August 5, 2024

Jonathan Waite (1941-2010) was a modernist painter whose career is characterized by abstracted organic forms, surrealist themes, and later in life, allegorical landscapes; his work is at once experimental and enduring, consistently grappling with what he considered “theoretical and philosophical problems” with form and content.[1] Active throughout the latter half of the 20^th century, Waite was born and raised in the Midwest before settling into a career as an educator in New York City. He holds degrees from the University of Iowa, Yale University, London’s Slade School of Art, and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and was affiliated with Detroit’s Cass Corridor movement as well as Wayne State University.

Jewels of Fruit is a still life composition featuring a black chalice-like vessel that is spilling over with abstracted fruits—berry-, plum-, kiwi-, melon-, and even avocado-like forms seem to be represented—over a mottled rust orange background. Interestingly, the surrounding black tendrils seem to materialize from the vessel and appear as stems, perhaps in reference to a more traditional floral bouquet or perhaps alluding to the chalice itself as a fruit whose stem mimics that of the sparkling silver cherry just below it. Some fruits sparkle while others display seeds and vibrant color contrasts to evoke jewelry, a notion further supported by the title of the piece. Waite introduces a novel dynamism through his weightier and tumbling subjects, and his interest in shape and balance is apparent not only in the precariousness of the cornucopia but in his inclusion of black blocks against the background versus background-colored blocks against the base of the vessel. His fierce color palette further supports an overarching theme of vitality and movement in the face of “still” life conventions.

Waite’s work has been exhibited nationally and surfaces in several prestigious collections. He is remembered as a beloved educator and artist dedicated to inquiry. Jewels of Fruit was donated to Wayne State by the artist before his death; in the preceding years, Waite furiously revisited and reworked his oeuvre, “re-evaluating realism…[and testing his] skills after forty years of ‘Modernistic’ painting.”[2] Jewels of Fruit is a beautiful product of that late reworking.

 

Written by Sarah Teppen

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