Raymond Saunders, “Flowers from a Black Garden”

by Liz Goldner

UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California

Continuing through October 18, 2026

Raymond Saunders, “Black is a Color,” 2010-2015, mixed media on wood, 72 x 79 1/2 x 8”. Courtesy Casemore Gallery, San Francisco, All works © 2025, Estate of Raymond Saunders.

With narrative art the go-to topic in the SoCal art world (culminating with the recent opening of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art), it is refreshing to tour “Raymond Saunders: Flowers from a Black Garden,” the late artist’s long overdue retrospective.

Saunders’ non-storytelling aesthetic consists of large canvases, most with black painted backgrounds. All feature collaged elements, including prints of flowers, torn newspaper clippings, wrapping paper, comic book covers, paint brushes, Coke icons, LPs by black musicians, and photos of famous black activists.

Raymond Saunders, “Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, American Painting,” 1988, paint, found papers and objects on canvas, 85 1/8 x 84 x 3”. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Add to these elements Saunders’ extensive chalk markings referencing his favorite artists, including Andy Warhol (who he knew well in his hometown of Pittsburgh), black artists such as Jacob Lawrence (“The Migration Series,” 1940-41) and Romare Bearden, and his Carnegie Museum of Art teacher Joseph Fitzpatrick. Saunders’ extensive use of chalk, often employed for lists of his idols and for pictures of fruit and flowers, symbolizes deep respect and gratitude for his childhood education and for his two decade adult career teaching painting and drawing in the Bay Area. As a teacher, he explained, his main intention was to contribute to the well-being of his students.

Saunders’ expressionistic swaths of paint, line drawings and chalk markings interact with a variety of found objects, including sections of doors, signs, and copies of Warhol’s silkscreen painting of Marilyn Monroe. It adds up to a rich body of work with a multiplicity of meanings and messages. Their multi-faceted quality stimulates our imaginations and invites us to look at on our own lives in new ways.

Raymond Saunders, “Celeste Age 5 Invited Me to Tea,” 1986, mixed media on canvas, 104 x 83 1/8”. Courtesy of David Zwirner, New York. Photo: Dan Bradica.

Although Saunders questioned the importance of Black artists representing black culture in their work, he ultimately accepted this responsibility. His identity as a Black man often pervades his compositions, with their chalk marking references to Black heroes, photos of artists and activists, and LPs of famous musicians.

“Jack Johnson” (1971), the only figurative painting in the show, depicts the first Black world heavyweight boxing champion. Johnson is not portrayed in a boxing pose, but off-duty and self-possessed, painted in an impressionist style against an abstract color field. “Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, American” (1988) pays homage to two major artists whose work was decidedly figurative. Far from following their lead, Saunders created a wildly colorful abstract canvas, emblazoned with paint swatches and doodles.

Perhaps the most intriguing work is “Places” (1991). This seemingly random hodgepodge contains many symbols and images that Saunders often employed elsewhere in his work. A cursory look at the piece reminds us of vandalized scaffolding on a city street. It is packed with graffiti-style writing, splotches of paint, pages torn from flyers and newspapers, Chinese writing, chalk drawings of light bulbs, pears and hearts, and more.

Raymond Saunders, “Jack Johnson,” 1971, oil on canvas, 83 x 58 x 65”. Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

The artist’s “The Gift of Presence” (1993-1994) is a horizontal canvas featuring salvaged Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola signs. There are also hearts, colorful pictures of flowers, splotches of paint and scrawls that a child might have drawn. The chalk markings reading “Miles, Diz, Pops, Ella, Sassy, Train, Max” are nods to famous mid-20th century Black jazz musicians who Saunders admired.

One of the most recent works is the collaged construction titled “Pittsburgh” (2007), alluding to the city that Saunders grew up in. Its symbols reference jazz icons he revered during his youth there. Original LPs are affixed to the piece, one featuring Miles Davis, a second by Thelonious Monk. There is a flyer for a Davis concert, and a picture of Monk, probably torn from a magazine, sitting sublimely in a go-cart. There is also a picture of Malcolm X, an old-fashioned telephone sign with an arrow pointing to a phone booth, Chinese writing, splotches of paint, a large paint brush with black paint on it and cans of paint. This work is so visceral that we may virtually hear the sounds of the artist’s beloved jazz while looking at it.

Raymond Saunders, “The Gift of Presence,” 1993-94, mixed media on wood, 83 x 178 1/2 x 3”. Courtesy of the Oakland Museum of California.

The paintings and collages included in “Flowers from a Black Garden” encompass sources ranging from Dada, expressionism, assemblage, Fluxus, Pop and postmodernism. This retrospective establishes that Saunders’ work is deeply personal and impossible to pigeonhole, packed with imagery that both immerses and entrances us.

Liz Goldner is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009. 

Liz Goldner’s Website