James Frederic Bone (1929-2015) a prolific and endlessly inventive Chicago artist, did a series of drawings very late in life of floating forms composed double-profiles. While others are more abstract, this one seems to portray specific individuals, parenthetically described as chimney sweeps--with the hand-written quote on the back of the paper making one wonder whether the drawing portrays friends or lovers lost. "Fear no more the heat of the sun / Golden lads and girls all must / Like chimney sweeps, come to dust." Rendered in an earthy palette of dark green and brown, and with these terrific trees branching upward from the top of each head, it feels quite tender and poignant as well as wonderfully strange.

What I know about James Bone is that he was born in Brownsville, Texas, received his MFA from the University of Arkansas, and moved to the Hyde Park section of Chicago, IL in the 1970s. I've also found some citations of art reviews he wrote for the Chicago Reader in the 1980s.

8 1/2" x 11" and in very good condition. Titled at lower left, signed at lower right, and with quotation written vertically in pencil on the back.