Approximately 74” x 86", done in charcoal, gesso, and pastel on paper. These gentlemen recur in my work with some frequency. They are based on two photographs from the Farm Security Administration. During the 1930’s and ‘40’s the FSA sent photographers the caliber of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Russell Lee across the country to document rural poverty, resulting in an enormous stockpile of brilliant photographs which are in the public domain; much of my work is based on these images. I first used these particular men in an assemblage which was the basis for my installation “where the Southern cross the Dog”; that piece can be seen here in my project entitled “installations”. A few years later I made this charcoal drawing. I installed it in various manners, usually combining it with wood, as it is here; occasionally I paired it with a second figurative drawing. When I worked on a project of solar etching I used transparencies of this drawing, among others, to prepare the plates; the resultant prints can be seen in the project “prints”.
