Ethan Cohen Gallery at the KuBe Art Center is pleased to present Clark Fox: Variations on Washington, an exhibition of Fox’s George Washington paintings, a sustained exploration of one of the artist’s most enduring subjects.
Fox’s practice of copying paintings at the National Gallery of Art led to his intimate study of the celebrated “Vaughan Portrait” of George Washington. Since the early 1970s, he has returned to the first president’s likeness in an ongoing series of variations, transforming the familiar image into a vehicle for satire and cultural critique. Through bold color, repetition, and graphic experimentation, Fox considers the power of national symbols and the histories they carry. His engagement with Washington is informed by his Native American heritage and a lifelong spirit of resistance to established authority. Among his Washington works is Conotocarious, an oil on canvas titled with the Native name for Washington, which means "Town Taker." The Smithsonian American Art Museum holds two of his Washington pieces, Bi-George (1974) and Classic Windows: Washington I (1982).