Color of Lead (Couleur de plomb)

In order to achieve a high level of spontaneity in their work, the artists of the 1950s and 1960s turned for inspiration to a number of diverse and unusual sources: the art of children, the art of the insane, the art of non-Western cultures, and graffiti. All of these forms of art were thought to possess a pure and spontaneous revelation of the self; the expressive goal that many artists shown on the west wall were striving to achieve. In Couleur de plomb (Color of Lead) (1981.278) Jaap Wagemaker has created an organic composition in which the pictorial values were determined by the character and structure of such materials as string and swatches of burlap as well as the texture of the paint. Wagemaker explained himself as searching for the pure source of creative power; to this end he was ardently interested in precolumbian, African, and Oceanic art, for many of the same reasons as Gauguin was earlier. In this large oil collage the varying tones of grays and blacks play off contrasting textures and surfaces. Note the small touches of red-orange and yellow in the lower part of the canvas.