Posts Taged african-american-abstract-art

An Artistic Encounter

By Lisa Skolnik

James and Mary Bell know buy essays online what they like when they see it. When they met artist William Tolliver in Los Angeles 25 years ago, they were immediately drawn to his work— but didn’t buy an original piece until several years later

At the time, James was an executive with Rockwell International Corporation and Mary was a business analyst with TRW. Her best friend, Carmen N’Namdi, had opened a gallery in Detroit with her husband, George, who urged the Bells to buy works by African American masters. “[George] meant the research paper masters, like Romare Bearden, Artis Lane or Jacob Lawrence.

We loved the work, but we didn’t have that kind of budget,” says Mary. The Tolliver they did eventually buy inspired them to purchase more of what they term papers liked. “We didn’t start out as collectors,” explains James, who is now Boeing’s corporate president, executive vice president and CFO.