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The Intruder

Artist Benny Andrews (American, 1930-2006)

CultureAmerican

Date1964

MediumMixed media on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 51 5/8 x 46 1/2 in. (131.1 x 118.1 cm)

InscribedSigned and dated lower right: Benny Andrews; 64

Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number71.794

Collections

Modern and Contemporary

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThis is a mixed media on canvas painting of an African-American woman in a red dress in a blue armchair, on the left of the canvas. Her dress is a low relief of fabric painted over with primarily red paint; purple paint is used on the dress for shadowing. Her face is collaged. Clenching her fingers slightly, her hands are crossed and rest on top of a round white pillow on her lap. Behind her is the interior of large living room; a chandelier hangs in front of the window from the ceiling, and a few works of art are displayed: a portrait hangs on the back wall and a marble sculpture sits on the side table.

Label TextBenny Andrews American, 1930–2006 Intruder, 1964 Mixed media on canvas In Intruder, an African American woman is pressed uncomfortably into the foreground of a grand interior. With its expensive furnishings and exaggerated proportions, the palatial room signals a pretentious, whites-only realm of status and wealth. Benny Andrews’ combination of painted and collaged materials accentuates the sense that the woman is out of place. The blue chair and details of the room are in oil, but the woman’s head is roughly sculpted paper and her dress is painted fabric. Created one year after Martin Luther King, Jr. led the March on Washington and appealed to Congress for civil rights legislation, the work grapples with the social upheavals of the period. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.794 ProvenancePaul Kessler Gallery, New York, 1965; Chrysler Art Museum of Provincetown, Mass., 1965; Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. to the Chrysler Museum of Art, 1971. Exhibition History"American Figure Painting: 1950-1980," Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., October 16 - November 30, 1980. "Since the Harlem Renaissance: 50 years of Afro-American Art," The Center Gallery of Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pa., April 13 - June 6, 1984; The Amelie A. Wallace Art Gallery, The State University of New York, College at Westbury, N.Y., November 1 - December 9, 1984; Museum of Art, The Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, N.Y., January 11 - March 3, 1985; The Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, Md., March 27 - May 3, 1985; The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., July 19 - September 1, 1985; Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa., September 22 - November 1, 1985. "Remix: A Fresh Look At Our Modern And Contemporary Art Collections," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, November 2, 2011 - March 17, 2012. "The Nexus," Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA, January 25 - April 28, 2013.Published ReferencesThomas W. Styron, _American Figure Painting 1950-1980_, exh. cat., The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., 1980, 60. Museum staff, "American Figure Painting Symposium," _The Chrysler Museum Bulletin_ 10, no. 11 (November 1980): 2. _Since the Harlem Renaissance: Fifty Years of Afro-American Art_, exh. cat., The Center Gallery of Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pa., 1984, 105, no. 81. ISBN: 0916279022 Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 238-239, no. 146. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6