Whitfield Lovell

(American, born 1959)

Whitfield Lovell is a contemporary African-American artist best known for his site-specific installations and Conté crayon portraits. Culling images from found photographs of African Americans from the first half of the 20th century, Lovell then draws their portraits on antique wooden panels. In his 1999 installation, Whispers from the Walls, the artist constructed a small house built from old boards, covered the gallery floors with clothing and soil, and hung frying pans, spinning wheels, and musical instruments around the space. This installation suggested the environments that many of his subjects may have lived amidst. “In my current work I’m mostly interested in the people and the imagery, so that my drawings are more in service to the imagery than being about drawing,” he explained. Born on October 2, 1959 in the Bronx, NY, his parents encouraged Lovell from a young age, enrolling him in an arts high school and extracurricular programs around the city. He went on to study at the Maryland Institute College of Art before finishing his BFA at the Cooper Union School of Art in 1981. Influenced by the works of Jacob Lawrence and Horace Pippin, as well as Mexican and West Indian folk art, Lovell has examined his heritage both formally and conceptually over the subsequent decades. The artist currently lives and works in New York, NY. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Brooklyn Museum, among others.