Salman Toor

Acquired directly from the artist in 2006 by the present owner

“Toor evokes the interchangeable feelings of inclusion and exclusion felt by his figures.” (Roberts, Cleo. “Salman Toor's Visual Autofiction.” Ocula Magazine, 8 December 2021).

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Salman Toor was raised in a conservative culture; looking to explore his burgeoning identity, Toor found sanctuary with like-minded students within the arts in high school. His work primarily focuses on his experience and those of his peers as queer men, notably highlighting the lives of those from South Asia. His studies in the U.S. at Ohio Wesleyan University concentrated his interest in that of Old Masters, developing a passion for figurative art. Toor’s work reflected a more academic study of European realism at the outset of his career, while a subsequent move to New York informed his incorporation of a more contemporary influence in his paintings. Continuing to focus on gay passion, friendship and companionship, the artist began to tell the stories of his subjects through more imaginative imagery. Toor takes on a peculiar shade of green as his signature color due to its more subjective connotation than that of blue or other colors appropriated by artists historically. He has continuously exaggerated the features of his protagonists, particularly that of their noses, in order to keep their visual features from overpowering the meaning of the piece. At the center of Salman Toor’s oeuvre is a general desire to elicit a recognition of and empathy for the experiences of his subjects as he provides a window into their day-to-day lives.

The present work, James, was executed in 2006, the year in which he graduated university, at which time he followed the styles of the Old Masters more scrupulously. While abstraction had dominated painting for the past 50 years, Toor followed in the footsteps of his peers, like Kerry James Marshall, in returning to figurative painting. The artist never works from preliminary sketches but rather “draw[s] with the brush,” to elicit more emotion, unlike more traditional figurative painters. James is a fundamental work for understanding the development of Toor’s style of painting, depicting the more academic way in which he worked before moving to New York while also inserting subjects historically excluded from this style of painting in favor of white heterosexual males. As his life in New York began to flourish in his newfound community, as did his work, marking this piece as a significant representation of his artistic development.