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Chicago Tribune Arts & Fun - July 16, 1972

ART

Norman Parish's black pride shows thru the whitewash.

By JANE ALLEN 
and DEREK GUTHRIE

THE MINI retrospective of the paintings of Norman Parish, on exhibit at the South Side Community Art Center, 3031 S. Michigan Av., thru July 29, is not only an individual event but also one man's documentation of the black experience of the '60s. Parish, a graduate of the Art Institute in 1960, sees his work during the last decade as falling roughly into three periods.

For seven years after graduation, Norman Parish did the art fair circuit while supporting himself as a designer. He says of his fair experience that it is probably very hopeful to an aspiring young artist who regards his profession as a glamorous one. Any such illusions are quickly rubbed off when you sit under a hot sun listening to inane comments about your work and watching the jewelry makers and potters making piles of money.

Like so many other Art Institute students of that period, Parish's work was strongly influenced by his teacher, Paul Wieghardt. This is particularly revealed in the younger artist's use of color areas floating on the surface of the canvas which can be manipulated either into a figurative or an abstract composition. In part no doubt dictated by the art fair audience which was his only public, Parish's early paintings are colorful landscapes, portraits, some cityscapes with no striking originality. They are pleasant and competent, but nothing that would stand out.

Norman Parish's baptism by fire came during the late '60s as a result of the growing consciousness of black culture and black pride in [[text cut off]]

Parish was chosen to paint the top central panel depicting black political figures - Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Adam Clayton Powell, and H. Rap Brown. This was the first large scale figurative work he had attempted, and he saw it was a challenge to his compositional skill. Using photographs and pictures, he attempted to portray the figures both as impressive individual and as part of a continuum, tieing the composition together with bands of bright color.

After working on the wall for a month, Parish was satisfied that he had achieved his aims. The panel was finished except for a few touches.

Then he arrived one morning to find the work into which he had put so much effort, whitewashed out. He never found out exactly who did it, but he was told the reason why it was done. Some other painters, perhaps envious, felt that his work was too skilled, too Western, and not black enough.

In a white heat, Parish painted the crispest painting in the Community Center exhibition a diptych documenting the event. On the upper half of the canvas, he painted the Wall of Respect with his panel included just as it would have been seen by a passerby; on the lower half is portrayed exactly the same scene with the main panel destroyed. The painting is called "Black Pride - Whitewashed."

After his initial rage had passed, the painter forced himself to examine the question of whether his art was really alien to the community. He began to consciously choose black themes, using less sophisticated composition and higher keyed color [[text cut off]]

haps the culmination of this activity was a large 1970 allegorical painting, depicting the black man in American society, titled "Gyrations of American Gothic."

The content of this work, however, suggested a different future direction for Parish's work. Amid chaos and confusion a black couple "calmly express the only answer to their situation: inward peace."

The search for inward peace has a great deal to do with Norman Parish's most recent works - abstractions concentrating on color harmonies. Parish now says of his painting of social commentary, "I was trying to do what was expected from me. But creativity doesn't come from projected thought or pre-packaged ideas. It comes from within." These new paintings are clearly the painter's attempt to use an intuitive approach to the problems of painting.

It is troubling, however, that Parish's experience has not had a greater impact on his 1971 paintings. The high-keyed color, the tighter construction, the rejection of the sentimentality of his art fair period unquestionably result from the demanding experience of working on large scale figure compositions. Sensitively painted and carefully constructed, at times the abstractions achieve a vibrancy.

One feels, however, that the painter has stopped at the point at which the painting works as a composition, without pushing further toward a precise expression of his individuality. "Black Pride - Whitewashed" shows that Parish is capable of a more powerful, more compressed statement.

[[image]] 
Norman Parish stands before his "Black Pride Whitewashed."

Gallery notes
WILL FEYER has been relieved of his post as director of the Evanston Art Center. He was appointed to the paid position two years ago as part of the expansion program of the art center. The executive board declined comment on reasons for the change.

The second large grant within a month has been announced by the Museum of Science and Industry. The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded a $50,000 matching grant to the museum for a major exhibition o [[text cut off]]

Chess By LARRY EVANS
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stantially. (5) Diastolic blood pressure, measured when the heart takes in blood, increased 15% to 64% from resting rates.

This study sheds light on the reactions experienced by both Russia's Mark Taimonov and Denmark's Bent Larsen during their matches against Bobby Fischer. Both asked for postponements due to high blood