Bob Thompson’s Provocative Challenge to Euro-American Art History, Billy Anania, Hyperallergic, December 20, 2021…

Bob Thompson, “Black Monster” (1959), oil on canvas, 56 x 67 inches (© Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York)

… if i were anywhere near Maine and the Colby College Museum, i would go see this (assuming adequate safety measures for COVID)…

In 28 years of life, Thompson created more than 1,000 paintings, including hundreds of expressive reinterpretations of Renaissance and Early Modern artworks. These variations, much like those in jazz music, allowed the artist to riff on familiar favorites, and his standards of choice were Poussin, Tintoretto, Manet, and Goya. Approaching renowned white artists from the margins allowed Thompson to tease out Euro-American tensions with Blackness, and the 85 works on display here portray the terror and splendor of public space, the persecution of Black sexuality, and the fine line between assimilation and fugitivity.

… here is a Wikipedia article on him…

… he strikes me as a primitive, almost outsider artist, though he had formal training…