15

Richard Dempsey

(1909-1987)

Parade in Harlem.

Oil on linen canvas, 1944.
Signed and dated in oil, lower left recto. Signed and dated in oil, lower right verso.
25 x 30 in. (63.5 x 76.2 cm.),
Frame: 30 1/2 x 35.20 in. (77.5 x 89.4 cm.)

  • Provenance:
    Acquired from Nyangoma's Gallery, Washington, D.C.
    Private collection, Texas.
  • Exhibited:
    Eighth Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and Prints by Negro Artists, Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA, April 3 - May 1, 1949 (label).
  • Notes:
    This striking nocturnal procession scene by Richard Dempsey is a very scarce example of his 1940s painting.

    Richard Dempsey was born in Ogden, Utah, and spent his youth in Oakland, CA, where he attended Sacramento Junior College (1929-31) as an art major. He then studied at The California School of Arts and Crafts (1932-34) and the Students Art Center (1935-40), where he was taught by the sculptor Sargent Johnson. Dempsey moved to Washington, DC to begin work as an engineering draftsman with the Federal Power Commission in 1941 while studying at Howard University. He later transferred to a position as an illustrator with the General Services Administration (GSA), where he would spend the rest of his nearly 30-year government career.

    In 1946, along with Elizabeth Catlett, he was awarded the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship - he planned to produce a series of 100 portrait paintings of outstanding African Americans. Dempsey was part of the Loïs Mailou Jones & Céline Tabary Studio Group, which also included Delilah Pierce and Alma Thomas. He showed his paintings at the G Place/David Porter Gallery and the Barnett-Aden Gallery in Washington, DC, through the 1950s.

    By 1961, he was included in the important Howard University Gallery of Art exhibition, New Vistas in American Art, and in Cedric Dover's seminal book American Negro Art, which illustrated four of his paintings. His work today is found in the Atlanta University Collection of Afro-American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Harriet and Harmon Kelly Collection of African American Art, San Antonio.
  • Condition:
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April 2, 2026 12:00 PM EDT
New York, NY, US

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