A painting by Bert L. Long, Jr., a self-taught Houston artist who was active from 1977 until his death in 2013, has been purchased for the collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, D.C. Deborah Colton Gallery, which represents Long’s estate in Houston, sent out a press release with details on the acquisition.
Answer to Van Gogh (1987) is an 18 x 46.5 x 5 inch multimedia work that features an acrylic painting on canvas inside a wide and heavily-collaged frame. In the painting, a large eye, a heart, and a hand sit nestled within a hilly landscape. According to the press release from the gallery, “Long describes the philosophy behind his work as a quest to help people diagnose their inner self, believing his art to be the vehicle to help facilitate positive change” (emphasis in original). The piece, which typifies Long’s mixed-media approach, was made in the same year that he was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Long’s work can also be found in the collections of institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, the El Paso Museum of Art, and the Instituto de Bachillerato in Spain. In addition to the NEA grant, he was awarded a 1990 Prix de Rome fellowship, Art League Houston’s 1990 Texas Artist of the Year award, the 1997 Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Emergency Assistance Grant, and the 2009 Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts Artist of the Year Award. In 2016, Michael Bise reviewed Long’s third posthumous exhibition with Deborah Colton Gallery for Glasstire .
As stated in the press release, “Bert L. Long Jr. continues to be recognized as an important African American artist throughout Texas, nationally and internationally.” For more information on Long, visit his artist page on the Deborah Colton gallery website . Those interested may also keep tabs on the National Museum of African American History & Culture website for possible news of the acquisition.
