Hotel Porter Figure 1939

Alvin Gully made this Hotel Porter Figure using watercolor, graphite and possibly some other mediums on paper. The piece has an appealing, folksy feel, right? There’s a lot of modulation in the blacks and browns; thin washes create depth, and you can sense the artist figuring things out as they went along. The handling of the green waistcoat, for example, with those thin washes and visible under-drawing, feels raw and open. The way Gully applies the paint, sometimes thick, sometimes thin, gives the work a kind of emotional texture. He's not trying to hide the process; you can see how the piece came together, layer by layer. Take the face, the subtle gradations of color, the graphite lines pushing through - it all adds up to a sense of character, a real person. This feels adjacent to some of Horace Pippin's figurative compositions. Like Pippin, Gully is interested in capturing a specific kind of Black experience. Neither artist is trying to show off; they're just trying to tell it like it is.