Self Portrait Drawing

This is a slightly larger than life-sized self portrait that I've been fiddling with for some time. While I'm fairly satisfied with my neck and my hair, I'm just not thrilled with my eyes. Granted I posed with no make-up which doesn't help, but no matter what I did, they stayed lifeless and flat. For future portraits, I'm going to need to remedy whatever it is I'm doing wrong.

Self Portrait With Pony Tail, graphite on paper, 2010

Feelin' the Love

I'm having a 'Very Vincent Evening' tonight and pining away for some of my favorite paintings. If I ever won the lottery for hundreds of millions of dollars (though I'd first have to actually play), I know exactly what I'd do with that money. I would buy the very first Van Gogh that became available and then I would simply sit before it in perfect bliss until I breathed my last.

Butterflies and Poppies, 1890

Almond Tree in Blossom, 1888

The Hill of Montmartre with Stone Quarry, 1886

All photos courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Toulouse-Lautrec's Paris

Les Plastrons, 1900, Pablo Picasso

At the Cafe La Mie, about 1891, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

I try to like Toulouse-Lautrec, I really do. In fact, I think I like him a lot until I am actually in the presence of his work and then I realize all over again that I really am not very fond of him. Biographically he was an interesting person, as are most artists, but his work just doesn't thrill me. Sure it evokes very clearly the period in which it was created: the smell of the booze, sweat and cigarette smoke of the cabarets, the rowdy music, the bawdy women, but it also is repetitious as hell. All his women, and even his men, all look like one another with the same rather generic angular facial features, which drives me nuts. With the exception of one or two oils and mixed media works which are rather lovely, I just can't get into his work.

This general disdain didn't stop me from trying once again to like him when I went to see Café and Cabaret: Toulouse-Lautrec's Paris which is currently on display at the MFA. I was very excited about seeing the show, and was even really bummed out when I got sick with the flu and had to postpone my visit for a week. But then came the day when I finally walked into the gallery and...was instantly disappointed. Again. I was pleased though that the exhibit was padded with a few additional works by Steinlen and Vuillard, two of Lautrec's contemporaries and the latter of which I rather enjoy. I even thought I had hit paydirt when I discovered amidst all the ugly stuff one of Lautrec's works that I truly like: the moody and lovely "At the Café La Mie" but then even this was trumped by a very tiny early Picasso done in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec that I don't recall ever having seen before. At just 5 3/8 x 8 7/8, this piece was a teeny tiny slice of heaven and I was thrilled that the MFA had pulled it out of storage for this show. It was definitely worth the trip to have discovered this little beauty, and the funny thing is, I'm not really much of a Picasso fan either.

Photos courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Vermeer and the Forgeries

The Milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer, c 1658

Christ at Emmaus, Han van Meegeren, 1937

What could possibly compel almost every art historian in the world, the greater part of the entire art-viewing public and the number one and number two Nazis to fall for the greatest art hoax in the history of art forgeries? Utter insanity clearly, as it is painfully obvious that the hideous painting portraying Christ and his disciples as neo-zombies is certainly not a Vermeer, nor is it anything even remotely close to being one. Yet, that is exactly what Han van Meegeren accomplished and in the process pocketed the modern day equivalent of tens of millions of dollars. And not only did he manage to hoodwink the art world once, but he did it six times in all, each new painting more horrid than the previous ones. Maybe Hitler and Goering didn't have a clue what a genuine Vermeer looked like, but certainly the dozens of experts in the field of 17th century Dutch masters did and yet they too swooned like school girls upon the "discovery" of these new heretofore unseen Vermeers. And why wasn't anyone suspicious that while it took nearly 300 years to find and verify a mere thirty-six known Vermeers, a staggering six new ones were discovered one after another in the course of just six?

Just how van Meegeren managed to accomplish this, his extraordinary talent at creating what appeared to virtually every expert, technologically speaking, to be a series of genuine 17th century paintings (and that passed all the scientific tests of the day), the dynamics of peer pressure, a collection of arrogant men with grotesquely enormous egos, and plain old fashioned crowd hysteria (the 17th century Dutch tulip mania, anyone?) is mesmerizing as hell. But despite all this, it still begs the very simple question: how the hell could anyone ever think this was created by the genius hand of Vermeer? van Meegeren may have been a brilliant strategist and forger, but the man was a lousy artist. Anyone can see this.

Alarming, fascinating, disturbing, and even very amusing too. And I now have a pretty fairly detailed idea of what it takes to become a successful master forger should I ever decide to quit my day job.

The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century, by Edward Dolnick, Harper Collins, 2008.

Sargent's Daughters

When I first saw this book, I was thrilled. As a rabid Sargent devotee I am always eager and ready to devour yet another book on the man or his work. And an entire book devoted to the story of just one of his works: the amazing The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit? Nirvana! This piece, like all of Sargent's larger canvases is staggering in its lighting, brushwork and sheer monumental beauty. But this piece goes so far beyond a mere portrait of four young girls and is a masterpiece of scene, generating incredible emotion in just about everyone who views it. I can't recall a single visit to the MFA where dozens (or more) visitors aren't standing in quiet awe before this work, some even moved to tears. I consider myself very lucky indeed that it's permanent home is here in Boston and the only time I have ever been to the MFA and didn't pay it a lengthy visit is when it isn't there as it's been on loan or traveling the world in an exhibit.

So it was with great excitement that I started this book and gobbled up every word. And it wasn't until I was about three-quarters of the way through it that it suddenly occurred to me that in some ways I had now destroyed the personal relationship I had with this mysterious painting. It is one of the only pieces completed by Sargent that has no studies, no notes, no sketches to understand how his mind was working as he undertook this work of staggering and haunting beauty. And haunting it had always been, until this book. While there are still so many unanswered questions in regards to the finer details of how it came to be, so much of who the Boits were and where the daughters' lives led them is now no longer a wonder, but cold hard facts. And I'm not sure how much this has ruined the joy of the unknowing, for me at any rate. I have yet to pay it a visit in the short time since finishing the book.

Given that I was really disappointed in Erica E. Hirshler's A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston 1870-1940, it was a joy to me to find every last page of this new book so thrilling. Am I sorry I read it? Not a chance! Has it changed the way I feel about this painting? Absolutely! But only time will tell just how much I am affected by it. In the long run I'm sure I'll get over it, but good or bad, for me and The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit things will never be the same again.

Sargent's Daughters: The Biography of a Painting, Erica E. Hirshler, MFA Publications, 2009.

Chair 1

This is a little study of a chair that sits in the corner of my dining room. It's actually a smaller, cropped version of a larger pastel I have been working on of that same chair, in that same corner, but with the window in the frame as well as more wall space that shows a small oil painting that hangs above the chair. The only trouble is, pastels have begun to affect my breathing in a rather unpleasant manner and as a result, the larger pastel has been shelved until warm weather when I can work on it outdoors, where hopefully the air will carry the pastel dust away before it begins to make me wheeze.

Chair Study, graphite on paper, 2010

More Apples

A slight perspective variation on the last little sketch done of these three apples.

Three Apples on a Napkin II, graphite on paper, 2010

Still Life

This is a still life that I've been working on in the evenings (after my day is mostly done) for far longer than any one simple drawing should be worked on. This one is a fairly good size at 11 x 14. It probably wouldn't have taken me nearly as long as it did if it weren't for my being deluged with work for my upcoming show, the usual multi-week holiday nonsense we all endure at this time of year and my ripping the end of my index finger off in a truck door a few weeks back. Having a skinned and heavily sutured digit makes it rather impossible to draw, or do much else for that matter, if you want it done right.

Still Life of Dining Room Table, graphite on paper, 2009-2010

Upcoming Show

After taking a self-imposed sabbatical from showing for several years now, I am finally taking a tiny step towards re-entering the public art world with a show at a small bookstore and coffee bar that has invited me to show there (which was cool as I hadn't approached them first). My work opens on the summer solstice next June which is perfect for me for many reasons, except that I sure could use a lot more time to put together a cohesive series of pieces.

In the time I have been away from deadlines and commitments, I've discovered that I work on a much, much different timetable than I did back when I was a slave to showing in public venues. I've become a world class futzer and lollygagger and I can easily work on a single piece for weeks or even months at a time, fussing endlessly with all the little details. But I really shouldn't be doing that now as I need to complete at least one piece every two weeks to have enough new works to fill the small gallery space I'll be in. And I haven't exactly been keeping up with that schedule very well. Between the odd sensation I get when I think about once again putting myself out there for public consumption, still being without a studio (we're on track for getting me in there next spring), the impending holidays and all the work involved with them, a very bad head cold and a lingering flu-like virus, as well as a finger nearly torn off in a car door and stitched back together, I am now far behind where I should be at this point in time.

Still, I'm trying to stay in the moment and not get too worried, and besides, there's still six long months between now and then to churn out everything that is currently only in note and sketch form but waiting to be transformed into beautiful works of art. If I need to, I'll channel my inner Vincent and work at a blistering pace come spring. But until then, lollygag I will until I am happy with each and every work.

Surprise!

Griffin made a joke today about his lunch (a hamburger) being art and it immediately took me back nearly twenty years ago to a small gallery here in Boston and a multi-artist show that briefly ran there. David and I were at the opening reception, and as with most exhibits that showcase a group of different artists, the pool of talent in this bunch ran the gamut from very good to very bad. And with the exception of a friend whose work was in this show, I can remember only one other artist: Zesty Meyers. He had one piece in the exhibit and it consisted of a very large side of frozen beef hanging from a meat hook in the ceiling and dangling over a heated pan placed on the floor beneath it, causing the meat to slowly thaw, drip and stink. The smell in the gallery was off the charts with the body heat from all the guests speeding up the decay of that enormous slab of flesh. I thought that evening, as I do today, that that installation was by far the worst piece of art in the place. But obviously, it worked, didn't it? After all, all these years later I not only recall the details of that work, but the artist's name as well. And so Griffin and I talked about Zesty and his meat installation and then we moved on to other things and I really didn't give it much more thought. Then just now as I prepared to write about Zesty and his beef of so long ago, I thought "What the heck? Let's see if Zesty is still out there" and lo and behold, he is. After forming a groundbreaking installation and performance art group, he also co-founded the R 20th Century Gallery in New York City and is currently writing a publication on Brazilian mid-century masters. Who'd a thunk it? Certainly not me, but it sure has me thinking now.