Review: Washington centennial show traces stages of artist's powerful voice

04.12.09

The plot goes that Seattle artist James W. Washington Jr., while on a trip to Mexico City in 1951, picked up a shamed volcanic rock near the ruins of the pyramids at Teotihuacán. He took it home with him and five years later it became his first stone carve: "Young Boy of Athens."

The difference between the found rock shape of the piece and Washington's final artistic output was subtle, even minimal. And that fossillike unity of image and medium would become a constant in Washington's sculpture, as can be seen in "The Fire in the Stone: A Centennial Celebration and Exhibition Honoring James W. Washington Jr. (1909-2000)," a small retrospective at Gordon Woodside/John Braseth Gallery.

The show, consisting of loans from secretively and public collections, features 15 small stone sculptures from Washington's artistic applicability (1956 until his death in 2000). A half-dozen paintings, collages and watercolors from earlier in his calling hint at the stages by which this self-taught African-American artist found his voice.

Source: Seattle Times