Artist Richard Mayhew poses with his wife Rosemary next to his 2004 painting “Pamela’s Aura,” during a visit to SFMOMA for his 97th birthday.
Artist Richard Mayhew poses with his wife Rosemary next to his 2004 painting “Pamela’s Aura,” during a visit to SFMOMA for his 97th birthday.
What color is grief? We are deeply saddened by the loss of Richard Mayhew, a visionary artist and close friend of the museum.
“SFMOMA is fortunate to have worked with such a gifted artist and special human being during this last decade of his life. Thanks to a gift from Pamela Joyner and Fred Giuffrida, the museum collection includes an exceptional grouping of Mayhew’s richly chromatic landscapes. Rather than presenting scenes of nature for consumption, as was typical among historic American landscape painters, Mayhew invites us right into his irresistible, soft-focus scenes.” – Janet Bishop, Thomas Weisel Family Chief Curator and Curator of Painting and Sculpture
Mayhew based his luminescent landscape paintings, what he called “mindscapes,” on emotions. “There’s a certain mystique in the shadow underneath of a bush,” he told us in 2020. “There’s this little area of feeling which is representative of almost every possibility.”
Drawing on his Black and Native American heritage, Mayhew’s paintings pose a challenge to America’s landscape tradition and its association with a violent history of colonialism and land control.
The artist was the last surviving member of the Spiral Group, a New York–based collective that formed in the mid-1960s to discuss the role of African American artists in the civil rights movement and American culture.
Head to the link in bio to see artworks by Mayhew in our collection and watch his 2020 artist interview.
