Little Boy

Raymond Saunders

Raymond Saunders would have been about eighteen years old when he completed this mixed media piece, while he studied part-time at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in an art program for high school students. The entry label that accompanies this portrait is from a 1952 exhibition at the iconic Kaufmann's department store in Pittsburgh, which hosted Scholastic art competitions. Indeed, Saunders would earn a National Scholastic Scholarship around this time, as well as a Barnes Fellowship. These allowed him to enroll at both the Academy and the University of Pennsylvania as a formal college student the following year, kickstarting his professional fine art career.

At the time of this painting's execution, very few Black Americans were offered representation in major galleries, and thus there are scant exhibitions of note recorded by Saunders in the 1950s. However, his talent was not entirely overlooked, as by 1956 he had earned the Cresson European Traveling Scholarship, the Thomas Eakins Prize, the Thoron Oil Painting First Prize, and the First Prize in Figure Drawing and in Oil Composition by the Pennsylvania Academy Scholarships program.

This piece is significant for Saunders' use of a nearly purely representational subject, which would become a rarity in his professional career by the 1960s as he developed his unique Abstract style. However, hints at what was to come are already present in the young artist's work, with his application of dimensional textures and use of multiple mediums to acheive a depth and mystery on the flat matrix.