VAM galleries including this work:
The Kentucky Library and Museum || VAM Home

The layered, varying shades of blue in this painting imply a depth beyond the flat plane of the picture. The repeated colors and soft-edged shapes are arranged to suggest playful movement and an asymmetrical balance.

About the Artist

Joe Downing is a Kentucky artist with an international reputation. Born November 15, 1925, near Tompkinsville, Kentucky, he moved with his family to Horse Cave in 1927. After serving in the military during the last years of World War II, he moved to Chicago, studying optometry by day and art in the evenings. During this period he realized that the visual arts would be his vocation. In 1950, he planned a trip to Paris that was to last for just a few months—but that visit to France turned into a permanent stay.

At Downing’s first one-person exhibition at Galerie 8 in Paris in 1952, his work was viewed by artist Pablo Picasso, who encouraged the young artist by pronouncing, “Well done.” Since that exhibition, Downing has shown his work extensively in Europe, with one piece displayed at the Louvre in Paris. His work is held in collections throughout the world, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, and Jerusalem. In the United States, he is represented in collections in Kentucky, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Washington, and Washington, D.C.

Downing has received many honors throughout his career, including his selection in 1994 to participate in an exhibit sponsored by the French government to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. He also received the 1999 Kentucky Governor’s Awards in the Arts National Award, which is given to “a Kentucky son or daughter who has received national fame.” Downing continues to paint in his studio in Menerbes in the south of France. He has also published books of poetry and numerous articles on art.

Classroom Ideas

Discussion: What style would you consider this painting? Would you consider it a monochromatic piece? How has the artist used negative space? View other works by Joe Downing online as well as The Long, Long Summers’ Dream in the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art gallery of the Kentucky Virtual Art Museum. Are certain common qualities noticeable? What similarities do you notice among the works? What differences? Do you think you would have guessed that the same artist created these works if you didn’t already know that? Why or why not?

Downing left this work untitled. What title would you give it?

Activity: Write a poem inspired by this work.

Links

Explore the Kentucky Library and Museum’s online exhibit Joe Dudley Downing 2000, which includes more than 75 examples of his work.
[www.wku.edu/Library/onlinexh/jd/bio.html]