David Humphrey

Indoor Plants, 1987
16.25 x 13″
Gift: Private Donor, 2012

Artist David Humphrey is known for his kitsch subject matter that includes landscape, figuration, iconography, and commentary on American consumer culture and identity. The artist currently lives and works in New York City.

In 1977 Humphrey received his Bachelor or Arts at New York University and went on to gain his Master of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute’s College of Art in 1980. Throughout his career, David Humphrey has received several honors such as the Guggenheim fellowship, the Rome Prize, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and two New York Foundation grants.

Humphrey has written extensively for art exhibition catalogues and art periodicals, and wrote a column for Art Issues from 1989 to 2002. An anthology of his writings, titled “Blind Handshake,” was published in 2009; this book is an introduction to the world of contemporary art and art criticism. The artist has worked as a critic in printmaking and painting at Yale University since 2007.

The work on paper in the Escalette Collection of Art at Chapman University is a blue interior scene with three plants placed illogically in the corner of the room. The strangely positioned flower pots in the monochromatic room are reminiscent of sticks of dynamite while a face is barely discernible from the painting on the wall.

See more of David’s work here.