Emma Amos, Imaginative Painter Who Attacked Racism Through Figuration, Is Dead at 83
Alex Greenberger, ARTnews
May 2020
Emma Amos, a figurative painter whose visually seductive art stared down racism and privilege, has died at 83. Her gallery, Ryan Lee, said in an email announcement that Amos died in Bedford, New Hampshire, on May 20 of Alzheimer’s disease.
Throughout her career, Amos displayed a knack for crafting imaginative tableaux that blended together aspects of art history, her personal life, and current events, in the process offering up pictures for the ages. Her striking images dove into knotty topics that unfurled ugly histories of racism, sexism, and class struggle—subjects that Amos engaged even when she knew they might be a liability. “Yes,” she wrote in her artist statement, “race, sex, class, and power privileges exist in the world of art.” […]