fbpx

Charles Bell

(Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1935 - 1995)

Pleasant Tasting, Gumball #16

1985

Colored pencil on paper

56 1/2 x 39 1/2 in. (143.5 x 100.3 cm)

Collection of the Akron Art Museum

Purchased with funds from Dale C. and Alexandra Zetlin Jones

1985.63

More Information

Charles Bell worked in Photorealism, a style in which artists faithfully reproduce photographs in another medium. Bell chose as his subject matter objects associated with childhood and play, such as dolls, marbles and pinball games. “Ten-year-old boys always have a pocketful of things, and they’ll take them out and say, ‘Hey, look,’” Bell wrote. “It’s probably just little pieces of broken glass they found, or a marble, string or such, yet it’s something that fascinates them. I still find wonder in those things.” The endless color combinations and the challenge of rendering reflective metal and glass made gumball machines particularly attractive to the artist. He spent hours setting up his still lifes, positioning gumballs with olive pickers, wires or chopsticks.

Keywords
Food
Drawings
Photo Realism