Artist Archibald J. Motley Jr.'s Jazz Age imagery on display at LACMA

Photo: (Valerie Gerrard Browne / LACMA)
By STEVE APPLEFORD
Archibald J. Motley Jr. was an artist intrigued by the night. It is there in a large number of his paintings, which tap into the joys and dramas of life after dark, onstage and backstage, in the streets of Chicago or during a feverish nighttime church service.

His neon-lighted scenes emerged from the Midwestern wing of the Harlem Renaissance, as the African American community asserted itself nearly a century ago as a major creative force in art, literature and music. "Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist," on exhibition through Feb. 1 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is the first wide-ranging survey of his vivid work since a 1991show at the Chicago History Museum.

Curator Richard J. Powell, a professor of art and art history at Duke University, calls Motley a "pioneering provocateur" who experimented with color and movement while "dealing with subject matter that might have been considered politically incorrect."
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