Jimmy Wright (artist)

Jimmy Wright (born 1944) is an American visual artist, who became firstly known in the 1970s for his series of bold paintings representing libertine scenes in gay ambiances in the Meatpacking district of Manhattan;[1][2] later on, for his unanticipated line of "deeply expressive", often lethargic, sunflowers[3] which earned praise in newspapers and other art sources in the early years of the new millennium.

In 1964 he moved to Illinois during four years, to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he became exposed to the ideas of imagist master Ray Yoshida and some of his pupils (including Philip Hanson, Christina Ramberg, and Roger Brown).

[18] His participation in the queer nightlife flourishing in the city gave him the opportunity to artistically capture some of its grungy atmospheres,[19] creating a body of work that received recognition years later, when his piece Anvil #1 (ink, pen, inkwash on paper) [20] made its way to the Whitney Museum permanent collection,[21] and whose subject may reminisce the spirit of earlier whore scenes he had depicted in Chicago.

[15] Around 1988, the diagnosis of AIDS of the artist's partner Ken Nuzzo somehow prompted a major turn in the contents of Wright's paintings, giving way to the ascent of his series of pastels of sunflowers and other blossoms,[12] a shift lasting for over the following two decades.

[23] Art writer Johanna Fateman discerns on stylistic traits (voluptuous, ebullient, funny) and masterly influences (Bosch, Goya, Toulouse-Lautrec, Yoshida) perceivable in Wright's artwork.