Session

Raymond Howell

A self-taught artist, African-American artist Ray Howell was born in Oakland, California and grew up in foster homes. Howell painted many works on commission, including a huge mural at now-closed New Joe's Restaurant on Geary Street in San Francisco, depicting the history of the city's Italian community.

Howell's subject for this very large chromolithograph is a jazz band, getting together in an improvised session. The musicians on stage form a tight composition, focusing on the conga drummer in the foreground, setting the rhythm. The musicians behind him are a diverse group, musically and ethnically, all focusing on their own instrument to create a unified sound. A study in spontaneous harmony.

Howell used chromolithography, usually considered a commercial planographic process, to create this large work, probably reproducing a painting, in an edition of 250. Though not technically an "original" lithograph it was produced and published by the artist. The actual number of impressions printed is not known to the gallery, though editioned at 250 there are not many on record.