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Artist: Richard Mayhew (American, b. 1924)
Afro-Native American painter, illustrator, jazz singer, and actor. Mayhew graduated from Columbia University. He painted abstract landscapes informed by his experiences as an African American and Native American. He used new color techniques that allowed base colors to show through opaque top layers, resulting in intensities that change with different lighting. He co-founded Spiral, a black painters’ group, in the 1960s in response to the Civil Rights Movement. He has taught at several universities and received the National Academy of Design Merit Award (1977). Today, his style is best described as neo-American impressionism.