BOB COLESCOTT AIN’T JUST MISBEHAVIN'

The humor is the bait. It’s the price you pay to get in.¹
—Joe Lewis, 1982

ALTHOUGH ROBERT COLESCOTT’S WORK is impelled by one overriding purpose—to interject black people into Western art—an important component of his art is consistent with the satirical approach. If we perceive a marked defensiveness in such a stance, a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude regarding official “culture,” then we can have a handle on Colescott’s work. His esthetic affinities are with Dada, Surrealism, and Pop art; the prediction of the phenomenon that Marcia Tucker isolated as “bad painting” is key. The politics are

print April 1973

Black Americans in the Visual Arts: A Survey of Bibliographic Materials and Research Resources

DOING RESEARCH ON BLACK AMERICANS in the visual arts, one can be frustrated by the difficulty of locating material. Even in this age of mass publication, where much press coverage has been given to the black artist’s thrust for recognition by the art establishment, the material is all too ephemeral. Books soon go out of print, or if one has not had the foresight to snatch them up as soon as they are released, they are soon allowed to become scarce on bookshelves. The holdings of libraries are often inadequate or missing. Also, much vital information, including catalogues, may be mimeographed,