Joseph Elmer Yoakum + Richard Mayhew. Venus Over Manhattan

For the inaugural edition of Independent 20th Century, Venus Over Manhattan will present an exhibition pairing the work of Joseph Elmer Yoakum (1891-1972) and Richard Mayhew (b. 1924). Organized to follow “Joseph E. Yoakum: What I Saw,” the recent unprecedented retrospective of Yoakum’s work at Art Institute of Chicago (which traveled to The Museum of Modern Art, NY, and the Menil Collection in Houston), Venus’ presentation considers reverberations between the visions and aesthetics of two American artists whose practices have relied upon impressionistic landscapes, both real and imagined. Both artists of African American and Native American descent, Yoakum and Mayhew devised unique and instantly recognizable approaches to rendering geographic vistas. By juxtaposing exceptional examples of their respective oeuvres, the presentation at Inde- pendent draws out connections and stylistic distinctions between these foremost chroniclers of the American landscape.