1961

The Deposition

American, 1937 - 1966

Bob Thompson painted The Deposition in 1961, the year he moved to Paris. It was at this time that the artist began to create religious scenes based on Italian Renaissance and Baroque paintings he saw at the Musée du Louvre. Inspired by the vibrant works of Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse, Thompson reinterpreted the Louvre paintings with vivid colors, flat shapes, and limited anatomical detail. Thompson linked his appropriation of traditional imagery to the methods of jazz musicians, who constantly reinvent musical compositions through spontaneous improvisation.