeps time in the work. The images that break through the grid are similar to improvisation" (cited in his Boston Globe obituary, 17 January 2012, retrieved 26.02.19). Globe art critic Christine Temin described his work in glowing terms, "his handling is virtuosic, his colours dazzling". In 1982 Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, Massachusetts, mounted the travelling exhib

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