After studying in Paris with Fernand Leger and living in Cairo, Colescott returned to America to play a significant role in the resurgence of figuration on the West Coast during the 1960s. He began drawing heavily upon his experience as an African-American in the mid-1970s, using images from popular culture and making racial parodies of masterpieces from art history which presaged the emergence of appropriation in the 1980s. Now 74, Mr. Colescott continues to produce vitally significant work which has become more and more biting, provocative and, at times, even savage. No one has been more important as a role model for a younger generation of African-American artists exploring the relationship between the self and the impediments of its realization. In this way, he has created one of the most powerful bodies of work in recent American art, employing a highly personal brand of narrative figuration laced with enough irony to expose the still on-going racial inequity of our culture.

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