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Crawford Gillis
American, 1914–2000
Crawford Gillis was born in Dallas County, Alabama, near Selma. As a child he studied art with a local Selma artist, Minnie Kent Fowlkes, and after graduation from high school attended the National Academy of Design in New York. Gillis joined the U.S. Army in 1940, and between 1941 and 1945 he served overseas in England, France and Germany. Although he was not officially an illustrator for the service, he made many drawings and watercolors of army life and the wartime effort. He returned to Alabama at the end of the war to live and work in Selma, where he continued to paint in his spare time.
Leaving the Mill was painted early in Gillis’s career, and the influence of the Mexican Muralist painters such as Diego Rivera (1886–1956) and Jose Clemente Orozco (1883–1949) is evident in the use of subdued coloration and simplified forms. His subjects were most often Southern blacks, sharecroppers and other poor residents of rural Alabama.
Kenneth W. Prescott and Emma Stina-Prescott, The Complete Graphic Work of Jack Levine, (New York: Dover Publications), 1982, p. vi.
American, 1914–2000
Leaving the Mill
1935
Object Type:
Painting
Dimensions:
19 3/4 x 23 1/8 in. (50.17 x 58.74 cm)
Medium and Support:
Oil on canvas
Accession Number:
2018.0010.0006
Credit Line:
Gift of Babette L. Wampold in memory of Charles H. Wampold
Crawford Gillis was born in Dallas County, Alabama, near Selma. As a child he studied art with a local Selma artist, Minnie Kent Fowlkes, and after graduation from high school attended the National Academy of Design in New York. Gillis joined the U.S. Army in 1940, and between 1941 and 1945 he served overseas in England, France and Germany. Although he was not officially an illustrator for the service, he made many drawings and watercolors of army life and the wartime effort. He returned to Alabama at the end of the war to live and work in Selma, where he continued to paint in his spare time.
Leaving the Mill was painted early in Gillis’s career, and the influence of the Mexican Muralist painters such as Diego Rivera (1886–1956) and Jose Clemente Orozco (1883–1949) is evident in the use of subdued coloration and simplified forms. His subjects were most often Southern blacks, sharecroppers and other poor residents of rural Alabama.
Kenneth W. Prescott and Emma Stina-Prescott, The Complete Graphic Work of Jack Levine, (New York: Dover Publications), 1982, p. vi.
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