The answer, I think, is that Anderson is at heart just as much an abstract painter as he is a figurative one (
certain earlier canvases verge on total abstraction, and a suite of domestic interiors, shown at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2009, are studded with nonrepresentational elements).
Not exact matches
Martin's awkward
early mountain scenes and Nude (1947), a small
canvas that depicts a topless, tawny woman sporting hoop earrings, display a
certain interesting energy, but these images are illustrations, not paintings.
Since the
early days of Color Field painting, working on unprimed
canvas or linen has given the impression of a
certain unfinished immediacy — more like the page of a sketchbook than a finished painting.