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Ray Charles

National Portrait Gallery

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Object Details

Artist
Morgan Monceaux, 9 May 1955 - 31 May 2017
Sitter
Ray Charles, 23 Sep 1930 - 10 Jun 2004
Exhibition Label
Few figures in twentieth-century popular music have exerted more influence than Ray Charles. By developing a style that blended the rhythm-and-blues tradition with gospel and rock and roll, Charles helped shape the music and style of other performers while creating such timeless hits as "Georgia on My Mind" and "Hit the Road, Jack."
Morgan Monceaux, an amateur musician with no formal training in art, used an innovative mixture of collage technique and found materials to produce a series of portraits of jazz greats. Here, discarded plastic sunglasses signify Charles's blindness, while strips of wood represent piano keys and a microphone stand. Handwritten words surround the figure like an aura, providing biographical details. Monceaux's portraits mirror the improvisational vitality of jazz and honor those musicians like Charles, whom the artist considers "the great rule-breakers of our time."
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Morgan Monceaux
1992-1994
Object number
NPG.2003.81
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
Copyright
© 1992 Morgan Monceaux/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Type
Collage
Medium
Mixed media: graphite, pastel, black magic marker, wood, fabric, plastic and adhesive on paper
Dimensions
Sight: 102.6 x 76.5 cm (40 3/8 x 30 1/8")
Mat (Verified): 108.6 x 82.6 x 4.8 cm (42 3/4 x 32 1/2 x 1 7/8")
Frame: 112.4 × 86.4 × 7.6 cm (44 1/4 × 34 × 3")
See more items in
National Portrait Gallery Collection
National Portrait Gallery
Topic
Music\Musical instrument\Piano
Costume\Dress Accessory\Eyeglasses\Sunglasses
Costume\Dress Accessory\Tie\Bowtie
Collage
Folk Art
Costume\Dress Accessory\Button
Ray Charles: Male
Ray Charles: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician\Composer
Ray Charles: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician\Singer
Ray Charles: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician\Pianist
Ray Charles: Society and Social Change\Physically disabled\Blind
Portrait
Record ID
npg_NPG.2003.81
Usage of Metadata (Object Detail Text)
Usage conditions apply
GUID (Link to Original Record)
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/sm4fe60fa62-af60-4b6b-9e18-8e164be391a5

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