Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art

Bringing focus to African-American art and its essential place in the history of American art.

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Rex Goreleigh

1902-1986

Works in the Collection

Rex Goreleigh, Still Life with Cooking Mess, Watercolor, 1974
Still Life With Cooking Mess
1974

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PFF224-Rex Goreleigh, Wash Day, Oil, 1979. Painting depicting woman watching laundry in metal basins outside of a shack with small baby in foreground.
Wash Day
1979

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Biography

Rex Goreleigh was born in 1902 in Peullyn, Pennsylvania. He was first exposed to African American art in New York City while working as a waiter.  In 1933, Goreleigh waited on the table of acclaimed Mexican Muralist Diego Rivera and was invited to observe the artist while completing the murals commissioned by the Rockefeller Center. The experience encouraged him to take drawing lessons and pursue art. During the 1930s, Goreleigh taught art through a number of WPA Federal Art projects, one of which enabled him and fellow artist Norman Lewis to open an art center in Greensboro, North Carolina.

In 1994, Goreleigh became the second director of the South Side Community Art Center in Chicago, Illinois (succeeding artist Margaret Burroughs), where he stayed for 3 years before relocating to Princeton, New Jersey to become the first director of Princeton Group Arts. After the closing of Princeton Group Arts, Goreleigh established his own studio in Princeton, Studio-on-the-Canal, where he taught for 23 years. Goreleigh’s work can be found in the Paul R. Jones Collection, the University of Delaware, and the Harriet and Harmon Kelley Collection of African-American Art, and the New Jersey State Museum. The artist died in 1986.

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