Title
Round
Color aquatint; Saunders Waterford HP paper
Image: 36 x 36 inches; sheet: 40 ½ x 40 inches; edition of 40
Courtesy of Paulson Fontaine Press
Estimated Retail Value: $15,000
Starting Bid: $9,000
Acclaimed painter McArthur Binion updates elements of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism in paintings and drawings that combine laborious mark-making and hand-drawn repetition with personal ephemera. He often paints on images of his birth certificate, found and historical photographs, and copies of his hand–written phonebook. A former writer, Binion is highly influenced by language and music, notable in how he layers information to be “read” rather than simply seen. The resulting, often monochromatic works like this one embed symbolism and expressive gestures beneath simple, elegant frameworks.
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McArthur Binion
Binion (b. 1946, Macon, MS; lives and works in Chicago) received his B.F.A. from Wayne State University and his M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Binion’s works were also featured prominently in the 57th Venice Biennale, VIVA ARTE VIVA (2017). Additional select recent solo exhibitions of his work have been organized at the de la Cruz Gallery at Georgetown University (2025); Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI (2023); Museo Novecento, Florence, Italy (2020); the Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI (2018); Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX (2012); and the University of Maryland University College Gallery, Adelphi, MD (2010). His work is in numerous public and private collections such as the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA; Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH; Art Bridges Foundation, Bentonville, AR; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS; Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA; Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco, CA; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.
