Exhibits
Exhibits
§ EXHIBIT · COMPTON ART & HISTORY MUSEUM
Sons Like Me.
Anthony Lee Pittman
- HOURS
- Tuesday to Saturday, 10 to 3. Closed Sunday and Monday.
- ADMISSION
- Free
- ERA
- 2023
Paintings by Anthony Lee Pittman: Black sons painted the way churches paint saints, in gold, at full size, looking right at you.
The Room
The canvases hang low, at eye level, so nobody looks down on anybody. Between them, framed photographs of the men and boys the paintings grew out of.
Why It Hung Here
A museum in this city should show its sons the way their mothers see them. This was one of the first shows on these walls, and people still ask for it by name.
§ CURATOR’S NOTE
“Anthony paints the young men this country only ever photographs from far away. Up close, with the gold behind them, you finally see who they are.”
§ QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK
- Who is Anthony Lee Pittman?
- A painter whose portraits of young Black men hung at the Compton Art & History Museum in the show Sons Like Me.
- What does the gold mean?
- It borrows the halo of religious painting, and gives it to people who rarely get painted at all.
