Bio
Having grown up in a family of painters I was always surrounded by art and other artists - even our Christmas cookies were copied after Giotto figures. As a child I used to walk across the park to the Metropolitan Museum and spend hours wandering through the halls. To this day certain paintings there still capture my memory of that time: Brueghel, Poussin, and Van Gogh.
After Lautrec, 1970, oil pastel on paper, 7 x 7"
However, the most pivotal year for me was when I was 12. My father took a sabbatical year from his teaching and we lived in Aix-en-Provence. Along with learning French and attending a French school I drew incessantly, mostly with oil pastels. The landscape and the city of Aix were enchanting. One day we visited a museum in Albi dedicated to Toulouse Lautrec, and I was taken with him immediately; at home I copied some of his paintings from reproductions. As I continued to experiment with oil pastels and draw from life, I began to discover colors in nature that I hadn't seen before. To this day the search into color while working from observation remains a motivating force in my work.
Later on at Cooper Union my teachers were of the Abstract Expressionist generation, and while they were traditional artists, their main concern was not solely working from nature. Nicolas Marsicano would weave together ideas from the Abstract Expressionists and the Old Masters as one huge conversation. Although I had seen works by several of these artists before, until then I hadn't thought very much about including them in my own work. Another inspirational teacher at Cooper was Reuben Kadish. He challenged us in a broader, philosophical sort of way. He spoke of a concept he called "pedigree", of something being the first of its kind and not a watered down version of something else. I think of what he said as being akin to when a blues musician arrives at what is called the "crossroads" - a certain level of commitment.
That first summer out of Cooper I began to find my own voice. I did three large still life paintings. Color, a sense of light coming from within, painting as a kind of performance, discovery - all these came together in a clearer way for me. That thread continued in graduate school at Yale where I studied under Lester Johnson. I also studied Italian and received a Fulbright grant to paint in Italy upon graduating.
Still Life, 1980, oil on canvas
During my stay there I drew from a wide range of artists who were new to my visual experience: Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Giovanni Pisano, Donatello, Bellini, Titian, Veronese... and of course I made regular visits to Michelangelo's Medici Tombs; everyone does that. I felt that I was able to possess these works for myself, to fix them in my memory, as I drew from them. They still come into my work from time to time in unexpected ways.
After teaching for several years at the Hartford Art School, a major change occurred in my development: I had been involved in a plethora of visual ideas, from teaching and of course through working on my own. By articulating the visual into words for students one can learn a lot. But all of a sudden I wanted to paint chiefly from feeling. It had to do with color, but this time with color as emotion. While listening to Beethoven's 2nd Piano Concerto, I made a new connection between color and music in a visceral sort of way, almost like a synesthesia in my work. The ideas never left me, but now they were receding into the background.
Garden Shed with Roses, oil on canvas, 46 x 50"
That summer of 1992 I had the opportunity to return to France, in Brittany on a residency grant. The landscape there resounded with opportunities for me and I found so much purpose in the light, color, space, and environment there - to sublimate, to paint from emotion, to translate all this into the visual. That purpose still motivates me today and I can feel immediately whether or not it is present in a new piece.
In 2001 I was invited back for a second residency at Rochefort. My wife fell in love with the area too that summer, and quite by chance, we bought a house there, where I now spend the summers painting.