Winfred Rembert at Hauser & Wirth

Working in his signature medium of carved and painted leather, late American artist Winfred Rembert (1945 – 2021) dedicated the last thirty years of his life to creating a striking visual memoir. The consistently powerful and original oeuvre he left behind is a testament to the improvisational skill, determination and resilience required of a visionary shaped by a lifetime of extreme adversity. On 30 May, when Hauser & Wirth debuts the first-ever Los Angeles exhibition devoted to Rembert at its Downtown Arts District complex, West Coast audiences will finally have the opportunity to experience his story, told with beauty on leather.

‘Winfred Rembert. Hard Times’ includes paintings from two of the artist’s most recognizable bodies of work—the Cotton Field and Chain Gang collections. Reflecting his upbringing on a sharecropping field in Georgia in the 1950s and his labor on a prison chain gang in the 1960s and ‘70s, the exhibition is dedicated to a pair of harrowing but formative chapters in Rembert’s life. At once figural and abstract, painted and sculptural, Rembert’s compositions feature varying palettes, ranging from the natural tones of the leather and the graphic use of black and white to the incorporation of vibrant blocks of color.

Photo: Winfred Rembert, “All of Me Date.” Acrylic paint on carved and tooled leather, 33 3/4 x 30 1/2 inches.