Curated by Patrick Kelly.

Two Worlds considers the a loaned work by American artist Norman Lewis (1909-1979) titled Untitled (Subway Station), 1945, and selections from the Old Jail Art Center’s permanent collection as the artists explore the balance between depicting reality and investigating non-objective creations through abstraction. Within the permanent collection selections to be included are works by mid-twentieth century Texas artists known as the Fort Worth Circle. 

At the same time Lewis was transitioning from Social Realism to abstraction in the 1940s Harlem New York, the Fort Worth Circle artists were also investigating the possibilities of abstraction. During this time, Lewis was abandoning realism as a means of expression due to his personal recognition of its ineffectiveness for social change. Instead he elected to create works that were “inherently aesthetic” in nature. Similarly, the Fort Worth Circle artists were embracing European modernism, rejecting (eschewing) the prevalent and popular Texas Regionalism and “bluebonnet school.” 

Lewis utilized devices of Abstract Expressionism to develop his personal visual language. Calligraphic line work along with fluid and expressive lines and shapes dominated his dynamic works. For the Fort Worth Circle artists, each developed their own unique style as the assimilated ideas and devices through their observation of Cubism, Surrealism, Fauvism, and most other early twentieth century art movements. Though many of the artists in Two Worlds investigate the realm of pure abstraction, remnants of recognizable imagery or narrative is never renounced or abandoned. 

Lewis and the Fort Worth Circle artists shared different challenges in their careers. As an African-American artist, Lewis participated in many exhibitions and discussions in New York related to early abstraction yet he was excluded from many important writings or narratives related to the early periods associated with abstraction, specifically Abstract Expressionism. For the Fort Worth Circle artists, modernism was new to a conservative and culturally isolated part of the United States. Lewis augmented his income by driving a cab and teaching art at local schools in Harlem and New York. With very few collectors of early Texas Modernism the majority of Fort Worth Circle artists taught art or theatre, painted portraits, or were employed as draftsmen during the war years.

For all of the artists of Two Worlds, often the subject of a work is used as a vehicle to explore the language of abstraction, or abstract devices are used to emphasize something within a narrative or scene. Shape and form become gestural strokes while at the same time a stroke can reinforce a mood or feeling reinforcing what an artist is striving to convey. Works within this exhibition illustrate this approach as the artists teeter back-and-forth from abstracting subjects to the realm of non-objective abstraction. Often the works exist in both the worlds of concrete depiction and ethereal abstraction.

Two Worlds is generously supported by the Art Bridges Foundation, Marcia Jacobs in memory of Chuck Jacobs, Pati & K.C. Jones, John & Sharon Matthews, Lynne & Cliff Teinert, and Pam & Bob Tidwell.