Dilemma
Artist
Jack Leland Bailey
(American, 1927 - 2001)
Date1967
MediumAcrylic on canvas
DimensionsImage Size: 47 3/4 × 35 3/4 in. (121.3 × 90.8 cm)
Frame Size: 57 5/8 × 45 5/8 in. (146.4 × 115.9 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineGift of Mary Ellen Smith
Object numberUAC1890
DescriptionAmerican painter Jack Leland Bailey (1927 – 2001) attended the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts and received his bachelor’s and master’s degree at Wayne State University, where he later taught in the departments of both Art and Art History. He won several awards, most notably the Anthony Maiullo Award and two prizes in the Michigan Regional Show in 1962, a Merit Award in the Washington and Jefferson National Exhibition in 1968, and the Prix De Rome in Painting in 1969.1 After winning the Prix De Rome, Bailey and his wife, Maureen Ann O’Hara, who was also a professor at Wayne State, moved to Rome to study and teach at the American Academy there. In 1973, they moved to Geneva, Switzerland, so that Dr. O’Hara could continue her work on mental health and poverty for the World Health Organization. In 1976, the family then moved to Sarasota, Florida, where Bailey remained for the rest of his life. 2Bailey taught the art of painting to his students using methods similar to Rembrandt. Most of his works are done in a realist style with a pop of surrealism to add color. His painting of a dapper gentleman done in a traditional portrait style is a great example of this. This painting looks like a typical portrait of a well-dressed man in front of a monochromatic background, except for the red solo cup he holds. 3 In another painting, a similarly well-dressed man in a blue suit sits in front of a similarly simplistic wall, this time with a dog’s head on the man’s shoulders. 4
Dilemma, however, is quite different from his other work. This painting, an acrylic on canvas, is quite large, about four feet long by three feet wide. Painted in 1967, this work features a semi-nude woman sitting on some sort of black step. The thigh high tights or socks that the figure is wearing, as well as the black slash of paint between the figure’s head and body, isolates the figure’s light pink torso, instantly drawing the eye towards it. The body seems to almost be stretching and melting into the background where it is molded over whatever it is that the figure’s back is resting against. On one side of the figure this expanse of stretched skin ends abruptly and is separated from the rest of the background with a dark grey line. On the other side of the figure a large swath of the background is painted over with red streaks, obscuring both background and body. There is a white mask with black eye sockets and red lips floating next to the figure’s head, which is slightly off center with the rest of the body, allowing for both the head and mask to take up an equal amount of space hovering over the body. The background is so obscured and abstract that one cannot entirely understand what one is looking at, as there might be a wooden shelf by the figure’s head on one side, and something abstract on the other. By the figure’s lower body there may be wood paneling of some sort, which the artist has blurred and blended into the body in certain areas, such as the upper thigh. This disjointed portrayal of body bleeding into background certainly lives up to the title of the work.
Written by Kayla Plenda
1. E. Ray Scott, Michigan Society of Architects (Detroit, Michigan: Michigan Architectural Foundation, 1969) pg. 12
2. “Maureen Ann O’Hara,” Herald Tribune, July 20, 2023, https://www.heraldtribune.com/obituaries/psar0531165
3. “Jack Leland Bailey Sarasota Florida Red Solo Cup Surrealist Realist,” Worth Point, https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/listed-jack-leland-bailey-sarasota-1854877809
4. “Lot 45: Jack Leland Bailey (Fl, 1927 – 2001) oil Painting,” Invaluable, Aug. 25, 2024, https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/jack-leland-bailey-fl-1927-2001-oil-painting-45-c-cb14fc5b97?srsltid=AfmBOoqYz6PAQsoZQPU_694Bbn9V7JPkWozRHmr8Ip4ix_xZPx-LzQIb
