Donald Sultan is a contemporary painter best known for his use of industrial materials to depict everyday subjects. Sultan uses recurring imagery—such as flowers, playing cards, and lemons—to create colorful still lifes framed by tar-black backgrounds. “The series speaks to the impermanence of all things. The largest cities, the biggest structures, the most powerful empires—everything dies,” he explained of his Disaster Paintings. “Man is inherently self-destructive, and whatever is built will eventually be destroyed.” Born on May 5, 1952 in Asheville, NC, he received his BFA from the Universiyt of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and later his MFA from the School of the Art Institute Chicago before moving...