Appropriated Modes

While you’re enjoying the downtown Kansas City, Kansas, Second Friday Art Walk tonight, the YWCA 6th Street Gallery (1017 North Sixth Street in KCK) would like to draw your attention to the work of Atlanta realist painter Tony Quinton, a former Kansas resident. In his portraits, Quinton emulates the period costumes, poses and styles of master Dutch painters of the 15th to 17th centuries. The unexpected recontextualizations of New Classics: African-American Portraits lend a nobility to Quinton’s figures that was generally restricted to white Europeans of that time, while commenting on the separate, parallel histories of both races. The serious faces and straight backs of his figures, in keeping with the goals of classical portraiture, are closely rendered but heightened and dignified, reflecting the respect (and aggrandizement) paid by 16th-century artists to their pantaloons-clad benefactors. The exhibit runs through September 9. For more information, call 913-371-1105.

Aug. 14-Sept. 9, 2009