Bob Thompson
Descent from the Cross1963
oil
84 x 60 1/8 in.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David K. Anderson, Martha Jackson Memorial Collection
Bob Thompson combines traditional Christian religious imagery and fantasy in this expressive, highly personal painting. More than half of Thompson's short nine-year career was spent in Europe, a time that was to leave its mark on his choice of subject matter. In what he called “head-on confrontations,”Thompson lifted particular passages or often entire compositions from the works of masters of the European tradition.
