Whitfield Lovell

History, memory and identity are at the core of Whitfield Lovell’s practice. For almost 30 years, Lovell has created nuanced portraits of anonymous African Americans by combining exceptional draftsmanship with evocative found images and objects he finds at flea markets, antique stores and estate sales. Lovell, who counts his earliest memories as being of his father developing family photographs in their Bronx apartment, bases his detailed drawings on pre-Civil Rights era photographs and tintypes. While matching the photographs’ precision, he often draws these portraits on stained and weathered wood and juxtaposes the evocative images with objects that seem to point to different moments of U.S. history.