Discover Raymond Saunders’s dynamic paintings and his extraordinary legacy as an artist and thinker in his first monograph.
Saunders’s work brings together his extensive formal training with his own observations and lived experience. His assemblage-style paintings frequently begin with a monochromatic black ground elaborated with white chalk—a pointed reversal of the traditional figure-ground relationship. He subsequently adds a range of other markings, materials, and talismans, such as wallpaper and advertisements, rulers and paintbrushes. Expressionistic swaths of paint, minimalist motifs, line drawings, and passages of vibrant color tangle with found objects, signs, and doors collected from his physical surroundings at home and abroad, creating unexpected visual rhymes and resonances that reward careful and sustained looking. At once deliberately constructed and improvisatory, didactic and deeply felt, these richly built surfaces conjure a range of themes, allowing for a nuanced multiplicity of meanings.
Documenting a two-part exhibition presented at David Zwirner and Andrew Kreps Gallery in 2024, this publication illuminates Saunders’s ability to infuse his work with social relevance and commentary. Included is a conversation between curator Ebony Haynes and the Studio Museum of Harlem director Thelma Golden about Golden’s multidecade engagement with Saunders’s artwork and writing. A facsimile of Saunders's self-published pamphlet from 1967, Black Is a Color—his vital essay on the creative expression of the artist, which continues to spark cultural conversation more than five decades later—is reproduced alongside new annotated commentary by the art historian Darby English. An essay by Jarrett Earnest offers an in-depth interpretation of two of Saunders’s complex chalkboard works. Also included is a previously unpublished interview from 1980 between the artist and Judith Wilson, in which Saunders discusses his multilayered practice. Lastly, a pivotal text from 1993 by the art historian Richard J. Powell offers a panoramic examination of Saunders’s art from 1968 to 1993, with a special focus on his iconic painting Dr. Jesus. This robust group of texts and academic considerations offers a compelling exploration of Saunders’s wide-ranging practice and lasting influence.