Carroll Sockwell

(1943-1992)

Carroll Sockwell grew up in the Foggy Bottom area of Washington DC.  His mother, Annie,  worked as a maid and his father, Luther, although infrequently present, worked as a laborer.  Sockwell’s maternal grandmother lived in the home, and also his aunt, uncle and four brothers.  In 1948, Carroll’s mother, diagnosed with schizophrenia, was hospitalized for a period of 15 years, and his aunt became his caregiver.

He attended public schools, but as a child was also hospitalized briefly with schizophrenic tendencies.  With the support of social workers, young Sockwell became interested in the arts—first the theater and music, and eventually painting.  At 14, he entered the Corcoran School of Art.  Once again he was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment at St. Elizabeth’s, and it was here he met Elinor Ulman, a pioneer in the field of art therapy.

In 1959, Sockwell moved to New York, and by happenstance, met important abstract expressionist painters such as Barnett Newman and Willem de Kooning, by frequenting establishments such as the famous Cedar Bar to drink.  Sockwell said later about the four years he was in New York: “I was almost the only black.  It was hard to be accepted.”  (Judith Weinraub (1992-06-13. “The Artist Who Should Be Famous; Carroll Sockwell’s Work Is Abstract But His Pain Is All Too Real”.  The Washington Post).  Walter Hopps, Director of the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, whom Sockwell met when he returned to D.C. in 1963, remarked that he (Sockwell) was poor, black, and gay, and struggled immensely to find support and succeed.

Artistically, he was tied to the Washington Color School, but gravitated to a later offshoot of the group that was more concerned with abstraction and direct painting. Sockwell also credits his formal discussions with Gene Davis and Howard Mehring (two members of the Washington Color School).  His style might be said to lie at the intersection of Color Field painting, the New York School, and the constructivist rigor associated with Burgoyne Diller.

Large paintings such as the work included in this auction rarely come to the market, as the overall body of work by Sockwell is comprised primarily of drawings.  His paintings present a muted palette, emulating the subtle tonalities of graphite or charcoal.

He had briefly become curator of the Barnett-Aden Gallery in 1965-66. By the late sixties, Sockwell was showing prominently in the city. He organized shows with Walter Hopps and Gregory Battcock and was later included by Hopps in major traveling shows of “Art in Washington”. (REF: Art in Washington and Its Afro-American Presence: 1940-1970, Keith Morrison, Washington Project for the Arts, 1985, p. 60; catalog accompanying the exhibition).

In 1969, he showed with artists such as Norman Lewis, Alma Thomas, Felrath Hines and Charles McGee at an exhibition sponsored by the NCAA at the Nordess Gallery in New York.  In 1971, he received critical acclaim for a solo exhibition at the Jefferson Place Gallery from Jet Magazine and The Washington Post.

Sockwell was relatively productive from the late 1960s through the 1980s, enjoying critical and financial success.  On June 4, 1992, a solo exhibition of his work opened at the Washington Project for the Arts.  His artwork was highly praised, but personally, he was criticized for being difficult, temperamental, and drinking too much.  His excessive habits led him to squander his comfortable living and return to his destitute state, sleeping on a mattress in a friend’s framing business.

Sockwell committed suicide in 1992 by jumping from the Pennsylvania Avenue bridge in Foggy Bottom.

Selected Group Shows

1979 Washington Art on Paper: 1962-1978, Corcoran Gallery of Art

1985 Art in Washington and Its Afro American Presence: 1940-1970, Washington Project for the Arts

1990 African American Contemporary Art, Gibellina Civic Museum of Contemporary Art, Palermo, Italy (with Sam Gilliam, Kenneth Victor Young, and others)

2014 Unveiled: Works from the UMUC Art Collection, University of Maryland University College

2018 Selections from the Artery Collection, American University

2019 Moves Like Walter: New Curators Open the Corcoran Legacy Collection

2021 Afro-American Images 1971: The Vision of Percy Ricks, Delaware Art Museum (Sockwell’s work illustrated in the catalog)

Selected Solo Shows

1966 Tarot Gallery, New York City

1971 Carroll Sockwell at Jefferson Place Gallery (highlighting Sockwell’s Mirror Compositions)

Carroll Sockwell, Corcoran Gallery of Art

1975 Sockwell 75: Classical Geometric Compositions, Middendorf Gallery, NYC

1978 Carroll Sockwell, Fraser’s Stable Gallery

1980 Carroll Sockwell: New Works, Barbara Fiedler Gallery

1983 Carroll Sockwell, Lunn Gallery

1985 Carroll Sockwell: Drawings and Painted Reliefs, Graham Gallery, Houston

1987 Collages/Drawings, Pavilion of Fine Arts, Montgomery College

1992 Carroll Sockwell: Work From Five Decades, Washington Project for the Arts

1993 The Wrecking of the Berlin Wall, displayed as part of a reinstallation of  a portion of its 1992 major Sockwell retrospective, Washington Project for the Arts

1999 Selections from the Estate of Carroll Sockwell, Mather Gallery, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland (curated by James F. Hilleary)

2004 Carroll Sockwell: AM i THE BeST? By Washington Arts Museum at Edison Place Gallery (curated by Sam Gilliam)

2009 Carroll Sockwell, Marin-Price

2021 Carroll Sockwell: Grey Compositions, Buchanan Partners Gallery, George Mason University

Collections

American Univesity Art Museums

Brooklyn Museum (S & 11, gift of Christopher Middendorf)

Bowie State University (The Wrecking of the Berlin Wall unveiled 2004)

The Collection of art historian Carroll Greene

Painting purchased for the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1970

Delaware Art Museum

The Federal Reserve Bank Collection

The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg

The Melvin Holmes Collection of African-American Art, San Francisco, CA

The Menil Collection, Houston

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

The Whitney (gift promised)