ANTHONY BAUS
(b. 1981)

Moderns

2021

Pen and sepia ink, sepia and grey wash on paper
15 x 19 inches (38.1 x 48.3 cm)
 

Anthony Baus is an alumnus of the Grand Central Atelier in Long Island City, New York. His unique artistic vision, which mines the world of antiquity as source material for contemporary issues, is expressed through an astonishing graphic facility derived from intense study of Italian Baroque drawing and painting.

His references from the ancient world are never literal; rather they are meditative and original. His impressive technique does not reflect the mind of a copyist. The Old Master-style that style Baus has embraced is his preferred language of expression, but his content is entirely personal. Baus has described it as “romantically inspired narratives created on scaffolding of ancient architecture, richly imbued with symbolism and mystery.”

The present drawing is one of a series of works that reimagine views of American cities. It is a finished study, intriguingly entitled Moderns, for a larger drawing of a view of Chicago (Fig. 1). Baus used historicizing architecture as a setting for narrative scenes that play out in the foreground. There is an element of ambiguity to Chicago, as a group of figures works to either load or unload large architectural fragments into or out of a delivery van. The group of onlookers posed at the right are sketched in the present sheet, incorporating elements, like the graffiti on the wall, which were left out of the final drawing. The figures are dressed in a mix of historical and contemporary styles, most strikingly apparent in the central figure who wears braided hair, prominent sunglasses, and a large chain.

Baus’s works can be savored as intricate compositions of great beauty and finesse. They are also complex and sophisticated amalgams of the modern world and ages past. However appreciated or approached, they provide an introduction to a visionary artist of earnest intent and expansive imagination.