Bob Thompson: So let us all be citizens

52 Walker is pleased to announce its seventh exhibition So let us all be citizens, which will feature a range of paintings by Bob Thompson (1937–1966). The works on view will spotlight the artist’s jazz-influenced style and how he used this method to engage new audiences within the history of painting. Looking at his particular consideration for color, line, and figuration—developed during a period when abstraction was the dominant trend in American art—this intimate survey pays homage to the friction Thompson generated between his proximity to and deviation from cited and canonical sources.

Including paintings from important public and private collections, this solo presentation will be one of the first in New York City devoted to Thompson since the retrospective organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1998. A companion group exhibition, So let us all be citizens too, which considers Thompson’s influence on both his contemporaries and subsequent generations of artists, will be on view concurrently at David Zwirner London.

Image: Bob Thompson, An Allegory, 1964 (detail). Oil on linen, 48 × 48 in. (121.9 × 121.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Thomas Bellinger 72.137 © Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY