Michael Mauney "The Wall of Respect" Poster 1970 Reinhold Visuals Cicely Tyson

Description

Measures 18" × 24"
Single thymbtack hole in each corner, barely noticeable.  I included photos of each corner
This is verbatim from the back of the poster.
This mural, known as "
The Wall of Respect
," was painted on the wall of a ghetto building by members of the community. The environment has been transformed through the decoration of an ugly exterior building surface, as in the case of the Job Lot Trading Company mural (Perception 1), but the motivation, method of expression, and result are totally different.
The Job Lot Trading Company mural is a highly successful adventure in bringing a sophisticated and controlled art form out of the museum into the street. In executing it, the artist employed his knowledge of the principles of Op art. Its impact depends on the viewer's active participation-his perceptual response to color and other optical stimuli. "The Wall of Respect," in contrast, is the result of free and spontaneous folk expression. It involves our perception in its direct appeal to feeling, and its power stems from the depth of emotion conveyed by the images we see, not from the images themselves. Knowing the identity of the black leaders who are portrayed may add to our interest, but we do not need this information to feel the meaning of the work. (The figures are
Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Cicely Tyson, Ossie Davis, Oscar Brown Jr., Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones, and LeRoi Jones
.) "The Wall of Respect" is an effective work of art because the artists who created it used compelling techniques, forms, and structure instinctively. The crude realism of the portraits is set off by the inclusion of a photographic image and explicit, scrawled words. The window aperture is used as a frame for the heroic head that becomes the focal area of the composition; the sharp changes in scale are ordered by the balance of rectangular areas of wall space; and the under-lying brick gives an organic unity to the whole. I do have other Reinhold Visuals up for sale, I will combine items to save on shipping