Motley’s A rooftop party is a variation of a tar beach picnic. Couples are sitting at tables eating and drinking. Good spirits prevail. Motley’s typical attitude and his paintings invariable show African Americans happy in a world of easy living. “I’ve always wanted to paint my people,” he said in an interview, “just the way they were.”
See Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art. Conversation recorded June 23, 1978, and March 1, 1978)
*Also Faith Ringgold’s Tar Beach (1991) and Carlos Anderson’s Sunshine Canyon (1943c.)