colors of life : blues paintings by harold smith
DESCRIPTION
This is a catalogue of artwork displayed at the Martell House in Cognac, France. This exhibition was organized by the Cognac Blues Passions Festival. June 30, 2014 - September 20, 2014 For more information: www.haroldsmithart.comTRANSCRIPT
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COLORS of LIFEHarold Smith
Catalogue completThe complete catalogue
30 juin - 21 septembre 2014
Cognac Blues Passions / Martell
Cognac
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Peintre expressionniste américain, Harold D. Smith explore son expérience personnelle en temps qu'homme noir aux Etats-Unis. Il a réalisé plusieurs séries au fil des ans: Pain and Privilege, recherche sur la juxtaposition desépreuves des noirs et des privilèges des blancs, Okkkupy, sur les mensonges, les distorsions de vérités, l’anti-intellectualisme dirigé contre les noirs américains et donc tous les Américains, Faces of Katrina, après l'ouragan qui a ravagé La Nouvelle-Orléans. Il sonde l'âme de la musique aussi. Comme avecJazzstract, qui lui a valu une rétrospective, Colors of Jazz, au Musée National du Jazz de Kansas City, ou Jazzsynthesis. Et le blues. Thème qui l'a particulièrement inspiré pour s a première exposition européenne etcette nouvelle série, Colors of Life, réalisée pour Cognac Blues Passions.
Harold D. Smith, an American expressionist painter explores jazz, blues, and his personal
experiences as a Black male in the United States. He has done several series over
the years: Pain and Privilege, a research on the juxtaposition of the pains experienced by
the Blacks, and the privileges of the Whites, Okkkupy, about the lies, the distorted truths,
the anti-intellectualism directed against the American Blacks, therefore against all the
Americans, Faces of Katrina, after the hurricane destroyed New Orleans. He plunges into
the soul of the music too. Like with Jazzstract, which turned into a retrospective exhibit,
Colors of Jazz, at the National Museum of Jazz of Kansas City, or Jazzsynthesis. And the
blues. A theme that has particularly inspired him for his first European show and this new
series, Colors of Life, painted for the Cognac Blues Passions festival.
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Michel Rolland
Directeur de Cognac Blues Passions
La peinture figurative d’Harold Smith représente des visages, des personnages. La pureté des modèles contraste avec la puissance de sa technique.
Sur la toile ou sur d'autres supports, il exprime ses pulsions, crée un monde dans lequel les couleurs vives s'amoncèlent, s’entremêlent, se conjuguent, et renvoient à un spectacle perceptible du réel ou d'un monde imaginaire.
Sa peinture est un voyage enchanté et vibrant sans cesse réalimenté par sa curiosité inassouvie de la black music, sur fond de contrastes ethniques et sociaux.
Cette vision rêvée et mouvementée d’une musique qui l'émeut donne à ses œuvres une vibration lumineuse et raffinée.
Porté par ces sons et ces voix, Harold Smith peint... A vous de suggérer le reste du chemin.
Director of the Cognac Blues Passions festival
Harold Smith's figurative painting depicts faces and characters. The pureness of his
models contrasts with the power of his technique.
Be it on canvas or on other mediums, he expresses his urges, creates a world in which
vivid colors accumulate, intertwine, combine, and bring forward a perceptible reflection
of the real or imaginary world.
His painting is an enchanting and vibrant journey, continuously fed by his
unquenchable curiosity of black music, in a context of ethnic and social contrasts.
This intuitive and energetic vision of a music that touches him deeply gives his work
a luminous and refined ambiance.
Inspired by these sounds and voices, Harold Smith paints... Feel free to convey the rest
of the way.
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Howlin’ Wolf
Beaucoup de gens veulent savoir ce qu’est le blues. J’en entends beaucoup dire: ‘’le blues, le blues...’’ Mais je vais te dire ce qu’est le blues.Quand t’as pas d’argent, tu as le blues. Quand t’as pas d’argent pourpayer le loyer, tu as encore le blues.
Beaucoup de gens disent ‘‘Je n’aime pas le blues.’’ Mais quand t’as pasd’argent et que tu peux pas payer ton loyer, quand tu peux pas t’acheterà manger, c’est vraiment sûr, t’as le blues. C’est là. Je te dis, moi. C’est vraiment là. Si t’as pas d’argent, t’as le blues. Parce que tu penses à mal.C’est ça. Et à chaque fois que tu penses à mal, tu penses au blues.
Tu vois? Sinon, si toi, tu reçois tout tout le temps, si t’as besoin de rien, que t’as même pas besoin de t’inquiéter. Mais quand t’as rien, t’as pas le droit de t’inquiéter de quoi que ce soit, et c’est pour ça que le blues est arrivé. Bon Dieu... De toute façon, tu le sais. Quand tu te dis ‘’J’ai pas ci,j’ai pas ça’’, et que tu regardes par là-bas et qu’eux ils ont ci et qu’ils ontça, et que, dans ton coeur, tu sens que tu n’es personne, c’est là que tu asle blues.
A lot of people want to know what is the blues. I hear a lot of people saying ‘‘the blues,
the blues’’ but I’m gonna tell you what the blues is. When you ain’t got no money, you
got the blues. When you ain’t got no money to pay your house rent, you still got the
blues.
A lot of people talk about ‘I don’t like no blues’ but when you ain’t got no money and
can’t pay your house rent and can’t buy you no food you damned sure got the blues.
That’s where it’s at. I tell you. That’s where it’s at. If you ain’t got no money you got the
blues. ‘Cause you’re thinking evil. That’s right. Any time you’re thinkin’ evil you’re thinking
about the blues.
See. If you ain’t, if you, if you’re getting everything you were sent, and don’t need
nothing, you don’t have no right to worry about nothing. But when you ain’t got nothing
then you got to worry about something, and that’s why the blues come in. And Lord, first
thing is that you know ‘I don’t have this, and I don’t have that’ and you look over there
at these other people, and they got this and got that, and in your heart you feel like
that you ain’t nobody, you got the blues.
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Sherman H. Cox
Auteur de Three Points and a Poem Preaching Method (Learning to Preach In the Black Tradition)
Qu’on le trouve dans la chorale de gospel le dimanche matin ou dans un club, le blues est fait d’émotion brute. On le retrouvera dans le prêcheurde gospel, le chanteur de R’n’B ou dans le trompettiste de jazz, ou même dansle bluesman traditionnel, tout cela remonte à la même source d’émotion brute.L’endroit où se retrouvent toutes nos aspirations et tous nos désirs les plus sincères, et qui montrent notre humanité...
M. A., M. Div.
Author “Three Points and a Poem Preaching Method (Learning to Preach
In the Black Tradition)”
Whether it is found in the gospel choir on Sunday morning, or in the club, the blues is about
raw emotion. It might be the Gospel preacher, R & B singer, or the Jazz trumpet player,
or even the traditional bluesman, but they all go back to the same source of raw emotion.
That place that captures all of our strivings and earnest yearning to simply allow our
humanity to be seen...
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Dina M. Bennett
Docteure - ethnomusicologueAncienne directrice, responsable de l’éducation du Musée BB King & du Centre d’interprétation du Delta, à Indianola, Mississippi
«La voix passionnée du bluesman du Delta, celle, vaudevillesque,du chanteur de blues qui raconte sa vie, celle qui se rapproche d’un criautoritaire, celle, terre-à-terre, du bluesman urbain, celle, enfin, douce, de la chanteuse de jazz, sont toutes des interprétations du blues. Une formede musique de la Post-Reconstruction qui narre la dimension séculaire de l’expérience noire américaine. Ces voix diversifiées et magnifiques nous invitent à écouter le blues, à écouter ce qu’ils racontent – yeah, à écouter le blues, à écouter ce qu’ils jouent, et comment.
Le chanteur de blues qui partage ces émotions et ces sentiments du blues, est chargé de messages. D’amours non partagées, d’amours perdues, d’histoires de survie, de liberté, de voyages en quête d’une vie meilleure,d’emprisonnement, et d’autres épreuves issues des réalités sociales, politiques,économiques de la vie. Le message du blues est exprimé en des termes très personnels et, en même temps, représente la sensibilité et l’identité d’un peuple.»
Ph. D. - Ethnomusicologist
Former Director of Education, B.B. King Museum
& Delta Interpretive Center, Indianola, Mississippi
The passionate voice of the Delta bluesman, the tell-it-like-it-is voice of the vaudeville
blues singer, the commanding voice of the blues shouter, the earthy voice of the urban
bluesman, and the smooth voice of the jazz singer are all interpretive voices of the
blues, a Post-Reconstruction form of music that depicts the secular dimension of the
Black experience. These diverse and magnificent voices compel us to ‘listen to the blues,
listen to what they’re sayin’, yeah, listen to the blues, listen to the way they’re playin.
As the conveyor of blues emotion and feeling, the blues singer imparts a message
of unrequited love, lost love, survival, freedom, traveling (looking for a better life),
imprisonment, and other hardships stemming from the social, political, and economic
realities of life. The blues message is expressed in highly personalized terms, yet it
represents the collective sensibility and identity of a people. Many blues performers
served their apprentice in the Black church. The blues is about oral expression and
storytelling. Emotion. Realism. Joy. Despair. As John Lee Hooker proclaims, ‘you’ll never
get out of these blues alive.
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Exhuberance122cm x 152cm
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Backwoods76cm x 122cm
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Robert76cm x 122cm
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Blues Theology122cm x 76cm
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Joy122cm x 76cm
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Koko Taylor122cm x 76cm
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Primal Scream122cm x 76cm
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Strange Fruit 76cm x 101cm
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Bluesman76cm x 101cm
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Hound Dog Taylor76cm x 101cm
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Alexis Sutter101cm x 76cm
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Memphis Blues101cm x 76cm
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Chicago Blues101cm x 76cm
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Ascension61cm x 91cm
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Ray Charles61cm x 91cm
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Charlie Parker61cm x 91cm
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The Confessional61cm x 91cm
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Marvin Gaye61cm x 91cm
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Omette Coleman61cm x 91cm
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Badu76cm x 61cm
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Junior Wells76cm x 61cm
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Hendrix61cm x 76cm
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Jimi61cm x 76cm
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Leadbelly61cm x 76cm
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Monk61cm x 76cm
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Sarah61cm x 76cm
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Thought61cm x 76cm
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Wolf61cm x 76cm
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Ella61cm x 76cm
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Bessie61cm x 76cm
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Big Bluesman61cm x 76cm
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Crooner61cm x 76cm
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Muddy61cm x 76cm
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Koko61cm x 76cm
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Raw Blues61cm x 76cm
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Pain And Privilege61cm x 76cm
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Cab61cm x 76cm
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Fred McDowell61cm x 45cm
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Bluesman In The Winter45cm x 61cm
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Billie In Blue45cm x 61cm
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Blues Woman45cm x 61cm
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The Singer45cm x 61cm
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Sangin’45cm x 61cm
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Nina Simone 245cm x 61cm
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Billie45cm x 61cm
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Buddy Guy45cm x 61cm
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Ecstasy45cm x 61cm
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Impresario45cm x 61cm
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Johnny Littlejohn45cm x 61cm
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Raw Memphis Blues45cm x 61cm
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Robert Johnson 245cm x 61cm
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Blues Is The Human Song45cm x 61cm
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Tarifs