Raymond Saunders (1934–2025)
Raymond Saunders, who created enigmatic paintings often infused with sociopolitical undertones, passed July 19, 2025.
Raymond Saunders (artist)
Raymond Saunders (October 28, 1934 – July 19, 2025)
We are deeply saddened to share the passing of Raymond Saunders (1934–2025) at the age of 90. Saunders’s singular oeuvre was defined by assemblage-style works that brought together his extensive formal training with his own lived experiences.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1934, Raymond Saunders first studied in the city’s public school art programs under Joseph C. Fitzpatrick. The artist spent most of his career in Oakland, California, where he taught for many years and was professor emeritus at California College of the Arts.
Saunders’s career was recently canonized in his largest-ever American institutional show in his hometown at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Flowers from a Black Garden, of which Will Heinrich wrote in his New York Times review, “Mere expanses of black paint, in his treatment, become imaginative universes and art-historical chalkboards, capable of summoning up and subsuming just about anything he can think of.”
We extend our condolences to his family, friends, and extensive community of artists and students on whom he left an indelible mark.
~ David Zwirner – Art Gallery
~ Casemore Gallery
~ Andrew Kreps Gallery
Publisher: David Zwirner Books (September 2, 2025)
Length: 208 pages
ISBN13: 9781644231654
Raymond Saunders, Artist Whose Enigmatic Works Highlighted Sociopolitical Concerns, Dies at 90
Raymond Saunders, who created enigmatic paintings often infused with sociopolitical undertones, has died at 90. Casemore, Andrew Kreps, and David Zwirner galleries, all which co-represented the artist, announced his passing in a joint statement on Instagram on Monday.
Saunders’s work is characterized by an assemblage style with an extensive use of black paint that tied together both his commonplace lived experiences and formal art training. Saunders weaves complex narratives through elusive means and, in so doing, often prods the very fabric of what it means to be an educated Black American man.