Joe Edward Grant (1940 - 2022)

Untitled (Abstraction), 1991, mixed media consisting of paper, wood, gesso, pigment, straw, dirt and sand on panel, signed “J. Grant” and dated verso, 24 ½ x 20 x 2 ½ inches

$2,500

Joe Edward Grant’s art was based on his firm conviction that “No object or material regardless of its seeming uselessness or banality is exempt from being considered in the creation of an image. When found or discarded objects are used and put into a new context, their prior function dies, and a process of rebirth occurs. As this process develops, it calls attention to some of the basic dualities of our existence.”  Grant’s approach and his resulting art fit neatly into the tradition of assemblage which flourished in Los Angeles during the 1960s and 70s. At first blush, Grant’s usually untitled mixed media constructions appear purely abstract. Upon closer inspection, however, identifiable references appear. Changes in color, texture or materials form horizons. Barely visible incised lines suggest creeks, rivers and the liminal space between plains and distant hills. A rectangular block of discarded wood interrupts the surface, suggesting the presence of a constructed form, perhaps a building or car. Grant’s work often alludes to architecture. As one critic noted in his review of the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery’s exhibition Urban Landscape II, “Joe Edward Grant’s painting-collages quietly celebrate the gritty colors and textures of the urban environment, finding in them a comforting and sensuous not-quite-blankness.” The combination of earthy sand, straw and dirt and human-fashioned materials such as paper and milled wood, emphasizes the references to landscapes.   

Joe Edward Grant was born April 24, 1940, in Mexico, Missouri and died August 4, 2022, in Los Angeles California. He began to study later in life, earning a Bachelor of Arts Degree from California State College in Dominguez Hills in 1977. Three years later in 1980, he earned a Master of Fine Art degree from the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles where Charles White was an instructor and head of the drawing department. From the mid-1960s through his death in 1979, White was a magnet for talented young Black artists like Joe Edward Grant, David Hammonds, Kerry James Marshall, and Ron Griffin. While a student and through the mid-1980s, Grant exhibited regularly at Otis, Cal State Dominguez Hills, the Watts Art Center, and the Museum of African American Art, all in Southern California, and his early work was included in Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art’s publication Projects: Architectural Sculpture Volume 2. In 1986-87, Grant was an artist in residence at the Roswell Museum and Art Center in Roswell, New Mexico, where he had a solo exhibition at the end of his term. A one-man exhibition followed at the Art Gallery of Pima Community College in Tucson Arizona in 1989.

By the early 1990s, Grant was represented by Los Angeles’ Space gallery. In 1991, he was selected as one of nine artists for the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery’s exhibition Urban Landscape II, a show designed to “address the pathos and humor of present-day Los Angeles’ myriad dysfunctions . . .” The same year, Grant had a solo exhibition of his mixed media paintings and collages at the Los Angeles City College Da Vinci Art Gallery in celebration of Black History Month.  His exhibition schedule continued in 1993 with his selection for A Sequence of Artists’ Choices: Interconnections II at SITE at the Roosevelt Building in Los Angeles. The following year, Grant was honored with a two-person Black History Month exhibition together with fellow Otis alum Kerry James Marshall at the Art Gallery of Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California, called Different Visions: The Works of Joe Edward Grant and Kerry James Marshall. Grant was one of twelve recipients of an individual artist grant for 1996-97 from the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, which culminated in his inclusion in another group exhibition at the Municipal Art Gallery. Between 1980 and 2008, Grant exhibited in over fifty individual and group shows across California, Arizona, New Mexico, Spain and Italy. In 2019, three years prior to his death, five of Grant’s works were selected for The Virtue of Ownership, an exhibition by The African American Museum and Cultural Center of New Mexico and the Roswell Museum and Art Center intended to highlight the too often forgotten contributions of Black Americans to the state. Grant’s work remains in the permanent collection of the Roswell Museum.