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Margo Humphrey at the David Driskell Center

February 7, 2010

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Margo Humphrey at the David Driskell Center
The David Driskell Center at the University of Maryland has mounted a show of the work of Margo Humphrey that must be seen by afficionados of the art of printmaking and anyone else who loves vibrant in-your-face color and the energy of art that reflects a richly idiosyncratic personal vision. It’s that good.

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The Last Bar B Que
This is the first time that I have ventured so deep into the territory of the University of Maryland campus at College Park and I have to say that Ms. Sondra and I came close to giving up after an hour’s crawl through rush hour traffic from DC, followed by a frustrating search in the dark for the location. Note to the rest of you: 1) do not go in rush hour; 2) the Driskell Center is in the same building as Cole Field House. When you’re asking directions, no-one knows the former but everyone knows the latter.

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The Red Bed
ImageBut I am so glad we persevered, because this is a terrific exhibit. Margo Humphrey has been making prints – mostly stone lithographs, a difficult and dying technique – for more than 40 years. While she is academically credentialled with a BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts and an MFA from Stanford, plus a faculty appointment at the University of Maryland, her work has the immediacy and subjectivity characteristic of the naïve, or “outsider”, artist. Nor does it for a moment seem forced. This is the work of a woman who has been able since childhood to access and express her individual world and lush imagination. Each piece is teeming with fecund (I love that word) imagery, thick with figures, objects and designs, pushing through the edge of the picture plane.

ImageWe managed to arrive just as Ms. Humphrey was beginning her discussion. She’s the person you wished you had for your favorite auntie and the person who had to make this work: animated, energetic, full of life and without pretense. She said that her objective is to "give things a soul and make them come alive" and I would have to say that she has accomplished that goal in many of her prints. So what are you waiting for?
 

 
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