Exposed: Copies in Controversy

Following and combining two of my recent posts is another quirky story. An Alma Thomas work was loaned to the White House by the Hirshhorn Museum thus creating a mini controversy with her painting, "Watusi (Hard Edge)." The 1963 painting is extremely similar to a 1953 piece entitled L’Escargot by Matisse. As we know many painters copy favorite paintings as part of their developmental process as well as their dialog with art. Copies, elaboration, appropriation and more are all common grist for the mill these days.

Anyway, there was a lot of comment on line and the painting was removed from the White House. The White House press office says,"it was moved because it didn’t fit the space right."

Take a look and see what you think...

Above: Henri Matisse, The Snail,1953 Below: Alma Thomas, Watusi (Hard Edge), 1963; courtesy of Flavorwire.

I expose myself

Today I expose myself. I have been taking pieces of earlier paintings and exploring them inside my current work. It started with a chance remark by Cora Cohen, who questioned my landscape/truck paintings as being too cinematic. It got me thinking about earlier landscape painters. I decided to follow a time honored painterly tradition of repainting others work in the service of one's own. Here are some examples: Chardin followed by Soutine, Manet followed by Mark Ryden, Jan Davidz de Heem followed by Matisse, Cezanne followed by Susan Shaw, Albert Marquet followed by Susan Shaw. The most terrifying thing for me was to realize that I had turned Cezanne's beautiful late afternoon stormy landscape onto a post-industrial slag heap.

Marty Game!

It's Mardi Gras today and since I'm not in Louisiana, watching drunken guys jump on horses from trees, I thought I'd give you a recipe for NYC party—art style.
1. Get a bunch of art pals and beers together.
2. Try to identify all the artists in this video.



Some hints —if you are not too dizzy to read...

Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael,Raffaello, Titian,Tiziano Vecellio, Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Albrecht Durer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Antonello da Messina, Pietro Perugino, Hans Memling, El Greco, Hans Holbein, Fyodor Stepanovich Rokotov , Peter Paul Rubens, Gobert, Caspar Netscher, Pierre Mignard, Jean-Marc Nattier, Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Alexei Vasilievich Tyranov, Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky, Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov, Antoine-Jean Gros, Orest Adamovich Kiprensky, Amalie, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Edouard Manet, Flatour, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, William Clark Wontner, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Comerre, Leighton, Blaas, Renoir, Millias, Duveneck, Cassat, Weir, Zorn, Alphonse Mucha, Paul Gaugan, Henri Matisse, Picabia, Gustav Klimt, Hawkins, Magritte, Salvador Dali, Malevich, Merrild, Modigliani, Pablo Picasso.

An Orange is an Orange?

Continuing yesterday's discussion, I've been translating what Lynn said into the rubric of art. There I always try to be in the moment since I feel it is the job of the artist to be honest in what they paint. It is easier to paint what we think an orange should look like and much harder to paint the true image of a particular orange—a map of shifting color and light.

One of my favorite works is "The Green Stripe" c. 1905, a portrait of Matisse's wife. An audacious Fauvist work with what we assume to be non-naturalistic color in a human face. People were shocked. Matisse is reputed to have said that painting his wife was the same as painting a sack of potatoes. It makes one realize that Matisse was boldly looking and unafraid a to paint what he saw.

These are some of my earliest still lifes. You see how I grapple, trying for each thing to be itself.