American Duet: Jazz and Abstract Art: Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art

Jazz transcends the boundaries of music. Its spontaneous, vibrant form is built on decades of adaptation. Evolving from blues and ragtime in the African American community, jazz was born of Creole and African traditions in New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th century. A uniquely American genre, jazz maintains the core elements of improvisation, rhythm, harmony, and form.

Abstract art, alongside jazz, rose to prominence in the United States during the 20th century. Transplanted from Europe by artists fleeing the political unrest of World War II, abstract art began to emerge in New York City in the 1930s – 40s. By the mid-century, it took the American art world by storm, and Abstract Expressionism was born as a distinctly American style. Abstract art is a formal exploration that uses shape, color, form, and gestural marks to produce visual compositions free from the constraints of realism. By subverting the value of representation, abstract artists created their own visual languages independent of conventional constraints. African American musicians and artists, at the vanguard of both jazz and abstract art, took control of societal perceptions through their work.

Countless visual artists were inspired by jazz music—listening in the artists’ studios, befriending musicians, playing music, and painting and drawing in jazz clubs. A dialogue developed between the expressive visual language of the abstract artist and the complex rhythmic compositions of the jazz musician. Jazz incited artists to translate sound to color, note to line, and silence to void. 

This exhibition surveys 61 works by 34 modern and contemporary artists in the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art who were influenced by jazz or used its core elements within their work.