Art

Art Is Back In Chelsea

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

One of the most astounding works in Western Art history. Albrecht Dürer’s, Melencolia I, 1514, right? No! Read on…

There were some dark times in Chelsea’s (unofficial) Art district these past 18 months, like there was everywhere on planet earth. Some galleries went out of business, many gallery staffers lost their jobs, some galleries moved elsewhere. Early this year, things were slow. There were some shows here but not nearly as many as the pre-covid norm, and few here had been vaccinated at that point making it tricky for gallery staff and would-be visitors. I stayed away until I got vaccinated.

Going, going…Metro Pictures on West 24th Street. I have seen many memorable shows here, including the fine Louise Lawler show that’s up now inside that open door. They said they decided to close because of the globalization of the Art market, which doesn’t suit their model. I’ll miss them. Seen in October, 2021.

In March, legendary Metro Pictures on West 24th Street, an anchor of the neighborhbood since 1996, announced they would close this year, for reasons unrelated to the pandemic, they said1.

Don’t believe the hype. Real New Yorkers never went anywhere.

This whole summer there had only been two shows on my list- Richard Estes: Voyages and the blockbuster Cèzanne Drawing at MoMA, which I wrote about here. As the summer wound down I was curious to see what the fall season, the busiest of the year in Art, would bring. What would the “new normal” look like in the galleries & museums? Around Labor Day, I suddenly found myself with something I hadn’t had in 18 months- a list of shows, numbering 20, to see- carefully.

(Not) Coming (anytime) Soon. An abandoned sign outside a former Chelsea gallery on West 25th Street, October, 2021. A few of these on this block are an eerie reminder of what once was.

As I made my way down into the all too familiar West Side canyons very curious about what I would find, indeed, there was much that was different. Some familiar spots were gone, (most) others remain and virtually all of those were open, with varying degrees of precautions. Most surprisingly of all, a number of new galleries opened in spaces that had been under construction before the virus hit the fan around the High Line, and under it. Given I don’t generally attend openings (even pre-covid), and avoid going during the busier times (like weekends), I cannot attest to the level of foot traffic, a main reason galleries are here. 

Forecast- cloudy. New and old on an appropriately grey day. The new skyline of Hudson Yards just north of Chelsea dwarfs the 100 year old buildings that have housed galleries for the past 30 years or so in better times, seen through the closed shades on the top floor of Pace’s new mega-plex gallery in October.

What I can say is that I notice there has been no slowing in the sheer mountain of new work that’s been created during these dark times, just as it was ever increasingly so as this new millennium has worn on. (Geez, it already feels like it’s worn on in 21 years?) Yet, in spite of the endless volume of Art for sale I have only seen a slight softening of prices, which I find surprising, and telling. Then again, these are usually “asking” prices. Actual “sold for” prices could be (and probably are) lower by an unknown amount. On the Art front, it turns out there are a number of good and very good shows up in Chelsea this fall. While there are still some on my list I haven’t gotten to see, of those I’ve seen thus far, some highlights include (in no particular order)-

Installation view. Untitled (The Cauldron), 2021, Charcoal mounted on paper, 70 x 120 inches, left.

Robert Longo: I do fly / After Summer Merrily, at Pace, West 25th Street-

Untitled (Robert E. Lee Monument Graffiti, Richmond, Virginia), 2021, Charcoal mounted on paper, 96 by 146 inches, and Dûrer’s Solid, Stainless Steel, 2021. See following picture.

This is Robert Longo’s first show with Pace, after being represented by Metro Pictures for an unheard of 40 years, until they announced their plans to close. Famously part of the so-called “Pictures Generation” with Cindy Sherman, et al, Mr. Longo is one of the finest practitioners of the rapidly becoming lost Art of Drawing we have. I’ve been surprised with his choice of subjects, but always impressed by his new work with every succeeding show I’ve seen going back well over 20 years. They always leave me marveling.

Untitled (Nascar Crash, Daytona), 2021, Charcoal mounted on paper, 70 x 120 inches. Keep reminding yourself that these are Drawings.

His new show, I do fly / After Summer Merrily, kicking off a run of Robert Longo shows around the world over the next few years, is equally impressive. Most of his pieces are Drawings in charcoal, though in this show he also shows off his remarkable skill with graphite.

Robert Longo, Untitled (After Dürer’s, Melencolia I, 1514) 2021, Graphite on paper(!), 12 3/4 by 9 15/16 inches. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I first saw this. My jaw was open to the bottom of my mask.

In addition to creating new works often based on Photographs of recent events, the other thread in Mr. Longo’s work these past many years has been painstaking creation of his own versions of masterpieces of Painting, most notably his Gang of Cosmos works, monochromatic charcoal copies of Abstract Expressionist masterworks, which filled an entire show at Metro Pictures in 2014. Now, he has turned his eye and hand to Albrecht Dürer’s Melencolia I, 1514, which is an engraving. Mr. Longo has done his version in graphite! While the more unforgiving engraving may be the more challenging technique, to translate Dürer’s marvel to this level of detail is astounding. It appears every single line has been replicated, down to Dürer’s famous “AD” monogram signature in the shadow above the tools to the right. As if this wasn’t enough, he’s also created a Sculpture of his imagining of the famous “Solid” seen to the left of center, which was also on view a few feet away, as I showed earlier.

Untitled (Baseball Stadium, 2020), 2021, Charcoal mounted on paper, 78 by 125 inches(!)

After all the work shown in his Metro Pictures shows this century, as well as museum shows, like Proof: Goya, Sergei Eisenstein, Robert Longo, which opened at the Garage, Moscow, then travelled to the Brooklyn Museum, the time has come for a full Retrospective of his work in this country. The last one was at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1989. One is opening in Europe in 2024. I hope it makes it here.

Zanele Muholi, Itha, 2021, Acrylic on canvas, from the first show to include her Paintings along with her Photographs in the second gallery.

Zanele Muholi, Awe Maaah! at Yancey Richardson- Zanele Muholi has established herself as one of the world’s great portraitists. Though she’s done far more, for my money that claim was sealed with Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, a book of Self-Portraits, published by Aperture in 2018, a masterpiece among PhotoBooks of the past decade. Now, for the first time, Awe Maaah! shows there is more to the renowned Photographer and visual activist. Stepping into the show, a fan of Ms. Muholi’s black & white Photographs might be shocked by seeing something new- color! It turns out she Paints, too! And quite well indeed as the debut selection of her Paintings in the show reveals.

Somile, 2021, Acrylic on paper

Known for her gorgeous black & white Photographs, her Paintings are FULL of bright, vivid colors. Zanele turned to Painting during the pandemic when Photographing others was not possible. Though in color, her Paintings share familiar elements with her Photographs. First, these were all portraits, of one or two sitters. Second, in many of her Paintings, the Artist is depicted, like her Photographs, n a variety of guises. Then, the eyes are the focus of both bodies of work. In some of her Photographs, they almost look like they are Painted. Compositionally, they both feature empty backgrounds, though some of the Paintings were colored. I was impressed with the range of approaches. Each Painting is different. Quite an auspicious first showing.

Zimpaphe I, Parktown, 2019, Gelatin silver print

But, for anyone new to her work, or in need of a refresher as to why she is one of the most respected Photographers working today, all that was needed was to take a few steps into the second gallery.

The second gallery of Awe Maaah! contains 8 stunning Self-Portrait Photographs (the one just shown is behind me in this shot)

There, a gorgeously selected group of her Photographic Self-Portraits was all the reminder needed. Not surprisingly, the entire show was sold out. Already one of the most vital Artists working in Photography, today, Awe Maaah! announces there are more sides to Zanele Muholi to recon with than we’ve seen thus far.

Looking in at a gallery of “hooded”/klan Paintings outside Philip Guston 1969-79 in October.

Philip Guston: 1969-79 at Hauser & Wirth- With a large, street-facing, gallery featuring Philip Guston’s “klan” Paintings I wondered if this show was a sort of “test balloon” after the controversial postponement of Philip Guston Now museum show. They certainly served to stop people on the street, who seemed perplexed as to what they were, and what they were about, from the conversations I heard walking past.

I think that many who are familiar with Philip Guston’s work wonder about them, too. Delving into their history sheds some light on them. I wrote about the history of Philip Guston’s hooded/klan (lower case, mine) works, saying- “I think it’s important to remember that they go back to when the Painter was about 18. In Philip Guston Retrospective, the backstory is relayed on pages 16 & 17. It begins by quoting Mr. Guston- ‘I was working at a factory and became involved in a strike. The KKK helped in strike breaking so I did a whole series of paintings on the KKK. In fact I had a show of them in a bookshop in Hollywood, where I was working at that time. Some members of the klan walked in, took the paintings off the wall and slashed them. Two were mutilated. That was the beginning.'”

Riding Around, left, and The Studio, both 1969, Oil on canvas, left

“(The text then continues) ‘The Ku Klux Klan, also known as the Invisible Empire, had a significant membership in California in the 1930s and 1940s, and Los Angeles County was its most active Klavern. Guston and several other of his friends also painted portable murals for the John Reed Club on the theme of ‘The American Negro.’ Guston’s submission was particularly volitile. Based on the Scottsboro case, in which nine black men were sentenced (many said on false and circumstantial evidence) to life in prison for raping a white girl. Guston’s mural depicted a group of hooded figures whipping a black man. The murals were eventually attacked and defaced by a band of ‘unidentified’ vandals. The experience of seeing the effect of art on life and life on art never left Guston, and the unsettling image of the hooded figure was branded into his visual imagination.’ In the 1930s, in addition to strike breaking, the klan also targeted Jews. Philip Guston, originally Philip Goldstein, was Jewish. Of course, their main target were Blacks…Philip Guston lived long enough to see that racism was deeply embedded in the fabric of American life, possibly even in his own life.” (End quote.) So, circa 1970, when he moved away from pure abstraction, he began including hooded figures in his work again.

Scared Stiff, 1970, Oil on canvas. Shocking, damning, incredibly daring. and unprecedented in Art.

This time, it seems to me, he was looking inside for signs of prejudice in himself as well as society at large. And so, these are somewhat unique works in Art history. Not many other Artists have been as open, daring, or had the courage to lay themselves so bare as Philip Guston may have been doing in them. And, they are part of his enormously fresh late period, a real breakthrough for the Artist stylistically, which was met with puzzlement when they were new.

Ancient Wall, 1976, Oil on canvas

A very nice selection of “other” work from 1969-79 was on view in the large, second gallery. Today, they have become hugely influential, though the hooded figure works remain puzzling or misunderstood by some. (My pieces on prior Philip Guston shows in NYC are here, on the 1950’s abstractions, and here, on his Poor Richard Nixon Drawings.)

Hung Liu, Portrait: Sharecropper, 2018, Oil on canvas. Hung Liu lived and worked among country laborers for 4 years after being sent there by Mao Zeodong’s government for “re-education.” As a result, Hung Liu shared a special bond with the work of FSA legend Dorothea Lange dust bowl Photographs, upon who’s work Hung Liu based some of her Paintings. Ms. Liu emigrated to California in 1984, where she lived & worked for the rest of her life.

Hung Liu: Western Pass at Nancy Hoffman Gallery- Beautiful, and bitter sweet is the only way I can characterize this wonderful show, which the Artist worked on with Nancy Hoffman Gallery right before her tragic passing on on August 7th. It opened a month later, on September 9th. Along with the major retrospective up as I write at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian in Washington, it will serve as a fitting tribute to this terrific Artist who was just beginning to gain the wide recognition and acclaim I believe her work deserves when she passed away. Long a champion of the late Chinese-American Painter, Nancy Hoffman has been showing her work going back to at least 2010 as far as I can tell and they have published some exquisite catalogs for each of them which are still available.

Western Pass, 1990, Oil on canvas, silver leaf on wood, ceramics. I asked Phil Cai what was going on in this work. He spoke about how we’re seeing two prisoners about to be executed with an ancient Chinese poem between them. The poem speaks of having another glass of wine before you pass beyond the western pass where you won’t have any friends. Two empty wine bowls sit in front.

This show is a beautifully chosen selection of 31 years of her work, right up to earlier this year. It’s possible to watch her style change and evolve over time, a testament to her flexibility and talent. Her subject matter, however, doesn’t change. Like Alice Neel, “people come first” for Hung Liu, too, and much of what she shows us is based in the Photographs of Dorothea Lange, found Chinese Photographs, or her own Photographs taken during the 4 years after she spent in the countryside laboring in rice and wheat fields as part of her agrarian “re-eduction” under Mao Zeodong. So, it is easy for her to related to the FSA work of Dorothea Lange, and the lives of is based on her own personal experiences. Haunting and powerful work that effortless cuts across place, cultures and time. Work that will be around for the long haul, in my opinion. I was lucky enough to see this show with Phil Cai, Director of Eli Klein Gallery, who’s remarkable Cai Dongdong show I wrote about in 2018. Phil, one of the rising stars in the Art world, met Hung Liu and visited her studio in Oakland. He provided fascinating insights into her work that he has been looking at for almost a decade. “I hope to wash my subjects of their ‘otherness’ and reveal them as dignified, even mythic figures on the grander scale of history painting,” she wrote.

Leonardo Drew, Detail of Number 305, 2021, Mixed Media. Just one corner, plus, of this piece installed on all 4 walls of the large room.

Leonardo Drew at Galerie Lelong- I wrote extensively about Mr. Drew’s last two NYC shows in 2019, during which I met and spoke with the Artist. He returns this fall with his first show since, with all the work on view created in 2021. It says a lot to say that it took 5 people 4 days to install this show! The endless details in his work is only equalled today in Contemporary “Sculpture,” in my experience, by the shows of his great contemporary, Sarah Sze. Mr. Drew continues to reinvent Sculpture and to push the limits and the boundaries of what it can be including another work that seems to explode from the corner as his last show here had one exploding from the rear wall. Both “explosions” frozen in time. Whereas in his last show, he introduced color to his sculpture, which had been black & white to that point, here, he continues that with supreme taste in works that almost look like a new take on Abstract Expressionism, if I believed in such terms. I don’t, so the only term that remains applicable to this major Artist remains- Leonardo Drew. And, if this wonderful show of terrific new work isn’t enough, Mr. Drew’s Prints are on view at Pace Prints nearby. I have not as yet seen them. 

Number 294, 2021, Wood, paint and sand

At this moment, I imagine that the “bleeding” is going to continue in Chelsea, as it is in far too many other places and in many other fields, for some time. More galleries will close, consolidate or move. Yet, it seems to me that the mega-galleries building their own buildings in the neighborhood may actually draw other galleries here, depending on the asking prices for space. Maybe things are at or near the bottom? It’s too early to tell. 

After what I wrote during the shutdown last year, it seems that at least things have begun to bounce back after a very slow spring. But, Art is not life. Many other things have to be in place for anyone to be able to, or want to, see Art. It’s taken a long time for many of those things to get back into place here. I hope things are getting better where you are.

*-Soundtrack for this post is “How Can You Be Sure?” a B-side by Radiohead from The Bends Collector’s Edition-

“Seen all the good things and bad
Running down the hill
All so battered and brought to the ground

[Pre-Chorus]
I am hungry again
I am drunk again
With all the money I owe to my friends

[Chorus]
When I’m like this
How can you be smiling, singing?
How can you be sure?
How can you be sure?”*

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  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/arts/design/metro-pictures-gallery-close.html ↩

Cézanne’s Other Revolution

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

“I will astonish Paris with an Apple,” Paul Cézanne said. And, he did.

What came first? The Artist, or the apple? Many Painted apples & fruit before Cézanne. None created a revolution in Art with them. Self-Portrait and Apple, 1880-84, Pencil on paper. The Cézanne quote above comes from the wall card for this Drawing. It goes on to say the work “establishes an equivalency between the Artist’s head and the fruit he so often depicted.”

Ways of seeing and the Art of Drawing are two of my bigger interests in Art. Both are combined in the landmark Cézanne Drawing show which closed this week at MoMA, and was, most likely, a “once in a lifetime” show. I’ve never heard of anything close to the 250 works on paper on view in it by the French master being exhibited anywhere previously. As big a revolution as his daring approach to Art, most widely known to this point through his hugely influential Paintings, his Drawings and works on paper have been seldom exhibited. Possibly their fragility and light-sensitivity has something to do with that, though the pieces on display seemed to be in remarkably good condition. As a result, they are far lesser well-known even 115 years after the newest of them was created. Yet they take things even further, and reveal more of his remarkable & unique vision, than even his remarkable Paintings, in my view.

One of those shows I’ll long walk around in my mind, continue to think about, and be inspired by. Late masterpieces, Still Life with Blue Pot, left, Still Life with Milk Pot, Melon and Sugar Bowl, right, both 1900-6, Pencil and watercolor on paper.

As a young Musician or Artist, many pupils are taught “Master the rules, first. Then, you can break them.” In Art, the theory is to gain a firm grounding in technique, composition, color, line and form, to have something to build your own style on. In Cézanne Drawing we get to follow his evolution & creative journey over half a century.

Umm…yeah he could Draw. From early on, as seen here. Detail of Standing Male Nude: Academic Study, 1862, Pencil on paper.

Cézanne applied to attend the Ècole de Beaux Arts in Paris, though he was rejected. He proceeded to take lessons at the Atelier Suisse, where they were offered free, a studio Courbet studied at. Early critics, including the great James McNeill Whistler, thought he couldn’t Draw. Evidence of his studies of the classical tradition were on display and show otherwise.

A gallery full of Cézanne’s figure studies contains numerous works taken from his Sketchbooks that belie his daily dedication to the craft & Art of Drawing throughout his life.

He drew every day for much of the rest of his life. In the next gallery, we are treated to numerous examples of his Sculpture studies. Ah…Drawing Sculpture. Something many students, including this one, get caught up in. Its allure never lessened for Cèzanne.

After the Ecorche of Michelangelo, 1881-4, Pencil on paper, from a Sketchbook. Cèzanne kept a plaster cast of this work in his studio.

Per the wall card- “According to a friend…’To the last day of his life, every morning as a priest reads his breviary, he spent an hour drawing Michelangelo’s plaster figure from every angle.”

And here it is-

Cèzanne’s personal plaster cast of Michelangelo’s Ecorche, seen in Cezanne’s Studio in 2017!  Photograph by Joel Meyerowitz from his PhotoBook, Cezanne’s Objects, 2017.

Soon he was Drawing like this-

Page of Studies, including a Centaur after the Antique, Pencil on laid paper, 1897-82. A drastic departure from the academic Standing Male Nude, shown earlier. No part of any of this is defined by the Artist with one line. His future is coming.

He took what he learned, and used it as a jumping off point. He began to loosen up  his approach. Much experimentation followed, as we see as this very large show progresses, until “he had discovered his own personality,” as Cézanne scholar Roger Fry put it 1.

Bathers, 1900-06, Watercolor on wove paper, page from a Sketchbook that measures 7 1/16 by 9 13/16″. This late work shows how far he took his figure Drawing. Though the figures almost seem to dissolve right in front of us, then almost seeming to be vibrating en masse from a short distance. Still, the composition miraculously holds wonderfully together

He developed a style of Drawing the figure that used multiple lines to “hone in” on the form, as seen in the Page of Studies with the Centaur, just shown, and, even more radically, the Bathers, here. He called his style couillarde (ballsy)2, indicative of his “attacking” approach to every aspect of his Art. Like his early subjects seen in the first gallery.

The Murder, 1874-75, Pencil, watercolor, and gouache on paper. In this small work (5 3/4 by 6 7/8 inches), the knife is held high amidst an idyllic landscape based on a real place, with an ominous cross lurking above.

Murder, abduction, rape, orgies, Drawn with passion, or Painted in oils at the time with a palette knife, all seemed created to grab the attention, shock and horrify. His whole career can be seen as one long attack on the rules, tradition and the status quo in Art.

Still Life with Apples and a Pot of Primroses, ca. 1890, Oil on canvas, in The Met, and not included in Cèzanne Drawing. Met Photo.

Along with all of that, there is that eye, the way he sees things, and that unfailing sense for, and mastery of, color he had all along. Over time, his later Paintings achieve an almost surreal polish and finish, and achieve a complete solidity that is utterly convincing. Meanwhile, his Drawings often seem to delve into other dimensions. Objects are placed on seemingly impossible surfaces, or hang in space. The white of the paper becomes a star, an element the equal of any other in many works. These will seem a complete revelation to those who only know his Paintings, like me when I first walked in.

Rocks near the Chateau Noir, 1895-1900, Peincil and watercolor on paper. There is little in the world more solid than rock, but you’d never know it if you had only seen Cézanne’s series of Drawings of them near the Chateau Noir from 1895-1900. To me, they are a revolutionary marvel. Surface and forms dissolve right in front of our eyes.

As he put it all together, a MoMA wall card proved to be a revelation, particularly when thinking about his early training. In learning to draw the human body, one is taught to start by learning anatomy. Cézanne apparently applied this to his landscapes. “In order to paint a landscape well,” he is quoted on a wall card, “I first need to discover its geological structure.” It continues, “Cèzanne explored the relationship between rock and body throughout this series (of Drawings of rocks), in which the slabs take on the appearance of human bones and a cavern resembles the profile of a face.” And in this work, I see just that. The black lines form the “skeleton,” giving the piece a structure. Otherwise, the colors would be hanging in space.

Foliage, 1895, Watercolor and pencil on paper. At first glance it looks like an unfinished jumble of lines and colors with a lot of empty white space. Here, Cezanne is depicting leaves blowing in the wind. in so doing, he’s also blurring the line between representation and abstraction, which was a good decade off. Nearby, a full room of Still Lifes take things to the height of immateriality.

Still Life with Cut Watermelon, c.1900, Pencil and watercolor on paper. Of all the pieces on view, I’ve spent the most time studying this one. The table is “defined” with two brief lines, one a bit faint, on the right. The background is completely invisible and even the bottles in the back seem to be dissolving into space. Then, there’s the split open watermelon. At times it reminds me of an open heart.

His landscapes and his still lifes, with those famous arrangements of fruit on tables, have rightly garnered much of the attention and acclaim. They might originate from the gift of a basket of apple from his friend, Émile Zola in gratitude for Cèzanne’s rising to his defense against critics3, which would shed an entirely different light on them.

Wanna know why I still live in NYC? The chance to see incredible Art like this in shows like this. One of 4 walls in a large gallery of Cèzanne Still Lifes with fruit, including the one shown above, second from left here- some of the most innovative, visionary Drawings I’ve ever seen. (In some questionable frames.)

Seeing a large gallery full of them in 2021, they still seem completely fresh. As timeless as they are, Cézanne Drawing shows us there is much more to marvel at. Like his Portraits.

4 Portraits of the Gardener Vallier, 1904-6, Oil on canvas, 2nd from left, Pencil and watercolor on paper, the others. Endlessly fascinating, these 3 studies show remarkably similar poses to the Painting, yet with different backgrounds. They all share surprisingly undefined, nebulous, faces- unheard of in a traditional “Portrait.”

Though there are not many of them here, what is here makes a powerful impression, especially when seen along side, and in context with, his Drawings. Some years ago (in 2014), there was a show at The Met of Cézanne’s Portraits of his wife, Hortense Fiquet, aka Madame Cézanne, which captivated and mystified me at the same time.

On loan from The Met, Madame Cèzanne in the Conservatory, 1891-2, Oil on Canvas, right, with a Study of her, from 1885-6, on loan from The Guggenheim, NYC, left. Cèzanne was very uncomfortable around female models (especially undressed) and rarely used them. He was very comfortable, however, having his wife pose for him. She patiently sat for him often and he created a fascinating body of work depicting her, these two examples rarely seen together.

The woman we see in those works was inscrutable. Yet the technique and use of color also fascinate, particularly in relation to his other work. I came away finally feeling that his portraits deserve more attention, even though they are “different” from what many expect from a “Portrait,” and not necessarily as accessible as his ever-popular Still Lifes or Landscapes.

Unknown Photographer, Untitled (Portrait of the Model for The Bather), 1885, Albumen silver print.

Also, regarding Cèzanne’s Portraits, the show touches on the Artist’s use of Photographs, particularly as source material for MoMA’s famous Painting, The Bather.

The Bather, 1885, Oil on canvas.

He was far from alone in doing this at this time, yet he and the work he created using them have entirely escaped any sort of negative connotations for doing so that so many more recent Painters have suffered, including the recently passed Chuck Close. Which makes me wonder why it suddenly matters. It doesn’t! Photographs are, and have been for many Painters, something akin to a sketch. It’s plain to see Cèzanne didn’t slavishly copy the Photograph as much as it became a reference.

The Bridge of Trois-Sautets, 1906, Pencil and watercolor on paper. This late work is unlike anything in Art history to its time (even by Kandinsky or Munch), especially his own Oil Paintings. Compare it with Monet’s Footbridges around the same time. Its atmosphere stands diametrically opposed to those of the great Painters of atmospheric skies, Turner or Whistler, and different even from Van Gogh, and strikes me as a work that has much to offer Artists today4.

While his Paintings are seen as the precursors of Cubism, Abstraction and a number of other “isms” I don’t subscribe to, Cézanne’s remarkable Drawings are impossible to simply characterize. Why are they so different than his Oil Paintings? I wonder if it had something to do with his lifelong disappointments in having work accepted by the Salon, the yearly Paris Art show. One observer noted Cèzanne carrying his canvases on his back like Christ carrying the cross to be seen by the judges2. He was rejected by them early and often. So, how would work like these late Watercolors be received by them? Well over 100 years later, they still have yet to have their day, particularly as influences on other Artists. Perhaps, Cèzanne Drawing will turn out to be that day. However, one great Artist has not only already been influenced by these works, he’s put his money into them. No less than 12 of the pieces on view in Cézanne Drawing are somewhat surprisingly labelled “Collection Jasper Johns”! Extraordinarily astute acquisitions that add yet another dimension to our appreciation of this legendary Painter who will be receiving his (covid-delayed) 90th Birthday Retrospective at The Whitney Museum shortly.

Self-Portrait, No date, Pencil on laid paper, One work from the Collection Jasper Johns.

Now that they’ve seen the light of day, perhaps Cézanne Drawing will inspire some to build on the Drawing’s ahead-of-their-time innovations and help them achieve some of the wide-spread influence on Art his Paintings have had. Their time has come.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “I Remember The Sun” by XTC from The Big Express, 1984.

“Squinting at the sun through eyes
Screwed up by a fireball
Tarmac on the road is soft
Chaff burns in a smoke wall
Yes, I’m weeping, a teardrop attack
I give emotion at the drop of a hat
When I remember days at school
I remember many things
But most of all, I remember the sun
Most of all, I remember the sun
Most of all, I remember the sun
Sun that worked on overtime
Fueled our bodies, kindled fire in our minds”*

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You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Roger Fry, Cèzanne- A Study of His Development, P.3 ↩
  2. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/cezanne-107584544/ ↩
  3. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/cezanne-107584544/ ↩
  4. I must admit, having had glaucoma in both eyes, that in looking at later Cèzanne or Van Gogh I can’t help but wonder if either or both suffered from vision problems. Most likely it was just sheer genius at work. Given how much speculation surrounds Vincent, in particular still, I think we would have heard more about this by now. ↩
  5. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/cezanne-107584544/ ↩

Don’t Call Chuck Close A “photorealist”

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

“Nothing irritates Close more than referring to his early portraiture as ‘photorealism’…” New York Times, 2016.

The last time I saw Chuck Close, I ran into him while we were both out making the rounds of gallery late one Thursday eve in October, 2017. Here, in a small basement gallery in Chelsea, he studies a work past my left shoulder. It was fascinating to watch him study Art he (or I) had never seen before and hear his comments. The work was by the same Artist who created the work behind him, who’s name escapes me.

I met Chuck Close, who died Thursday, 3 or 4 times over the years. He and I shared a distain for the term, photorealism. My problem with, beyond a disdain for virtually all “isms” and boxes in the Arts, it is that it has been used to categorize Artists without their consent, thereby potentially limiting and possibly damaging their career and livelihood. Further, I don’t find it fits the work of a number of those so boxed, as many other boxes and isms don’t fit those included in them. It’s high time the entire range of isms in Art be done away with!

Does this look like a photograph to you? Chuck Close, Detail of a Self-Portrait, seen in 2012.

In fact, Chuck Close was the only Artist who managed to have been so boxed early in his career that managed to escape it as his style changed and evolved numerous times over his long career. Even quadriplegia in 1988 didn’t stop him. Virtually nothing he Painted after 1988 could be construed by anyone as being “photographic.” His late work positively burst with surreal and Day-Glo color

Or, so I thought…

I was extremely disheartened to see these as the titles of his obituary in various newspapers and even the Art media, who you would think would know  better!-

“Chuck Close, Artist of Outsized Reality, Dies at 81. He found success with his large-scale Photorealist portraits…” New York Times nytimes.com

“Chuck Close, renowned photorealist painter, dies at age 81 news.yahoo.com

“Chuck Close, artist known for photorealist portraits, dead” nypost.com

“Artist Chuck Close, known for photorealistic portraits,” UPI.com

“Chuck Close Dead: Photorealist Painter Dies at 81” artnews.com

“Chuck Close, renowned photorealist painter, dies at 81” NY Daily News nydn.com

It just goes to show how few of these people actually paid attention to how the Artist himself saw his work. 

WHO approves this stuff? What are their qualifications? The New York Times published that quote expressing Mr. Close’s irritation of having his work referred to that way, yet THEY used that term in the banner of his obituary!! Seriously? 

Chuck Close was one of the most famous living Artists in the world. If he, with his resources, wasn’t able to manage the conversation around his Art better than this, what chance does almost any other Artist have? 

Portrait of Philip Glass, seen in 2012. The way the white rectangles stop at the shoulders strikes me. It’s something you’d never seen in a photograph. Mr. Close Painted the same subjects, especially himself, repeatedly. Yet, no two are alike, as his style continuously evolved. This is best seen, perhaps, in his amazing Prints, which are done in more media than, perhaps, any Artist before him. His work looks completely different at arm’s length, and again from 25 feet away. Something I find endlessly amazing.

These isms are generally coined by people who had nothing to do with creating the Art. All they really serve to do, in my view, is prevent viewers from seeing the Art for themselves. “Oh…this is ‘Pseudoconceptualexpressionism.’ I know what that is.” So, they don’t look at it for themselves.

“Don’t believe the hype
Don’t—
Don’t—
Don’t—
Don’t believe the hype*”

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Don’t Believe the Hype” by Chuck D & Public Enemy from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, 1988.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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The Met’s Alice Neel Love Letter To NYC

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava
NYC has seen innumerable rough times. Too many for me to list here. Some of them I’ve lived through. During many of the hardest times the past 151 years The Metropolitan Museum of Art, founded in 1870, has stood at 1000 Fifth Avenue where it remained open allowing countless citizens and tourists the opportunity to walk up its famous staircase and take respite in its hallowed halls among its countless masterpieces, a beacon of culture and a repository of some of the greatest achievements of creative mankind over the past 5,000 years.

Until March 12th, 2020, that is.

Home, again, for the first time in over a year. The Met’s Grand Staircase, March 27, 2021. Up to the left. Down to the right, please.

At 6pm that day The Met closed due to the coronavirus pandemic shutdown1. It remained closed until August 29th. Five and one half months. Unprecedented in its history. Unwilling to risk being indoors until I could be vaccinated I missed the shows The Met held during the first six months after its reopening.

When it announced Alice Neel: People Come First, conceived by Sheena Wagstaff, would open on March 22nd, 2021, I thought back to what I had said about Alice Neel: Uptown, one of my NoteWorthy Shows for March-May, 2017- “…the breath of fresh air it provided only hints at how much pent-up longing I think there is to see more of her work. The time has come!”

The entrance. The show opens with a nude. Pretty daring, but given how often Alice Neel asked her sitters to pose nude, fitting.

On March 27th that time did indeed come. Seeing the show a few weeks later once the vaccine kicked in I had one primary reaction-

What a terrific love letter to New York City! At a time when one may never have been needed more.

March 27, 2021.

Fittingly, when I went in March, only fellow New Yorkers were my fellow visitors. In Alice Neel: People Come First’s parade of over 115 works the endless variety of people from all races, colors, orientations, and occupations that makes New York City great and unique is what is REALLY on view in this show.

“For me, people come first. I have tried to assert the dignity and eternal importance of the human being.” Alice Neel2.

Yes, Alice Neel’s place among the Masters of 20th century Art, established, at long last, in her Whitney Museum Centennial Retrospective in 2000, is reaffirmed. Yes, there are facets of her work that have been overlooked and are now getting attention, like her use of abstraction. But, it’s all secondary to the first theme- as she, and the show’s title says, people come first. Alice Neel Painted “pictures of people,” as she said. She spent about 60 years doing just that and the show draws on her entire career in the generous 115 or so works on view.

Carlos Enriquez, 1926, left, and French Girl, 1920s, right. Mr. Enriquez, a legendary Painter in his own right, was Alice Neel’s first husband and father of her first child, Santillana, who died of diphtheria as an infant daughter, and her second child, Isabetta, to whom she would be estranged for much of Isabetta’s short life.

How was she able to have this career? Born and raised in Pennsylvania, after marrying Carlos Enriquez, who went on to become one of the most renowned Cuban Artists of the century, in 1925, Alice Neel moved with him to Cuba from 1926-7, then returned to Pennsylvania, where they broke up. From there she moved to NYC in 1927. Both of these early, marvelous, works strike me as standing apart from typical student efforts, showing the young, mid-20s, Painter breaking free to seek her own style, finding her essence, and achieving success as captivating works. Phillip Bonosky wrote of her in his Journal in 1957, “She’s worked out her own code of behavior, whose cornerstones are two: 1) her freedom to paint; 2) the well being of her 2 boys. For 1, she will surrender everything else, and what other people place high- the sanctity of one’s flesh in bed- she subordinates to this superior law of her life. And the second also comes lower- but higher than anything else but the first. What other people strive for and cannot live without- good furniture, good clothes, a conventional acceptance by society, etc., etc.- she gives up without any sense of loss whatsoever3.”

On this spot, behind the car, a brownstone stood in the 1930s where Alice Neel lived during the Depression, a few blocks from where I am writing this piece. It’s now part of a school building.

“Lived in a brownstone, lived in the ghetto. I’ve lived all over this town,*” as David Byrne wrote in the lyrics for the Talking Heads song “Life During Wartime,” the SoundTrack for this post.

She spent time living in  the Bronx and a few neighborhoods in Manhattan over 54 years here, including one a few blocks from where I am now, before moving uptown for good, first to East Harlem, and finally to West Harlem. She Painted wherever she was. Street scenes, still lifes, and “pictures of people,” related to her and not. No matter when, where or who she Painted, her work has the remarkable quality of both looking of its time and not looking dated now. That said, never fond of discussing possible influences, her style was always wholly her own and it evolved over her career.

“I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nighttime. I might not ever get home,*” from “Life During Wartime,”

Ninth Avenue El, 1935. Night on West 14th Street at Ninth Avenue Painted at the peak of the Depression, the figures seem to carry the weight of the world with them. Looking at this now, and living in this area today, it’s hard for me, or no doubt most of my neighbors, to believe there was an elevated subway train here 90 years ago. It closed in 1940, only 5 years after this was Painted.

Standing on the same spot today in daylight. West 14th Street & Ninth Avenue, July 28, 2021, looking across to the Meatpacking District. The area is undergoing hard times, again. All the stores to my immediate left are For Rent, a large Apple store stands to my right. Today, there is not a hint that an elevated subway was once here.

“There isn’t much good portrait painting being done today, and I think it is because with all this war, commercialism and fascism, human beings have been steadily marked down in value, despised, rejected and degraded,” she explained in 19504.

Elenka, 1936, is a work that shows the way for much the Artist did the rest of her career with its subtle complexity. It’s a daring picture of a strong woman with an intense gaze reinforced by the strong colors and shapes surrounding her, contrasted with the femininity of what she wears. The background is partially nebulous and partially furniture or building. The somewhat straightforward pose gives the feeling of being caught off guard, which of course Elenka wasn’t.

It’s interesting that during her “today,” Artists including Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, to name two, were Painting portraits, though not nearly as well-known as they would become. Still, no matter what they, or anyone else was doing, Alice Neel, a humanist to the last, remained true to herself.

Futility of Effort, 1930. Alice Neel described this as one of her most “revolutionary” Paintings. Partily inspired by the death of her young daughter Santillana, partly by a news account of another infant death where the child choked on the bars of the crib while her mother ironed in the next room. It was shown on a wall by itself at the far end of a rectangular gallery.

She was also a survivor who persevered as a Painter as a single mother, virtually unprecedented among major Painters of the 20th century, or before, and a mother who lost an infant child,

Alice Neel, Nancy and Olivia, 1967, left, Vincent van Gogh, Madame Roulin and Her Baby, 1888. One of the highlights of the show was a gallery showing Alice Neel’s work in dialogue with Met Museum masterpieces by other Artists including Jacob Lawrence, Helen Levitt, Mary Cassatt, among others including Van Gogh, here. Alice Neel lost an infant daughter, and Vincent longed for a family fruitlessly his entire life. Knowing that, it’s hard not to read both of these works as autobiography, poignantly hung side by side.

But there were other sides to Alice Neel, the woman, besides the mother.  “I’m cursed to be in this Mother Hubbard body. I’m a real sexy person,” she once said[Met Alice Neel: People Come First Exhibition Catalog, P.2]. One way it came out is her penchant for asking her sitters to undress for their “picture.” A good number of them complied- men, women, pregnant women, and couples. Even Andy Warhol.

“This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco. This ain’t no fooling around. This ain’t no Mudd Club, or C.B.G.B. I ain’t got time for that now,*” from “Life During Wartime,”

Andy Warhol, 1970, Oil and acrylic on linen. Alice Neel is revolutionary for the consciously “unfinished” look of a number of her Paintings, including this one, one of  masterpieces. Done less than 2 years after the assassination attempt on his life, according to Phoebe Hoban, the two Artists discussed doing the picture this way (half undressed) with eyes closed, making it close to an actual collaboration5.

The show featured a number of the nudes, including Alice Neel’s daring nude Self-Portrait, 1980, at age 80! She also trail blazed Painting pregnant women nude, and some of them were on view as well. Finally, there were numerous pictures of children, both hers, and neighborhood kids, as shown earlier.

“We dress like students, we dress like housewives. Or in a suit and a tie. I changed my hairstyle so many times now, I don’t know what I look like,*” from “Life During Wartime.”

Marxist Girl (Irene Peslikis), 1972, all works are Oil on canvas, unless specified. “This captivating portrait …depicts artist and activist Irene Peslikis—a member of a new generation of revolutionary feminists that Neel began to paint in the early 1970s. Alice Neel’s relationship with second-generation feminism was sometimes strained, but she nonetheless supported—and was supported by—the movement.” @metmuseum.

Further to that quote from @metmuseum, I find the piece daring and free with a power that exudes from Ms. Peslikis’s gaze in a pose that is at once natural and ground-breaking, matched by an extraordinarily daring and free background. Alice Neel had gone on record6, powerfully, against Abstract Expressionism in its heyday. Her views changed over time. Here she is, using its techniques to marvelous effect in the background, as she does in a number of other works of the 1970s. She said then, “I don’t think there is any great painting that doesn’t have good abstract qualities.7.” I’ve been thinking about those words since I read that quote…

“I don’t know what you expect to do in the world, Alice. You’re only a girl.” Alice Concross Hartley Neel (1868-1954), Alice Neel’s mother8

Last Sickness, 1953, left, and City Hospital, 1954, Ink and gouache on paper. Alice Neel’s mother, was no fan of her daughter becoming a Painter, as the quote from her, above, shows, yet Alice never turned her back on her. She died of cancer shortly after the Painted picture. City Hospital shows her mother at the bottom with an overworked nurse looking over other patients at her.

Her mother, who took her to cultural events, Alice describes as “intelligent and well read” continued, “None of us will be remembered.” “Well, I am not so sure about Alice,” Alice remembered her father saying9.

Richard Gibbs, 1968- Everything about this work strikes me as daring. The pose looks like a very casual take on Rodin’s The Thinker. Mr. Gibbs’ shirt is a riot of color with lines that go in the opposite direction to the path laid out for the eye to follow from front to back. That path, itself, is an adventure. We are seemingly inside and outside at the same time. Part of a room or building occupies the right part of the piece, a sudden landscape occupies the left, leading to a shining sun high up top. This inside-outness reminds me a bit of Dali or de Chirico, but for Alice Neel, who is known as being a somewhat traditional Painter of portraits, or pictures of people, as she preferred, it’s quite daring. The shadows under the chair leave me wondering, too. What are they of? Then, there’s the skin tones. Marvelously flat on Mr. Gibbs’ legs, feet, arms and hands, and more layered and nuanced on his face.

Many of Alice Neel’s non-family subjects were people fighting for causes, people who lived what they believed, and that is what comes across in her “pictures” of them. Taken as a whole one of the things her work is is a miniature picture of New York during her lifetime. While there are some cityscapes, Alice Neel’s New York City consists of its people in all their ages, sizes, shapes and variety.

“Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit? Heard about Pittsburgh, PA?,*” from “Life During Wartime10.

James Farmer, 1964. The year this was Painted, the civil-rights leader was among those arrested at the 1964 World’s Fair for protesting segregation and racial violence.

Mostly an outsider to the big NYC museums and larger Art world during most of her lifetime (though she attended them and marched in protests of some of their more controversial shows), Alice Neel fought for her Art most of her life. She had to. She didn’t find a lot of supporters in the Art word until late in her life (the Whitney held a Retrospective in 1974, when she was 74, and the posthumous Centennial show in 2000, her last big NYC museum show before this one). Phoebe Hoban says that between 1927 and 1964 she had about 6 solo shows. From 1964 to 1984, she had over sixty11. The first full-length monograph of her work was finally published in 1983, a year before she passed (see BookMarks, below).

James Hunter- Where are you? Black Draftee-James Hunter, 1965. One of the most compelling works in Alice Neel’s career, Mr. Hunter appeared for one sitting and never returned. Alice Neel declared the work finished and its gone on to spellbind viewers ever since. (Including me, when I saw it last at Unfinished at The Met Breuer in 2015.) Drafted for Vietnam, his name does not appear on the Wall in Washington, DC. To this day, what happened to him remains unknown.

Listening to her recorded interviews she always makes a compelling case for work and anyone interested in her Art should seek them out online and watch or listen to those first before reading anyone else speak about her work. In this interview, I love how she immediately corrects anything the interviewer says about her Art that she doesn’t agree with!

“Transmit the message, to the receiver. Hope for an answer some day,*” from “Life During Wartime,”

The line for Alice Neel: People Come First on March 27th. I imagine it’s significantly longer now.

Standing in line at The Met, in the very halls she frequented, I couldn’t help wonder what she would have felt seeing the line of visitors stretching all the way down the long hallway waiting to see her work. The same work she mostly kept in her archives, as a picture in the show, below, depicts.

The archive of her work lining the walls of her apartment. Alice Neel hated to part with one of her Paintings and was known to Paint a copy when she did.

“The sound of gunfire, off in the distance. I’m getting used to it now,*” from “Life During Wartime.”

Living in Manhattan these past 30 years, it’s easy to relate to the solitary, single-minded sense of purpose her life exudes. “Tough times don’t last. Tough people do,” the age old quote goes. Alice Neel survived a lot of tough times. Now her Art is helping New Yorkers survive this horrible time by reminding us of who we are and what our strength is.

BookMarks-

The poignant inscription in a signed copy of Patricia Hills’ monograph says it all. Alice Neel died the following year. Photographer unknown.

The Alice Neel bibliography is relatively small but growing. Here are a few recommendations based on living for at least a year with each recommended book, each  used in preparing this piece.

Alice Neel: People Come First, Met Museum Exhibition Catalog, is the most up to date monographic overview of her work and career. It features the most current research and has the most images currently (mostly the works in the show which were exceedingly well chosen) in very good quality on good paper, many in a large size. Recommended as a first, or go-to, monograph on Alice Neel until a more complete look at her whole career is published.

Alice Neel, by Patricia Hills, will always be NoteWorthy for being the first full length hard-cover monograph on Alice Neel and the only one released during her lifetime. Many good sized illustrations in color. It was also done with cooperation with the Artist. It holds up well today and copies in Very Good or better condition are still reasonable. Recommended as a 2nd monograph on Alice Neel, it remains a valuable reference book for the reasons I mentioned.

Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, by Phoebe Hoban is another Art biography from Ms. Hoban. I found this one better than her Jean-Michel Basquiat bio, particularly when it comes to addressing the Art (a serious weakness of the J-M Basquiat book in my opinion). At the moment, there is no other full-length Alice Neel biography. Given Alice Neel’s steadily increasing popularity, and her increasing stature as an Artist, a woman and an influence, I suspect that will not be true indefinitely and a more definitive biography may be still to come. Done after the Artist’s passing it does not have Alice Neel’s input but it does have quotes from family members. Includes 23 pages of small illustrations in color and black & white. The binding is exceptional- rare for a large 500+ page paperback. Recommended, for now.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Life During Wartime,” with lyrics by David Byrne by Talking Heads from Fear Of Music, 1979. Regarding the references used above, check out the annotated lyrics on genius.com. Here it is performed live, at The Mudd Club, LA, of all places, on August 13, 1979-

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

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  1. The PBS series Inside The Met shows behind the scenes leading up to, during and after the shutdown. ↩
  2.  Mike Gold, “Alice Neel Paints Scenes and Portraits from Life in Harlem,” Daily Worker, December 27, 1950, p.11 ↩
  3. Phoebe Hoban, Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, P.236 ↩
  4. Mike Gold, ibid, p.11 ↩
  5. Phoebe Hoban, ibid, P.310 ↩
  6.  “I am against abstract and non-objective art because such art shows a hatred of human beings. It is an attempt to eliminate people from art, and as such it is bound to fail.” Mike Gold, ibid, p.11 ↩
  7. Met Alice Neel catalog, P. 104 ↩
  8. Met Exhibition Catalog, P.12 ↩
  9. Met Exhibition Catalog, P.18. ↩
  10. See the annotated lyrics, here. ↩
  11. Phoebe Hoban, ibid, P 254 ↩

The “Other” Robert Frank

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Barbershop through screen door-McClellanville, South Carolina, from the Scalo edition of Robert Frank’s The Americans.

Almost every piece I read on Robert Frank begins the same way. Take the 14,999 word obituary The New York Times published after Mr. Frank passed away at 94 on September 9th, 2019 for example. The body of their piece begins-

“Robert Frank, one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century…”

Stating succinctly what I’ve heard said about him most often. In the 3rd para it adds-

“He was best known for his groundbreaking book, The Americans…1”

A copy of the 50th Anniversary edition of The Americans, published by Steidl in 2008 in close collaboration with Robert Frank, and so this will remain the  definitive edition.

Again, summing what seems to be the consensus I’ve encountered as I’ve explored the world of Modern & Contemporary Photography (which for me, means the world post the publication of said The Americans in 1958, in France, and 1959 here). Yet lurking in that sentence is a problem.

Good days quiet, 2019, with its slip case above, Robert Frank’s final PhotoBook.

While he is indeed “best known” for The Americans, nowhere in the entire 14,999 word obit is there mention of any other PhotoBook by Robert Frank! That’s typical, too. It seems that for many people Mr. Frank’s exalted reputation rests on that one book. But, Robert Frank, didn’t stop working after publication of The Americans in 1959. He created and published Photobooks regularly over the following SIXTY YEARS! His last one, Good days quiet, was published in April, 2019, shortly before his passing. Yet, it seems to me that this single-book focus also monopolizes the conversation around Robert Frank’s work.

Want proof of that? Quick- name five other books by Robert Frank. [“Final Jeopardy!” Music plays…] Ok. Three.

It all began here. Robert Frank, Portfolio, Steidl facsimile edition. Containing a selection his early work, 1941-46, Mr. Frank presented the original to prospective clients after arriving in New York from Zurich in 1947.

The Americans singlehandedly created the genre of Contemporary Photography spawning countless thousand of books in its wake. Yet, given his reputation, it’s kind of amazing Robert Frank’s “other” books have received so little attention. Especially after you see them. It would be easy to account for that saying, “Well, there are more PhotoBooks published today than ever before.” Most PhotoBooks come and go  having only created a ripple in the vast world of human awareness. True, but, these are different. Full of poignancy, daring, surprising juxtapositions of the new and the old, they don’t hesitate to break rules. And, they are the work of Robert Frank, “one of the most influential….” oh, you know. Whereas The Americans, and his prior books, like London/Wales (another masterpiece in my view), contain work that looks at the world, his subsequent books largely look inward. In a number of the images a sense of loss is palpable.

Fourteen “other” Robert Frank books. The 7 on the bottom are his late Visual Diaries, discussed further below. Good days quiet is above them. Robert Frank: In America, not by Robert Frank per se,contains about 100 Photographs that are not in The Americans. And so it provides an excellent chance to study Robert Frank’s image selection, invaluable for anyone considering making a PhotoBook.

Without having familiarity with most, if not all, of Robert Frank’s PhotoBooks, it’s not possible to have an understanding of him or his accomplishment. Given his key position in Photography of the past 60 years, by extension, it’s pretty hard to be able to understand the accomplishment of anyone else working in this era. Realizing that I, too, was in this boat, seemingly adrift in the fog of ignorance, I decided to do something about it last year during the lock down. I began hunting down every OTHER Robert Frank book I could find. What I found was, frankly (sorry), astounding, but, I really shouldn’t have been surprised.

Robert Frank: Moving Out, 1995-6 Exhibition Guide.

In 1995 I saw the Robert Frank: Moving Out Retrospective at the “old” Whitney Museum. At that point, I had a copy of The Americans, but knew nothing more about his work. What I saw that day was indelible. The greatest (of the few) Photography shows I’d seen before 2005’s Diane Arbus: Revelations at The Met. It showed me that Mr. Frank never stopped creating or exploring his vision. Later in his career (as it was in 1995), he had taken to writing on is prints and I was stunned by them. They were “raw,” yes, but they were also revolutionary. I immediately ran out and bought the exhibition catalog, unheard of for this Painting guy at that point. The impact of those later Prints, and the retrospective as a whole has stayed alive with me ever since.

Robert Frank: Moving Out Exhibition Catalog. Ostensibly not “by” Robert Frank, is still a spectacular book, and the best overview of his work to 1995 there is with excellent, informative essays and gorgeous reproductions (it was printed by Steidl). Copies in Very Good, or better, condition trade quite reasonably as I write this.

But, I still hadn’t seen his other PhotoBooks, and as we all know, a PhotoBook is a unique way of presenting Photographs that has proven itself to be every bit as vital and effective as hanging them on a wall- even on the walls of the Whitney. Mr. Frank is, perhaps, the master of image selection, and laying out & sequencing a PhotoBook, skills that are apparently in short supply based in many of the books I see each year. If they have no other values (which they definitely do) they are portable “master classes” in the Art of making a PhotoBook. 

The Table of Contents for Steidl’s overview (shown 2 pictures down) turned into my checklist of books seen so far. Some of the uncheck entries are essays in the book.

To date, I still haven’t seen all of his books. I’m up to 22 of them. Luckily, almost all of Robert Frank’s books have been reprinted over the years and most remain in print, due to his relationship with the renowned Gerhard Steidl of Steidl, making the newer editions relatively affordable. After publishing the terrific Storylines in 2004, the pair began work on the 50th Anniversary Edition of The Americans, which is the version that will now remain Robert Frank’s final word on the classic.

Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans: Expanded Edition accompanied the show of the same name honoring The American’s 50th Anniversary I saw at The Met in 2009. And so, it is the final word on The Americans during Robert Frank’s lifetime and the ultimate reference on it. Another book not “by” Mr. Frank it is exceptionally thorough and the hardcover Expanded Edition seen here contains the 83 contact sheets the images in The Americans came from! (NOT included in the softcover edition.) It’s also enough of a “making of” book for students to study how The Americans came into being. Highly recommended.

Since those two volumes Messers Frank & Steidl have produced a steady stream of books.

Robert Frank: Books and Films Published by Steidl, 2020. The best place to start exploring Robert Frank’s “other” PhotoBooks.

In 2020, Steidl honored and revisited their collaborations with an overview of all the books titled Robert Frank: Books and Films Published by Steidl. Succinct and well-produced it is the best place to start exploring the PhotoBooks of Robert Frank and the best place to determine where to turn next in your own journey through them (with the Moving Out catalog the best place to explore his work: his Photography & Film to 1995). Each book is shown chronologically and gets a section of its own by Steidl publication date with thumbnails and historical & publishing info. Here, you can get a taste of each book before diving in.

Robert Frank: Storylines, 2004, the first Robert Frank/Steidl publication is auspicious given what followed, and remains the best retrospective of his work. Steidl is preparing to reprint it.

From what I’ve seen thus far, after The Americans, he turned his camera inward. His later work, renowned for its “rawness” as the NY Times obituary put it, often feature poignantly “raw” images of his life and feelings. This is seen best, perhaps, in his late 7 volume Photo Diary series. They are a truly unique body of PhotoBooks that at once look back (by including vintage Photographs- some familiar, some not), and more recent shots, brilliantly laid out, with each book not containing too many Photos. This gives each book an internal sense of space that allows the Photos room to breathe. The book design, by Messers Frank and Steidl, with assistance and input from Mrs. Frank, the under-appreciated Artist,  June Leaf, is simple and clean, but fresh and new at the same time, as  you’d expect from two master craftsman who each bring a lifetime’s experience to each book. Mr. Frank began with a book dummy and the feel and design of these has been pretty faithfully reproduced by Steidl. These are not luxury items. They are produced to be picked up and looked through in functional yet non-pretentious materials.

Little known is that Robert Frank was commissioned to shoot catalogs for Milan designer Albert Aspesi titled Aspesi Ideas. This is a copy of the 2nd of the 3 he did. We shouldn’t be surprised by this. After his arrival from Zurich, he did over 150 fashion shoots for Harper’s and Junior Bazar. Even great Artists have to pay the bills.

I’m not going to give a book by book breakdown here. It would take a book to do so. And now, there is a book that does just that, Steidl’s tribute/overview Robert Frank: Books and Films Published by Steidl, 2020,, traces the entire history and legacy of the German publisher’s work with Robert Frank, including both books it republished and brand new PhotoBooks. It’s the best place to start for anyone looking to get an overview, or to choose where to go next in exploring the published work of Robert Frank.

The seven volumes of Robert Frank’s Visual Diaries, 2010-17, six in a similar design- a softcover in a slipcase. The seventh is Household Inventory Record, 2013, designed to look like the original which was created in an actual Household Inventory Record book.

Highlights? For me, it’s very very hard to single any of them out. They are part of a continuum that spans and tells the story of one extraordinary Artist’s life. Luckily, as I write this, virtually all of them are still in print and available at or close to list price. Assuming you have The Americans, I would recommend starting with Steidl’s overview. Look through it, read the introductory summary about each book, look at its thumbnail images and see which one(s) speak to you. Storylines, which accompanied a 2004 European touring retrospective exhibition, is Robert Frank’s look at his own career in a book he obviously had (from the look at the making of it in Steidl’s overview book) a central role in designing as well as a close involvement with the underlying show (we’re told in the introduction). And so it remains the best place to see his career through his eyes. It also set the stage for what would follow from the Frank/Steidl collaboration. Also essential in my view is the early London/Wales, which Steidl reissued, and which sets the stage for The Americans. Of the books after Storylines, the “Visual Diaries,” were the big surprises for me. Tal uf Tal ab (2010), You Would (2012), Park / Sleep (2013), Household Inventory Record (2013), Partida (2014), Was haben wir gesehen/What we have seen (2016), and Leon of Juda (2017) strike me as being akin to as close to a “PhotoBook Autobiography” as we’re likely to get. A mix of new and old Photos, typically brilliantly sequenced, they break more rules than they follow. Six of the seven are identically sized and come in matching slipcases, as shown above, while Household Inventory Record is a reproduction of an original created in a standard Household Inventory book. It’s pretty hard for me to single one of these out, so I decided to start with the first volume,Tal Uf Tal Ab. They contain between 29 and 68 Photos each. Good days quiet, 2019, being his last book is also essential in my view. Not part of the Visual Diaries per se (it is the same size as the 6 Visual Diaries, though in a different format), it nonetheless carries some of the feeling and style. Intended as a “final” book, or not, it nonetheless is a moving work showing that Robert Frank had lost none of his considerable skills as a Photographer, editor or book creator.

From Storylines. Pieces like this seem to meld Film and Photography as Robert Frank continually stretched out the ability of Photographs to tell a story.

While a biography of Mr. Frank has already been published, the time is here for the critical studies of his entire body of work to begin. Given Moving Out was 26 years ago, and Storylines, which never traveled to the US, 17, the time is also here for a full scale retrospective. The Americans continues to receive the attention it’s earned. No PhotoBook or Art Book collection should be without it. Yes, no library of any kind of books should be without it. Robert Frank’s “other” PhotoBooks created in the following sixty years shows us a different, inner, landscape- its depths, its wonder, its beauty, poetry and tragedy are no less compelling. They complete the picture Robert Frank showed us, and the journey he took us on.

Robert Frank, from Good days quiet, 2019.

Meanwhile, his Art continued to grow and expand, in my view. It’s full of innovations that have largely flown under the radar compared to his early work. But those innovations are not lost on Artists & Photographers who have been creating along side, or since he created them.

Sick of Goodby’s, 1978, from Robert Frank: Moving Out.

In much of later Robert Frank I get the feeling that he was crossing the boundaries between Photography & Film, with his writing on his prints and especially his collages, which are daring and almost completely overlooked. While his early work already looks timeless to us, there is much else in his oeuvre that remains to be discussed, understood and appreciated. This is like the late work of a number of other Artists from Picasso to Rauschenberg. Luckily, much of this work is there to be seen by all of us right now in the books he created.

Having seen 22 so far, I look forward to seeing those I haven’t yet seen. And then, there are his Films…

Robert Frank, from Good days quiet, 2019, his final book.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “The Other End (of the Telescope)” Written and performed by Elvis Costello on All This Useless Beauty, 1996, performed in the UK that year here-

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  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/arts/robert-frank-dead-americans-photography.html ↩

Gilles Peress’s Silent Movie

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Gilles Peress, Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, with Annals of the North. Steidl Photo

Henri Cartier-Bresson in the newly liberated Nazi Concentration Camps…

Robert Capa in Paris during its Liberation…

Robert Franks- London & Wales…

Robert Franks- The Americans…

Larry Burrows- Vietnam…

Gilles Peress- Telex Iran…

These were some of the images and PhotoBooks that flashed through my mind while looking through a copy of the newly released two-volume Whatever You Say, Say Nothing by Gilles Peress published by Steidl. I don’t think this will be the last time it’s spoken about with those monuments of Photography. Even though the Photographs in it were taken 50 years ago next year, I believe Whatever You Say, Say Nothing will be included when the list of THE Books of this Decade is finalized.

Steidl Photo.

It comes in a strong tote bag (it better be- the set weighs almost 30 pounds!). The two PhotoBooks contain 1,960 14 3/4 by 10 inch pages with 1,295 images, including some amazing wide-angle shots that will look like panoramas to iPhone users. These are often shown on a 2 page spread that’s almost 30 inches wide! The first volume has “Whatever You Say” in silver letters on the spine, Volume II has “Say Nothing” on it. Each set is accompanied by the “text and image almanac,” The Annals of the North, itself 900 pages.

Steidl Photo.

Billed as “A Documentary Fiction” on the title page, the word “Fiction” allows me to bring it into the world of “Art,” though everything it shows us was actually witnessed by the Photographer in Northern Ireland. In 1972, at age 26, he witnessed the “Bloody Sunday Massacre,” then returned to continue shooting there over the next decade. Whatever You Say, Say Nothing marks the first time most of this work has been seen. 

Steidl Photo.

Per Steidl-
“Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, a work of “documentary fiction,” organizes a decade of photographs across 22 fictional “days” to articulate the helicoidal structure of history during a conflict that seemed like it would never end—where each day became a repetition of every other day like that day: days of violence, of marching, of riots, of unemployment, of mourning, and also of “craic” where you try to forget your condition.
Held back for 30 years and now eagerly anticipated, this ambitious publication takes the language of documentary photography to its extremes, then challenges the reader to stop and resolve the puzzle of meaning for him or herself.”

Steidl Photo.

It’s fitting I’m seeing this on the heels of having seen and written about Francisco Goya’s Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War) at The Met, which left me pondering so-called “documentary” Photography and Goya’s possible influence on Artists & Photographers.

Steidl Photo.

Culling down a decade’s worth of work to 1,295 images must have been incredibly difficult, but there’s no evidence of that to be seen in the books where there are no “weak” images and those chosen are brilliantly sequenced in service to the “22 Day” concept. I particularly admire the image layout- not full bleed but with the slimmest of margin, maximizing the available real estate. It was too hard for me to think of a fictional narrative to accompany the images as they went by. I was too gripped by what’s depicted in the Photos themselves. Gilles Peress’s remarkable images have lost not one bit of their power in the intervening 3 decades since he took them. They are a part of history that has much to teach us now, and no doubt will in the future. But those are just two of the innumerable levels of this monumental work.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” by U-2 from War, 1980. After its release, I saw them at The Ritz, NYC, on their first US tour.

My thanks to Monika Condrea.

BookMarks-
Gilles Peress’ Whatever You Say, Say Nothing is about to be released in the US.

For a compelling look at events in Northern Ireland in 1981 check out the excellent Yan Morvan’s Bobby Sands, Belfast Mai 1981 (French Edition) from Andrew Frerer Editions. (Note- My copy is French & English. There is only one edition as far as I know.) Mr Morvan was also about 26 or 27 when he shot in Northern Ireland.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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Francisco Goya: Modern Art & Photography Begin Here

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

The seemingly all-seeing eye. Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos, Plate 1, 1799, Etching, aquatint, drypoint, burin. The wall card reads- “In the first plate from the Caprichos, Goya presents himself as a sardonic observer of contemporary society.” Exactly what we’ll see in the rest of The Met’s Goya’s Graphic Imagination.

Francisco Goya’s Paintings are on the “must-see” lists of many museum goers, particularly the 200 or so portraits he did of royal, aristocratic or upper-class patrons over his 39 years as a court Painter1. Like this one-

Francisco Goya, Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga (1784–1792), 1787-8, Oil on canvas. One of the most charming Paintings in The Met for many. I can’t help but think it’s also more. An allegory about the end of  innocence? On the right, small birds in a protective cage. On the left, a magpie is eyed by cats. Any wonder this was the last Goya portrait commissioned by the child’s father, the Count of Altamira? Herein lies a hint of what lurks in Goya’s Graphic work. Its young subject died at age eight, 4 years after posing for it. A final touch- the magpie holds Goya’s card with his signature in his beak. Met Museum Photo of the work unframed.

But, to get the full picture of Goya’s Art, I believe his graphic work deserves every bit as much attention. Yet, chances to see his Drawings & Prints in depth are rare due to the fragility and light sensitivity of the originals. In 2015, a complete set of Goya’s timeless Print series Los Caprichos (the Caprichos) was shown at The National Arts Club in Gramercy Park, which I wrote about here. 2015 also saw the last large Goya Retrospective in the U.S., Goya: Order and Disorder, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which I actually made a day trip out of town to see and wrote about in the same piece. 

Goya after Velazquez, A False Bacchus Crowning Drunkards, 1778, Etching. Goya achieved, and demonstrated, his mastery of of the challenging medium of Etching copying the earlier Spanish master as in this remarkable Print done when Goya was about 32. And, he had the confidence to modify the composition of one of the greatest Painters of all time.

In the intervening 4 1/2 years, I’ve been preoccupied, if not obsessed, with exploring Photography & PhotoBooks, so when I finally got to see Goya’s Graphic Imagination at The Met in April with about 118 Drawings & Prints, I wondered if I might be able to spot Goya’s influence on Photographers and Photography, and on Modern Art in general for that matter.

“Both types of works on paper are closer to one another than they are to Goya’s painting. Paintings are a public expression. By contrast, an album of drawings is intimate and personal. These smaller-scale works served as a platform for Goya to think through his most private ideas.” Mark McDonald, Met Curator of Goya’s Graphic Imagination.

Goya’s eye, which seems to look askance at us in the Self-Portrait that opens Los Caprichos, up top, apparently never rested. He recorded much of what he saw in his Sketchbooks, which have largely survived. Over time, his beliefs ran in and out of sync with those of the powers that be, so he became adept at keeping his opinions to himself. It is in the privacy of these Sketchbooks that he gave full reign to what he felt about all he saw around him while keeping his position at court. He eventually rose to the exalted position of First Chamber Painter in 1799.

Title page to the first edition of Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War), 1863, 24 years after the invention of chemical Photography. Met Museum Photo. Due to the low lighting in the show I was unable to take satisfactory pictures of much of the show without a tripod, so in those cases, I am using The Met’s Photos. This page was not included in the show.

A number of his Drawings became the basis of his Prints, including  Los Caprichos and later, inspired by the Peninsular War, 1807-14 and the Madrid Famine, 1811-12, Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War). It was the 10 or so Prints from this series, equal parts “graphic” and revolutionary, on view in The Met’s show I looked forward to seeing most. Due to those ever-changing political winds, it wasn’t until 1863, thirty-five years after Goya’s death, that the world got to see his Fatal Consequences of Spain’s Bloody War with Bonaparte, and Other Emphatic Caprices, as he had originally titled a set of 85 Prints that he gave to an associate during his lifetime, when it was finally published under the title Los Desastres de la Guerra with 80 Prints2.

Plate 15 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): ‘And there is nothing to be done.’ (Y no hai remedio.) Met Museum Photo.

“Every figure in Los Desastres de la Guerra plays a specific role, defined by gesture, expression and costume. Nothing is superfluous.” Janis A. Tomlinson, Goya’s War: Los Desastres de la guerra, P.17

The series shows things never before seen in Art to that time, including graphic depictions of the horror of war, imprisonment and famine. About two hundred thirty years earlier, circa 1633,  Jacques Callot published his Print series Les Grandes Miseres de la guerre or The Miseries and Misfortunes of War. Of them, the Art Gallery of NSW, Australia, which owns a set, says– “Callot’s series is less an indictment of war than a moral tale about the unhappy consequences that befall the undisciplined soldier.” Callot’s Prints are in a long landscape format, and show what they depict at a distance. It is thought Goya owned a set of them, and they may have been an inspiration for him. In his series, Goya puts the action full frame presaging the words of Robert Capa, famed for his 20th century war & conflict Photographs, “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”

Plate 1 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): Sad foreboding of what is going to happen (Tristes presentimientos de lo que ha de acontecer), ca. 1815 (published 1863), Etching, burin, drypoint and burnisher. Met Museum Photo.

As powerful & profound as they are, there’s an element of them that is particularly puzzling. In more than one work, Goya’s caption gives the viewer the idea that what he’s showing are things he actually witnessed. DID Goya see the things he shows us?

DID he? Or, didn’t he actually see this happen? The title says he did. Plate 44 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): ‘I saw it.’ (Yo lo vi.). Met Museum Photo.

There is some debate around this. Wikipedia says repeatedly that he went around and saw the battles of the Peninsular War- without quoting a source for these statements I have seen no where else. While it seems it would have been hard for him to miss the daily effects of the Madrid Famine going on around him, the Artist going to battle scenes is harder for me to imagine. He was in his 60s and had suffered a serious illness that left him completely deaf. If he didn’t actually go to them, he could have been inspired by news accounts or from the accounts those closer to the action.

Preperatory Drawing for Plate 64 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): ‘Cartloads to the cemetery.’ (Carretadas al cementerio.) Prado, Madrid Photo.

Plate 64 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): ‘Cartloads to the cemetery.’ (Carretadas al cementerio.). Here an extremely rare opportunity to compare the Drawing, above, with the final Print. Met Museum Photo.

At this point, it’s unlikely we’ll ever know for certain how much of what we’re shown, if any of it, the Artist actually personally witnessed first hand. I’ve come to feel that thinking about this is a waste of time. Goya was an Artist- not a Photographer. He was working before the invention of chemical Photography and setting down his ideas by hand on paper, stone or canvas. With all due respect to the skill of Artists who Drew and Painted down through history, Drawing & Paintings done from life or memory are incapable of showing us the real world as it existed. Time is a key element in Drawing & Painting and in the time it takes to make one the world has changed. The people in it have moved. The light has changed. Things have happened and finished. In war, particularly, things happen way too fast to be captured accurately in a Drawing, let alone a Painting. They can give us a sense of what happened. What Goya is showing us is “something else” than the full reality of the moment- even if he did see it happen right in front of him. It’s his vision of things. If he tried to render it accurately to the scene in front of him, it’s still only an approximation. We’re seeing it through his eyes, and, as becomes apparent as you look at his Drawings & Prints, he does have a point of view.

The line for Goya extends further down the hall to the left than you can see here. April, 2021.

After seeing them in the show, it’s hard for me to think that these unprecedented images are not precursors of so-called war and conflict Photography. After the show I began to look to see if the Photographers, themselves, acknowledged this. In 2005, the renowned British Photographer Don McCullin, renowned for his coverage of the Vietnam War, among numerous other conflicts over his long & eventful career, told the BBC “When I took pictures in war I couldn’t help thinking of Goya.” Elsewhere he said, “…if what happened in front of my eyes was like a scene out of Goya. I wasn’t there to make icons. I had to bring back information that could possibly prevent other such miseries.” In those words I feel a simpatico with what Goya might have been trying to accomplish in Los Desastres de la Guerra .

Garroted Man, 1776-78, Etching. Done at about age 30, Goya’s second etching! A forerunner of Los Desastres, is also one of his most unforgettable images. According to Janis Tomlinson, Garroting “was considered one of the more humane forms of execution3.”

If a Drawing is incapable of showing us the complete “reality” of a scene, then it is what some might call today, “conceptual.” I was struck by some similarities of Goya’s Prints with so-called “conceptual” Photographers, who modify or create scenes from scratch that they then Photograph, like Duane Michals, Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson or Deana Lawson. Goya, too, may have been creating a scene on paper to make it express what he saw in his mind’s eye (keyword= may).

Plate 30 from The Disasters of War’ (Los Desastres de la Guerra). Proof, without caption. Without the titles makes them infinitely harder to decipher. According to the wall card, here, people fall to the ground after a building explodes.

Yet, no writing about these work exists in Goya’s hand besides the captions on the plates.

“It is important to emphasize that the inscriptions are not titles. They are captions that encourage a potential understanding. The captions do not explain the work for us. The meanings are often unclear, but this isn’t because Goya was being obtuse. He was thinking through drawings and prints for his personal purposes, and as such, there is no need for him to explain their significance to himself. His works on paper are so internal and layered that they would have sparked multiple associations, even for Goya.” Mark McDonald, Met Curator of Goya’s Graphic Imagination.

So, the captions add another layer of mystery to what we’re seeing! Duane Michals captions many of his Photographs right on the print itself. Robert Frank wrote directly on the image as his career went on, and so does Jim Goldberg, among others. Coincidences? Possibly.

Jim Goldberg, Ron E., Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, 2014, Magnum Photos Print.

During the lockdown I read Believing is Seeing by Errol Morris. Among Photos taken from 1855 until very recently, Mr. Morris examines the work of the 1930s Farm Services Administration (F.S.A.) Photographers, including Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, and the evidence that they may have modified the scenes of some of their most iconic F.S.A. images from the 1930s. Modifying a scene to make it closer to what the Artist or Photographer is seeing in his or her mind’s eye would make them kin to what we see in Goya’s Drawings & Prints. So, it doesn’t really matter all that much if Goya was actually present when the events he shows us were happening. “The FSA collection (in the Library of Congress) therefore offers scholars an unparalleled opportunity to place masterworks, such as Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother (1936), in the context of companion images taken on the same day. This visual evidence offers a much more reliable guide to the photographer’s original intent than the artist’s recollections recorded decades after the fact,” James Curtis, the author of Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth: FSA Photography Reconsidered, said here. (The other images Dorothea Lange took that day in the archive may be seen here.) In my view, it doesn’t matter if the F.S.A. Photographers, “posed” subjects or modified scenes as Mr. Morris’ and Mr. Curits’ books suggest. Like it doesn’t matter if Goya saw “I saw it.” Even if, say Dorothea Lange, did modify the scene somehow4, she did not change the woman’s situation, which is the real and lasting point of the Photograph. At the end of the F.S.A. chapter in his book, Errol Morris concludes, “It is the idea that the photograph captures that endures 5.” It seems to me, regardless of their genesis, it’s exactly the same with Goya’s Prints & Drawings.

“The demise of Goya’s fortunes at Court has been attributed to his objections to the repressive nature of the restoration regime. Yet he had long survived within politically charged surroundings, and it seems likely he would have kept his political opinions to himself.” Janis A. Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, P.221

Goya, Self-Portrait, c.1796, Brush and point of brush, carbon black ink, on laid paper, seen at the show’s entrance.

After escaping trouble for his views after the Peninsular War, it finally caught up to him leading to his leaving Spain and becoming an exile in France near the end of his life, where he died at 82 in 1828. His remains were later exhumed and reburied in Madrid in 1919. As far as being the possible “Father of Modern Art” goes, I think a great case can be made for his nomination. Goya’s extremely wide range of subjects, from the royals to the incarcerated preshadowed the work of many Artists & Photographers of the past century. And he never minced the Drawn line, or words, when calling out those he felt were wrong. When I say “Modern Art & Photography Begins Here,” I’m not so much referring to the stylistic innovations though they are there for all to see, and his later Paintings were certainly ahead of their time, I’m referring to the content, and the depicting of what was not seen in Art to that point. Goya’s Drawings & Prints, and his Paintings, like the 2nd & 3rd of May, 1802, break away from the chains of Pontifical or Royal commissions. They show us a world that is all too familiar to us today. A world that has seen no end of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.

In considering Goya’s candidacy as the “first modern,” it feels that he lived too long ago to be considered. Yet, it’s interesting to realize that Goya was born in 1746 and died in 1828. J.M.W. Turner, who’s work is often seen as “modern” lived from 1775 to 1851. Charles Dickens, who’s novels captured the “modern world” as soon as anyone else’s, lived from 1812-1870. Edouard Manet, often mentioned as one of the first moderns lived from 1832, only 4 years after Goya’s passing, to 1883.  James McNeill Whistler 1834-1903 and Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890, was born 25 years after Goya’s passing. Chemical Photography was introduced to the world in 1839- eleven years after Goya’s death. Goya seems perfectly situated chronologically.

The Custody of a Prisoner Does Not Call for Torture (La seguridad de un reo no exige tormento)
ca. 1815; published ca. 1859. While not a part of the posthumous La Guerre set, Goya included a number of Prints of prisoners in the set he gave a friend during his lifetime. I’m also including this as an example of the show’s low, protective, lighting. This may be seen with better lighting in a Met Museum Photo, here.

Between his Paintings, his Drawings and his Prints, taken as a whole, Goya shows the full range of people, from all layers of society, from those of privilege to prisoners without privilege. People living in the utmost splendor to people starving to death, extending on what Rembrandt had done. Some of it was timely, referring to people and events only known to specialists and historians now. Much of it is timeless since human nature hasn’t changed. Met Curator McDonald sums this up-

“Not much changes. The same idiocy, cruelty, and violence take new shapes, but Goya captured those universal anxieties. So much of what we are dealing with now can be identified in Goya’s art—there’s politics, conflict, bloodshed, and ignorance of the impact of our actions fueled by stupidity and bad choices—the same old problems.” Mark McDonald, Met Curator of Goya’s Graphic Imagination.

Plate 79 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War): Truth has died. (Muriola verdad). 1814–15, published 1863. The penultimate Print in the series. Met Museum Photo.

It was interesting to me that Goya’s Graphic Imagination. was on view a few hundred feet away from another major show of the work of another Artist who was focused on people: the famous and the already forgotten- Alice Neel: People Come First. It’s also interesting that both shows were up during the pandemic: our own 21st century horror show. As big a test of the resilience of New York as I hope to ever see.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Outside of Space & Time” by David Byrne & St. Vincent from their classic album Love This Giant.

BookMarks-
The Met’s catalog for Goya’s Graphic Imagination is exceptional. It features large, often full page plates of all the works on view on very nice stock and includes very insightful text from the show’s curators. These texts include numerous insights that weren’t included on the wall cards in the show. And so, it’s one of the better books on the subject of Goya’s Drawings & Prints and a very good place to start for those who want to know more about the show or the subject. Highly recommended.

The best overview of the work of Goya known to me is Janis A. Tomlinson’s Francisco Goya y Lucientes : 1746-1828 , published by Phaidon, which is my go-to book for all things Goya. In fact, I’ve relied so heavily on it that I am now on my second copy. Beware of nebulous listings on Amazon! This is a large book- in both hard & soft cover editions. There is apparently a subsequent smaller softcover edition I have not seen. For studying the Art, the large edition, which has over 250 images, is the one you want. Out of print, but quite inexpensive in Very Good condition, the hardcover is the way to go especially since it is really no more expensive than the softcover and its binding should last longer. 

The best overview on Goya’s Drawings is called simply that- Goya Drawings. Published by the Prado Museum, Madrid, who hold the world’s greatest collection of Goya’s work. It was one of my NoteWorthy Art Books of 2020. It also contains a few Prints but most of its 250 reproductions are of his Drawings, sectioned from all through his career with insightful text in English in a nice, smaller size.

Janis Tomlinson has also written two books about the prints.Graphic Evolutions The Print Series of Francisco Goya (Columbia Studies on Art) and Goya’s War: Los Desastres de la Guerra. Both are excellent and recommended, the latter the most comprehensive book on Los Desastres available. They are a bit harder to find in very good condition, but worth seeking out. Goya’s War contains reproductions of the all 80 published Prints in Los Desastres. It was only published in softcover. 

Photography Related-

Errol Morris’Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography is a fascinating deeper look at iconic Photographs starting with Roger Fenton’s Photographs of the Crimean War, 1855, to current events, causing the reader to question his or her beliefs about just what these images say and what they conceal. Extremely wide-ranging it’s an essential book for Photographers, Art lovers, Art writers and anyone who cares about images.

James Curtis’ Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth: Fsa Photography Reconsidered (American Civilization) is lesser known and a ground-breaking look at the work of the Farm Services Administration Photographers, including Walker Evans, Russell Lee and Dorothea Lange. It puts their most famous images into the context of the Photographer’s work that day and analyzes them in a bigger picture way revealing much that is not apparent in the one, famous, Photograph that was widely circulated.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
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  1.  Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, P.1 ↩
  2. Also, as Janis Tomlinson points out- “For if, as the artist himself admitted, only twenty-seven sets of Los Caprichos had sold in much better times, how could he hope to find buyers in a capital devastated by war for these images of brutality, sadistic indifference, and tragic resignation?” Janis A. Tomlinson, Goya’s War: Los Desastres de la guerra, P.17 ↩
  3. Janis Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828, P.44 ↩
  4. James Curtis interview with Errol Morrisin Morris’, Believing is Seeing, P.138 ↩
  5. Errol Morris, Believing Is Seeing, p.185 ↩

William Buchina’s Stream

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

“What’s the matter with me
I don’t have much to say
Daylight sneakin’ through the window
And I’m still in this all-night café
Walkin’ to and fro beneath the moon
Out to where the trucks are rollin’ slow
To sit down on this bank of sand
And watch the river flow”*

William Buchina, Low Information Settings #1. 48 x 72 inches. Redacted documents, things being dug up, cryptic symbols, protest signs, places that almost look familiar (Is that a WWII Berlin Flak Tower upper left?), welcome to just some of the mysterious recurring images in Mr. Buchina’s work. All works 2020, Acrylic on canvas, unless specified.

Roaming your eye over one of William Buchina’s pieces feels a bit like watching an image stream. There’s so much going on in any of them, as seen in William Buchina: Low Information Setting, at Hollis Taggart, on West 26th Street, Chelsea, it’s a daunting task to unpack it all. His ideas seem endless, and they look back as much as they seem to look at “now” (well, it sure feels like now), or a time undetermined. While you look, there’s also a stream of names that run through your mind as possible “influences” for such work. For me, they range from Max Ernst to Bruce Conner to R. Crumb and Neo Rauch. Then, the next time you look, all of that starts all over again.

Low Information Settings, #7, 24 x 36 inches. Deserted stores or malls are another recurring element. All too real-world right now.

I’ve only been looking, and looking again, for about 2 months so I’m not going to claim any special insight into what his work “means,” but I will say it certainly resonates with the moment. This led me to look at his prior work, and see if to see if he had found serendipity in 2020-21. His website shows work going back to 2012 and a fascinating evolution. I found similar intrigue, complexity and depth. A soft touch for an Artist who Draws well, judging from what he shows there, Drawing has been central to William Buchina’s Art for quite a long time. His older works, like Lust, Crime & Holiness #30, 2013, shown further below, are every bit as complex, if not even more so. The stream of images that populate his older pieces, too, has now become a river.

Installation view. Low Information Settings #10, 2021, 96 x 72 inches, center, features a composition that reminds me of the ground-breaking layouts of George Herriman, Charlotte Salomon and Chris Ware.

Detail of the lower two thirds of L.I.S. #10. Unlike the Artists just mentioned, Mr. Buchina’s horizontal sections seem to add more mystery to the work. Looking at this section, the death and mouring (and lack of mourning in some quarters) of Princess Diana came to mind.

At first glance, his pieces often seem to be a chaotic jumble of people, places & things, but order is miraculously achieved through a number of compositional devices, brilliantly handled, the horizontal layers in this composition being only one. In pieces this complex they become fascinating to spot. How they hold the work’s wildly disparate images and multiple sections together is something of a tour de force.

Low Information Settings #3, 2020, 75 x 48 inches.

Though his images are often fantastic, unique amalgamations, the unexpected melded to something seemingly mundane, their inspiration appears to be more surrealistic than the fantastic work from the drug saturated 1960s as seen in Robert Williams or the early R. Crumb of Zap Comics. Yet, among the Surrealists, Mr. Buchina is closer to the Max Ernst of La Femme 100 Tetes (The Hundred Headless Women) or Duchamp than to Dali or Miro. Behind the curtain, it turns out that Mr. Buchina keeps a trove of found Photographs and other images, some of which he displayed in a prior show, that serve as inspiration/jumping off points for the streams of images he shows us that have a habit of looking vaguely familiar but you just can’t quite place it, or he adds other, usually unexpected elements to it, making it his own. Regardless the source, the imagination is his. It’s stunning and it never lets up.

Mask up! Detail of Low Information Settings #5. Full work is 72 x 48 inches.

Heightening this, remarkably, the times have caught up with some of what he has shown us. Though masks are seen regularly in the Low Information Settings pieces, as in the detail from #5 from 2020, above, the viewer might take it for granted these are covid19 pandemic references, until you realize masks have appeared in his work for years as his archive shows.

Lust, Crime & Holiness #30, 2013 India ink on paper 72 x 108 inches (hexaptych) shows a wide variety of masks 7 years before covid, and is just one of his pieces that show them pre-2020. Photo from williambuchina.com

Going back in time to look at work like this, I was struck by how the new works (Low Information Settings & the Scenery series) seem to be set in large buildings, complexes, or malls, which serves to provide a setting and a unifying element. The earlier works are more “free form,” with sections often hanging in pictorial space. Low Information Settings strikes me as a real breakthrough for Mr. Buchina. Not better. Different.

As for echoes of the recent political and social past in his work? According to the show’s catalog, “Mr. Buchina never views his imagery as overtly political.” Words to bear in mind, particularly when looking at a work like this-

Low Information Setting #6, 2021, 72 x 96 inches.

Detail. According to the show’s catalog, this work was finished days before the Washington insurrection. When I look at this work, I wonder if the setting isn’t a museum given all the Art on view in the background and on the upper levels, as seen in the prior image. After all, 2019 was a year when museum boards came under intense scrutiny, and 2020 a year when the museums came under fire for inequality, predjudice and exclusion.

“People disagreeing everywhere you look
Makes you wanna stop and read a book
Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street
That was really shook
But this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow”*

It doesn’t end there. In William Buchina: Low Information Setting, unrest, protests (of an unspecified kind), deserted/abandoned stores & malls, and any number of other things that are to be seen on a walk through any city probably anywhere in the world in 2020-21, appear in almost all of the pieces on view. The only thing missing are ambulances rushing people to treatment centers.

Low Information Settings #8, 2021, 24 x 36 inches. While the colors are exaggerated to an almost Day-Glo extent, these three complementary colors (red-yellow-blue based)harmonize a number of other works and set an atmospheric tone for the series.

But, then it was the surreal colors, the reds, yellows and blues particularly, that stopped me. What if you didn’t take all of this literally?

Scenery in Blue #8, 2021, Ink on paper, 30 x 44 inches.

Who was it who first said that all Art is really Self-Portraiture? These could all be inner portraits. Could they be scenes from the inner life of the Artist as he navigates both his world and the world of Art & image history? Could these be portraits of an imagination that’s image based and has a gift for stringing together disparate snippets that somehow manage to not only hold together, but do something far more difficult in today’s image oversaturated world- hold the viewer’s attention, and hold it long enough to get them to think about what they’re seeing?

Low Information Settings #2, 2020, 44 x 44 inches.

Then, of course, they could all “mean” nothing. But where’s the fun in that? Personally, I doubt it. Perhaps William Buchina’s Art strikes the raw nerve of navigating and surviving a “new norm” that’s anything but “normal.” The world in 2021 feels surreal in so many ways. Even things we thought we knew well are different or changed (like waiting in lines to buy food). And, there are a lot of people fed up with that “old norm” that are demanding to be heard. It’s possible to read all kinds of things into these works, but 2 months in, it seems you might have to look long and hard for specific references. And that leaves me continuing to think about them.

The moment I discovered William Buchina. 7pm, March 6, 2021. I was walking up West 26th Street when I saw this in the almost dark (closed) Hollis Taggart Gallery through their window. That was all it took. Immediately intrigued, it would be a month before I could go back and actually see the show.

At Hollis-Taggart, the show was rapidly selling out by the time I finally got to see it after being vaccinated. That’s evidence that some images in the endless stream still have the power to stick for longer than the moment they take to flash by.

Detail of Low Information Settings #5. The full piece, seen above, is 72 x 48 inches.

“Wish I was back in the city
Instead of this old bank of sand
With the sun beating down over the chimney tops
And the one I love so close at hand
If I had wings and I could fly
I know where I would go
But right now I’ll just sit here so contentedly
And watch the river flow”*

*-Soundtrack for the Post is “Watching The River Flow” by Bob Dylan from Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Volume II

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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A Year Without Art

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Part 1- A Hush All Over The World

Last call. Hudson River, 7:30pm, May 30, 2020. Immediately after I took this I had to hurry home to be off the streets before the 8pm curfew, the first time in my life I’ve lived under a curfew, let alone one during a pandemic. The scene, with the light going out, fits the reality of life at that moment.

It was exactly a year since I was able to see Art when I left The Met Breuer on March 8, 2020, for what turned out to be its last day ever, with the NYC covid shutdown commencing the following day, It was longer than I thought it would be that day, but much shorter than I thought it would be when we were in the heart of the shutdown with the City being the epicenter of one of the worst outbreaks of the virus to that point a few months later. Over 32,000 have died from covid in NYC alone as I write this. I count myself lucky not to be one.

Galleries on West 19th Street, June 4, 2020.

Since I started regularly going to see Art in 1980, this was the longest I hadn’t been able to do so in person.

Someone posted this captioned photo on a window of the shuttered Park Restaurant that summed up one aspect of life in NYC in the pandemic. Here I need to clear something up. In April, 2020, I posted a slideshow of a “deserted” NYC. Yes, the streets were empty- day and night. But that was largely because everyone was staying home- as they should have, and only going out for essential errands.

During that time, a time I spent entirely alone (450+ days, and counting), Art & PhotoBooks were my friends and family. They enabled me to keep seeing & exploring Art & Photography, and actually continue to discover Artists & Photographers. Of course, during the shutdown, the only way I could see books were in my library or by USPS delivery. 

I must digress here. 

The shadows half engulf the embattled  West 18th Street Post Office, May 29, 2020, during the height of the pandemic in NYC and during the height of the discussion about cutting the funding of the USPS. Yet, through it all, Manager Miss Lloyd and staff showed up almost every day and persevered throughout enabling people like me to get potentially life-saving supplies.

My debt to the Post Office goes much deeper. In a pandemic everything quickly disappears from store shelves. All I had was a bandana until the USPS was able to deliver some masks to me in July. Isopropyl Alcohol took a while longer to find, and I finally found some in a store after months of looking.

The new normal. The line for Trader Joe’s extends hundreds of feet down the street to the left and 100 feet in front. April 5, 2021.

Through it all, the staff at Trader Joe’s were positively heroic in keeping this community going, only closing for a couple days here and there when a team member got sick for extra cleaning. Completely uncharted ground for them, they quickly emerged as a role model business in terms of how they adapted and carried on, modifying and inventing procedures to keep their team and the public safe. 

ALL of these heroic essential workers deserve our highest thanks and gratitude. If and when this ends, there should be a parade for them down the Canyon of Heroes.

I don’t know what to say about the countless medical professionals who hung in there during the worst of times, especially those who treated me right in the middle of it for a non-covid related condition, and particularly those who lost their lives trying to help and save others. The tragic story of Dr. Lorna Breen, who worked for the hospital that saved my life in February, 2007, broke my heart when I heard about it. “It’s OK Not To Be OK” were words I took seriously. They are wise- to a point.

Only you can judge if you need real, professional, help, or not, when you are locked down, or overwhelmed, as Dr. Breen apparently was. As a victim of suicide, I can’t stress enough that while it is “OK Not To Be OK” for a while, if you continue to not be OK, reach out and get help- by phone, online, or in person. 

Outdoor dining in the middle of winter in a structure built right IN West 17th Street. February 20,2021. Yes, that structure, and many others, was built right in the street! I admire the creativity restaurants showed in staying open once they were allowed to, though it seemed too unsafe for me. Their creative mindset is an example for other businesses struggling to survive the pandemic.

Many of them did not. In April, the legendary Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop, 174 Fiffh Avenue, closed after 92 years. I doubt the space was ever remodeled in that time allowing you to walk into the past anytime you went in. It was one of Anthony Bourdain Top Restaurants (#11) in NYC, and one of mine. Every time a place like this closes a part of NYC goes with it, probably never to be replaced. While, many high end galleries got SMA loans, which continues to mystify me, most small businesses did not.

Spending so much time on my own, what did I do besides read Art & PhotoBooks? I took pictures every single day, during excursions I timed when almost no one would be out. I did no writing, but a lot of thinking. I dipped my toe into the ocean of Instagram, though I am no fan of monopolistic social media as it is. It was a VERY strange feeling walking around without a list of Art shows to go see in my pocket. What to do? I just wandered aimlessly, and sure enough, I saw something new, surprising or shocking, which takes a lot after 30 years of living here.

Other than that, I have been silent. Still, much to my surprise, readership continues to climb, which I try to not think means that people like the site better without me, and I continue to hear from readers all over the world. As always, Thank You for reading my pieces. I hope this finds you & yours well where it finds you. 

Coming Attractions? This window on a shuttered multiplex movie theater usually features posters of what’s playing or coming. Now it serves to make me wonder what the future holds. February, 2021.

I’m a different man than I was when I left The Met Breuer on March 8, 2020. I had NO idea what I, NYC, or the world was in for in the coming weeks and months. Much still remains unknown. I’ve survived the worst of the covid pandemic in NYC (knocking hard on wood). Along the way, I’ve survived a number of unrelated crisis that were made exponentially more difficult because everything was closed here. Yet, I got through all of them with no help from anyone, except those mentioned above.

A covid testing facility in the Flatiron after hours.

As the vaccine took effect, I turned my sights to going to see Art, again. Yet, I say that with a certain amount of guilt. There are too many, many, many people in this country and around the world without access to the vaccine! And, there’s little to no information as to when they might get it. The pandemic has been horribly managed virtually everywhere in the world. If the distribution of the vaccine continues to be as badly managed, any recovery will also be delayed. At the cost of how many more lives?

A woman about to be vaccinated. The Javitz Convention Center has been put to good public use since covid hit. First as a US Army Temporary Hospital last year, and now as a mass vax site. I was vaccinated here twice, the first time I’d set foot in the place since it opened in 1986. If you’re on the fence about getting it? For the record I had absolutely NO SIDE EFFECTS either time. None. Zero. Not even a sore arm. Two weeks after Pfizer shot #2 it was fully effective I was told by the Registered Nurse who gave it to me.

And, I’ve yet to hear anyone mention something else very important- It’s almost MIRACULOUS that a covid vaccine has been developed in a year!

Look at the history of pandemics and scourges. 2021 marks FORTY years since the CDC first officially reported what would be called AIDS, there is STILL no HIV vaccine! William Shakespeare lived his entire life under the threat of the plague, which devastated London no less than 3 times during his lifetime. The plague was a scourge that lasted from 1350 to well into the 1800s! So, WE ARE INCREDIBLY LUCKY a vaccine was found so quickly. I shutter to think what 1, 2, 3 more years without a vaccine would have looked like.

Why I digressed…

Art, unless you make it yourself, is a luxury, “important” only once the main necessities of life and well-being have been covered. As I ventured back to see Art I had everything I’ve said thus far, and everything I’ve been through this past year, on my mind. 

Part 2- Temperature Check

The Met’s famous main entrance, gated, during the 5 months it was closed, unprecedented in my lifetime, May 21, 2020.

Going to The Met or MoMA now (April, 2021) is a very, very strange experience.

MoMA, Main Lobby Entrance, April 29, 2021. Even 5 minutes before closing I NEVER saw it like this. This is usually crowded with people and staff. It’s daytime! Note the sun streaming in from the famous Sculpture Garden directly behind me.

They were both almost entirely empty on weekdays when I’ve been there. In some ways, it’s a dream for me. I can have almost any gallery I want completely to myself.

The Met’s Roofdeck, April 22, 2021. Looking around, I felt that perhaps I wasn’t supposed to be here? But, there is a guard way off on the left.

The only exceptions were The Met’s dual blockbuster shows- Goya’s Graphic Imagination and Alice Neel: People Come First. The times I went I waited 15 minutes to get in to each show.

April 22, 2021. This terrific show opened in early February, when virtually no one had been vaccinated and closed on May 2nd as more were just beginning to be. Very unfortunate timing for a great and timely show of work too rarely seen in this depth & breath due to their fragility.

On subsequent visits I asked people in the front of the line how long they waited and they also responded 15 minutes. The lines are due to The Met’s safety procedures and not letting the galleries get too crowded so visitors can maintain distance. Once inside, I thought they were “comfortably” occupied with ample distance. The lines are interesting because the Goya show was about to end on May 2nd, which generally would cause lines to get in, pre-pandemic, but the Alice Neel show had only opened on March 22nd. That means expect longer lines to see it as the summer progresses. Both shows will live on and continue to be discussed. I am disappointed The Met did not extend the Goya show, or schedule it to open later in the year, so more people could see it as more are vaccinated. Alice Neel: People Come First is a landmark show, perhaps the most important Painting show in NYC since Kerry James Marshall: Mastry because it demonstrates how contemporary Alice Neel remains- as a woman, an Artist/mother and as a thinker and activist. Her position in the canon of great Artists of the 20th century had been established by the regular shows her work has increasingly received over time, including the Whitney Retrospective on the centennial of her birth in 2000, and most recently, Alice Neel, Uptown at Zwirner in 2017, which I covered. 

The boarded up Hauser & Wirth Gallery, an SMA Loan grantee, on West 22nd Street behind Joseph Beuys columnar basalt stone, June 4, 2020. Public Art, like the Beuys seen here, was not boarded up.

Elsewhere around town, most galleries seem to be open for business, those that are left that is, each with their own terms. The carnage that has devastated small business has not spared the smaller galleries. A walk down West 26th Street showed that perhaps 50% of galleries are gone (It could be higher since some entire multi floor buildings were devoted to galleries and I have not gone into them to do a headcount). Among the survivors, some will let you right in. Some with an appointment only. Some are requiring info for contact tracing and/or temperature checks, all are requiring masks and distancing. That’s from reading signs on the doors as I walk past. I’ve only been to a few gallery shows. From the email I get, the number of shows is drastically lower than it was. It should be said that the summer is always slow(er) here so perhaps galleries are getting ready to be more active post-Labor Day. I also haven’t been able to get a sense of Art world employment and the current status of the many who were laid off or furloughed during the shutdown. 

Never say Never is just one lesson of 2020.

As for the Art market, I have noticed some softening in asking prices around town, though of course that depends on who and what we’re talking about1. Is this a buying op, or a harbinger of a long overdue market correction? It’s still very early in the recovery (if it is the recovery), and a bit hard to tell where things are heading,

11th Avenue, April 8, 2021.

It seems to me that most of it will depend on how quickly more people get vaccinated everywhere around the world so the world as a whole can begin to recover. Art is global, made & traded virtually everywhere, but that’s only one instance of how interconnected everyone and everything is. As poorly as the covid crisis has been handled everywhere much now depends on how well the global vaccine distribution is handled. The pandemic will only end as quickly as the vaccines can reach those who need it. Only then can the world truly begin to heal and a real recovery begin.

And we can can get back to exploring Art.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Spring Is Here,” composed by Richard Rogers & Lorenz Hart and recorded by Frank Sinatra on his immortal Sings For Only The Lonely, 1958. Rogers & Hart are among the very greatest songwriters of all time in my opinion and Lorenz Hart’s lyrics remain extremely under appreciated. Heard here in a gorgeous 2018 stereo mix where you can fully appreciate the brilliant arrangement by Nelson Riddle-

“Once there was a thing called spring
When the world was writing verses like yours and mine
All the lads and girls would sing
When we sat at little tables and drank May wine
Now April, May and June are sadly out of tune
Life has stuck a pin in the balloon
Spring is here! Why doesn’t my heart go dancing?”

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

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  1. The auction market seems to still be as strong as ever. Auctions are primarily resales of Art, whereas many galleries are selling new Art. ↩

NoteWorthy Art Books, 2020

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

While PhotoBooks have been an all-encompassing passion of mine these past four+ years (though of course I had some earlier), Art Books have been a passion ever since I first saw one, or, for over half a century. Before I could go to a gallery or museum, here was a way to see all, or a selection of, the work of an Artist or a group of Artists- in one portable package. I was instantly fascinated by that, and I still am. Yes, physical books because Art, or Photo, eBooks are few and far between- still. The quality of the physically printed Photo, or Photo of a Painting, is still unsurpassed. In 2020, museums and galleries were closed for much of the year all over the world. For me, and perhaps innumerable others, Art Books were there, 24/7, to provide a means of exploring, seeing and studying Art. Fittingly, as they were for me before I was able to go to shows in person, this year, in my world entirely without any other people for 11 months, Art & PhotoBooks were my sole companions.

Having presented my NoteWorthy PhotoBooks, 2020, (as well as in 2019, and 2018), this year,  I’ve decided to also present my thoughts on the Art Books I’ve seen in 2020 that I most highly recommend for the first time. All of these books, I highly recommend, so I’m not picking one out of them as “most highly recommended.” Here they are-

NoteWorthy Art Books of the Year, 2020

Philip Guston Now, DAP/National Gallery of Art, and
Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting

After a gap of 15 years between retrospectives of his work, two excellent overviews of Philip Guston’s remarkable oeuvre are published in one year. Deciding which one to get is hard. Both have a lot going for them. For someone looking for one book with the most images in the largest size, along with one of the finest texts of Robert Storr’s career, Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting is the choice. For someone looking for the only place to see the most controversial show of 2020, now postponed to 2024, along with an equally excellent text, Philip Guston Now is an excellent choice. For the serious Guston aficionado, the only choice is to buy both. For someone already familiar with Philip Guston’s work who wants to learn more about his work, either book will provide countless fresh insights.

Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting may be the finest achievement in the long career of author Robert Storr. Yet, I give special credit to Philip Guston Now for being one of the most remarkable exhibition catalogs I’ve ever seen. Personally, I find its text by co-curators Mark Godfrey, Alison de Lima Greene and Kate Nesin, to be nothing short of brilliant both in its content and how it flows seamlessly from period to period through the Artist’s long career, treating the whole in a fresh way. This, alone, would be enough for a high recommendation, but the book is taken to another level by the addition along the way of pieces by 10 Contemporary Artists- William Kentridge, Glenn Ligon, Tacita Dean, Peter Fischli, Trenton Doyle Hancock, David Reed, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman, Art Spiegelman and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Most provide unique insights into specific works by Philip Guston and a number of them directly address the “hooded”/klan works, the focus of the controversy around the show the book was published to accompany.

Dana Schutz’ Essay in Philip Guston Now.

The show, also titled Philip Guston Now, was first postponed due to covid to July, 2021, then  controversially postponed, again, to 2024 by the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Tate Modern, London, where it is scheduled to be mounted. “We are postponing the exhibition until a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the center of Philip Guston’s work can be more clearly interpreted.1.” Like many others, I am at a loss to understand that statement. On the one hand, it denigrates the intelligence of visitors. On the other, what if 2024, isn’t that nebulous “time” the message speaks of under whatever unmentioned criteria they’re using to determine it? However, the show’s catalog did come out this year in anticipation of the originally scheduled opening. Its inclusion of the featured pieces by those 10 Contemporary Artists is exactly the kind of thing Art monographs need more of, in my view, as they struggle to remain relevant- given how many other books already exist on most Artists, and the large expense involved in creating them in what may be increasingly challenging times for museums who, largely, publish these books.

The reproductions of the Art in Philip Guston Now only adequate in terms of quality, in my opinion, are best used for reference to the points large and small being made throughout the text. Some of the Art is reproduced one image on a page with a copious border, others are 4 to a page. It does include new Photos taken in Philip Guston’s studio, which appears to be largely as he left it. The other big reason for getting this book is to see the works in, and to have a record of,  this important show, so you can prepare yourself to see it, IF it ever opens. Also important to note- many works will not appear in each of the four scheduled stops the show will make. So, the catalog is the only place to “see” the whole show.

The large 13.35 by 11.5 inch pages create an almost 27 inch spread making the images in Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting the largest in any Guston book to date, and with over 850, the most images in any Guston book as well. This will make it a slam dunk choice for many, but take a look at both.

The illustrations are better and more numerous (850) in Philip Guston: A Life Spent Painting, whose 13 1/2 by 11 1/2 inch size is more accommodating close study. Get that book for the best current overview of the Art. As for its text, Robert Storr contributes one of his finest efforts, apparently the results of many years of work. As good as the text in Philip Guston Now is, Mr. Storr’s doesn’t take a back seat to any Guston book I’ve seen to date, which is why a recommendation for both books is the only one I can give at this point. They join Philip Guston: Retrospective, published by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2003, to accompany the last major retrospective of his work and now out of print, my go-to Guston book to this point, as standard references to the work of this enduringly contemporary Master.

Drawing for Conspirators, 1930, Graphite pencil, pen and ink, colored pencil, and wax crayon on paper, seen at the Whiney Museum in July, 2015, in America Is Hard To See, the most recent showing of this work. A number of the essays in Philip Guston Now reference this work.

Before continuing, I feel I must briefly address the controversy centered around the show’s inclusion of Philip Guston’s klan Paintings. I’ve been somewhat surprised that the attention seems to focus on his late klan pieces. I think it’s important to remember that they go back to when the Painter was about 18. In Philip Guston Retrospective, the backstory is relayed on pages 16 & 17. It begins by quoting Mr. Guston-

“I was working at a factory and became involved in a strike. The KKK helped in strike breaking so I did a whole series of paintings on the KKK. In fact I had a show of them in a bookshop in Hollywood, where I was working at that time. Some members of the klan walked in, took the paintings off the wall and slashed them. Two were mutilated. That was the beginning.”

(The text then continues) “The Ku Klux Klan, also known as the Invisible Empire, had a significant membership in California in the 1930s and 1940s, and Los Angeles County was its most active Klavern. Guston and several other of his friends also painted portable murals for the John Reed Club on the theme of ‘The American Negro.’ Guston’s submission was particularly volitile. Based on the Scottsboro case, in which nine black men were sentenced (many said on false and circumstantial evidence) to life in prison for raping a white girl. Guston’s mural depicted a group of hooded figures whipping a black man. The murals were eventually attacked and defaced by a band of ‘unidentified’ vandals. The experience of seeing the effect of art on life and life on art never left Guston, and the unsettling image of the hooded figure was branded into his visual imagination.”

In the 1930s, in addition to strike breaking, the klan also targeted Jews. Philip Guston, originally Philip Goldstein, was Jewish. Of course, their main target were Blacks.

Artists don’t live in the nebulous times those 4 museum directors speak of in their postponement statement. They live, work, and often respond to, the times of their lives. Philip Guston lived long enough to see that racism was deeply embedded in the fabric of American life, possibly even in his own life. I believe those are things that may have influenced his later hooded figure/klan works, though they are for each viewer to interpret for his or herself. If this ins’t the time for all of us to look inside at ourselves and see how we can be better, how do we know 2024 will be a better time to do so?

NoteWorthy Art Book of the Year, 2020

Noah Davis, David Zwirner Books. An early candidate for the most important new Art monograph of the new decade might be hard to top for that title in the next 9 years. Noah Davis passed away of cancer at the very young age of 32 on August 29, 2015. Still, the amount he accomplished and the work he created in such a short life will live on indefinitely. Editor Helen Molesworth was Mr. Davis’ personally chosen curator, and she curated the show that opened earlier this year in NYC, which  I wrote about before it moved to The Underground Museum, L.A.., which Noah Davis founded with his wife, the Artist Karon Davis. The text includes interviews with those who knew Mr. Davis, including legendary Painter Henry Taylor, Deana Lawson, Lindsay Charlwood, Dagny Corcoran, Daniel DeSure, Thomas Houseago, and Venus X by Ms. Molesworth. Only the second book on his work thus far, it will remain the standard reference for the time being, and a standard reference regardless of what else comes out on one of the most important Artists of  our time. It’s only too bad Mr. Davis didn’t live to see it. Noah Davis was not only an extraordinary Painter, he was one of the Artistic visionaries of our time. He showed it was possible to succeed as an Artist without gallery representation, and then he audaciously founded his own museum to serve audiences he felt were being left out by the existing museums. Generations to come will be influenced and inspired by his Art. Generations of Artists will be, also, influenced by his example. 

From 2020, let’s set the wayyyyy back machine back to the very first Art Book to captivate me when I was a kid was Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time, by Bob Haak, published by Abrams in 1969. A large (13.5 by 11 inch), 348 page hardcover, with 612 illustrations including 109 hand-tipped color plates, it had these words on the front flap-

“There emerges, in this book, a Rembrandt who is human, fallible, majestic- a man who went through all the common vicissitudes of life and yet was determined to remain true to himself as an artist.”

I’d never seen anything like it. Here was an entire world, the entire life and work of an Artist that just exploded in front of me, singeing my mind as I turned each page, as Rembrandt’s wondrous turned painfully sad life went on, accompanied by the Artist turning his hand from Painting to Drawing to Prints, and back, each among the supreme works done in the medium by anyone, before or since. Most of all, it was the incredible humanity in his Art that has stayed with me to this day. He rendered everyone, from beggars to the exalted, babies and the very old, and foremost among them, he rendered himself, continually throughout his career, from early on, until near the end, creating a body of Self-Portraits, the like of which the world had never seen. Those words on the flap turned out to be the key! As the years went by, I began to understand where that unequalled humanity in Rembrandt’s work came from. Such is the power of a truly great Art Book.

Fast forward a half century to 2020 and the release of 3 great books on the Master, each one of my NoteWorthy Art Books, 2020…

The heavyweight champions. The Complete Paintings weighs in at 17.78 pounds, The Complete Drawings & Etchings at 14.99 pounds.

Rembrandt. The Complete Paintings, Taschen XXL Series
Rembrandt. The Complete Drawings & Etchings, Taschen XXL Series
Rembrandt. The Self-Portraits. Taschen XL Series. Nothing more needs to be said- These will remain THE standard visual reference books for Art lovers on the work of the foremost Painter of humanity in this house for the foreseeable future or until the experts change their minds, yet again, on what is, and what is not, from the hand of the Master and deserves to be included. And you know they will (though not the last WORD, for that Gary Schwartz’ amazing books on Rembrandt will retain their prominence in this household). Again. In the meantime, bliss out in peace. Even Mr. Schwartz approves in an Amazon review2. With all due respect to the esteemed authors, in my opinion, these books would be closer to “perfect” if they had his contributions. Photography, paper, binding, finish are first rate all around. 

After all these years, well into the age of the selfie, this first body of Self-Portraits still remain at the top of my list of favorite Art works.

It’s a bit bold of Taschen to publish these books given the still in-flux state of what exactly is a Rembrandt, and given that the esteemed publishers have not yet issued a revised version of any of the XXL books. My guess is they felt the completion of the Rembrandt Research Project’s work, published in a six volume set, the last in 2014, provided an opportunity for a collection. I’ve recently heard of at least one change to the accepted canon, but for better or worse, anyone wanting to see the most Rembrandt in a large size will be left with these three books as the best option for the foreseeable future.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Taschen XXL Series
As I just got through saying about the original Dutch Master, if you want to see as much of the work of the late New York Master, Jean-Michel Basquiat as possible in one volume, as LARGE as possible, Taschen’s XXL Jean-Michel Basquiat is the only book for you. Yes, another Taschen XXL on this list this year. Look at the $200. list price (for this and for each of the Rembrandt Paintings and Drawings books) this way- You’d have to spend a large fortune to travel to the world to see all the Art contained in one of these, IF the work happened to be on view. Even then, you won’t get to see it this close up in what is usually, very good to excellent Art Photography. And consider that much of the key work of Jean-Michel Basquiat is in private hands because the museums were slow to accept and buy his work. They missed the boat. Private collections rarely show or lend their work making the chances to see more than 5 Basquiat Paintings anywhere at any time extremely rare! That’s exactly why I spent so much time running around seeing the 5 Basquiat shows mounted here in NYC last year. My pieces on them are here. In all that effort, I still only saw about 130 or so pieces!

David Hockney: Drawing From Life, National Portrait Gallery, London
The incredibly prolific Mr. Hockney has had a life long obsession with Drawing. That alone makes him a man after my own heart. I’ve followed along with his Drawing evolution with empathy. He’s often spoken of the challenges of Drawing and man, could I relate to them, as I spent 3 days every week Drawing at The Met for about a decade. Sometimes, I’d look at his Drawings and I could see my own efforts. But, most times I looked, he was light years beyond me. His use of an incredibly wide range of Drawing tools and media is unprecedented among major Artists 0in Art History- everything from chalk to graphite to the iPhone and iPad. With each new tool he found his own way, and achieved remarkable results (like his huge, multi page iPad Yosemite Drawings) that are all the more remarkable for being instantly recognizable as David Hockneys. He’s also been proflic in the number of books published on his Art. Yet here is the first collection of part of his Drawing oeuvre this century (the David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective, 1996, the last overview I can recall). It’s wonderfully done and ingeniously designed, with chapters following the Artist’s evolution of a single subject each, culminating in his Self-Portraits. Published to accompany the show of the same name at the National Portrait Gallery, London, it’s a remarkable book that due to its ingenious concept has an unexpectedly personal feel to it- as you turn the pages, you begin to feel you know each subject. It’s particularly recommended to Drawing students and lovers of the endangered Art of Drawing.

Francis Bacon or The Measure of Excess by Yves Peyre, a friend of Mr. Bacon’s, stands in front of the new monograph on Cecily Brown. Cecily’s father, David Sylvester, was also a long time friend of Bacon’s and gave us the enduring classic Interviews with Francis Bacon.

Francis Bacon or the Measure of Excess, Yves Peyre, ACC Art Books.
Slowly, steadily and continually, the late, great British Artist has now established himself in the upper echelon of Artists I am absolutely obsessed with. To the point that the LAST thing I need is ANOTHER Francis Bacon book. I’d never heard of Yves Peyre, though the cover says he “was a close friend of the artist.” He’s also a poet and has authored a book on Henri Michaux. Well, some of Mr. Bacon’s other friends have already given us books on Mr. Bacon, from David Sylvester (Cecily Brown’s dad, who’s Interviews with Francis Bacon remains most essential) and Michael Peppiatt, down, including another poet, Michel Leiris, and most of them are quite good and have held up for a few decades already. Some of them also offer quite good collections of reproductions of Mr. Bacon’s Art (something EVERY Francis Bacon books seems to need to give us). Yet, as a one volume overview of Francis Bacon’s career with excellent, full 11.73 by 9.83 inch page reproduction, Francis Bacon or the Measure of Excess is my current recommendation and personal choice as a one volume visual reference. The texts of the earlier books remain important, and recommended, summing in a nutshell why it’s VERY hard to have only one Francis Bacon book. Even if you have other books, Mr. Peyre shines the new light of a fresh approach to Bacon, which is somewhat remarkable given how many others have chimed in on his work already, during his life and since his passing in 1992. Of course, if you want THE Francis Bacon publication, the 5 volume Catalog Raisonne is still in print at 1,000 British Pounds a copy, plus shipping. I’ve seen it, and it is exceptionally, even remarkably well done, with Martin Harrison, the foremost authority on Bacon today, astoundingly uncovering 100 previously unseen works (Oh! To find just ONE in a flea market…). The Bacon Estate says it will never be reprinted, and so likely will never be “cheaper.”

Sofonisba’s Lesson, Michael Cole, Princeton University.
Wait. What? Who? Sofonisba Anguissola, 1532-1635, was a female Painter & educator in the Renaissance. Believe it or not, a female Painter in the Renaissance. And a great one, in my view. To say her work has been in eclipse since would be an understatement. I, for one, was unfamiliar with her or her work until I saw this incredible, irresistible face staring out at me from the cover. I doubt I’m alone in that. The Met appears to have nothing by her. Neither does The Frick. Ah, but one person who immediately saw her talent was Il Divino himself, Michelangelo, who informally gave her advice! Nuff said. There is no possible higher recommendation in the Art world than that. Into the gap of knowledge for the rest of us mere mortals steps Michael Cole’s beautifully done, concise, monograph that goes a very long way towards putting her back on all of our maps, where she belongs to stay, in my view, henceforth, as the true Master Artist she was.

As you can see both of these Portraits are first rate, but look at the table covering, left, and the collars and cuffs on the right. For me, there are number of different techniques, even styles, on views in each work and that speaks volumes about the depth of her skill.

At 2.5 pounds, it’s not as big in size or as weighty as the Rembrandt or Basquiat XXLs on this list, yet I admire this book so much that if it weren’t for Noah Davis being released this year, it might well be my NoteWorthy Art Book for 2020. A lesson for all those Artists struggling for recognition today- Sofonisba’s Lesson comes 12 years before the 500th Anniversary of her birth in Lombardy in 1532. Better late, than never.

Goya Drawings, Thames & Hudson/Prado Museum.
Back in the day before Photography with chemicals ruled the world, Drawing & Painting were the primary means by which events of the day were recorded or, along with those past, recreated. Primary among the great Artists who recorded the events of their day remains Francisco Goya. While his The 3rd of May, 1808, is perhaps, his most well-known such work, though we have no way of knowing if the Artist actually witnessed this scene personally. He also created a large body of Drawings the scope of which, and the humanity of which, only Rembrandt’s can equal in my mind. Like the original Dutch Master, Goya’s Drawings magically capture a pose or an expression in an almost impossible economy of line, while looking for all the world like they were done quickly, without second thought. Ahh…Drawing at its most sublime. 

2020 saw the release (or at least the availability in this country) of two excellent Goya Drawings monographs, both of which are published by no less than the Prado Museum, home of the world’s finest & most comprehensive Goya collection, one of which is a NoteWorthy Art Book for 2020. Goya Drawings immediately becomes the choice resource for the lay reader, the Drawing or Painting student or Artist, and for the serious Goya student. A remarkable overview that does not scrimp on detail, insights, or the number of color images, in manages to stay concise and succinct. I picked it and didn’t know what to make of it from very generic front cover. “Goya Drawings”? That’s a huge subject for such a small book. Once I opened it I could not put it down. Sure enough, his Drawings over his entire career are covered, period by period in depth, and while not each and every one is covered, the overview is broad enough to convey the big picture  but can be dipped in to at any point for a closer study of any one work, which is written about on the page with its illustration- quite rare in a comprehensive book like this, and an indication of its superb design.

Finally, along with the other Goya Drawings book they published this year, Francisco de Goya: Cuaderno C (or Sketchbook C), which reproduces in facsimile one of his sketchbooks, both books are part of the Prado’s continued effort to make its Goya riches available to the public, online for free, and in these two modestly priced and superb books, Goya Drawings was released in honor of it’s 200th Anniversary in November, 2019. Bravo!

I Am Still Learning, c.1825-8, Lithographic crayon on grey laid paper,  on the next to final page. Goya was about 80 when he Drew this symbolic Self-Portrait. A fitting culmination to an immortal career, …and to this piece as words to live by.

Afterword/Forward to 2021

We’re not out of the pandemic woods yet. It might be a while before we are. I hope and pray not a long while. We shall see. Still, many smaller businesses have permanently left us. Many others are hanging on. I have been staying to myself this year, which means living in complete isolation for all of 2020. Yup. You read that right. I will only go into an enclosed space if I have to. Still, I have made very brief journeys into local bookstores, and peered in the window from the street of others, to see how busy they were. Frankly, what I’ve seen is very scary. Throughout the week, you could roll a bowling ball down the aisle of almost any bookstore here and hit no one. On the weekends, they’ve been closer to normal. Part of that is, no doubt, early holiday shopping. Still, the big takeaway for me is that the time is now- today and 2021, to support independent bookstores if you want them to survive. Many of the books and Artists I discover each year (and have my entire life) I’ve discovered browsing books in bookstores- including Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time, by Bob Haak, shown earlier, 40 years ago. You can’t do that online. I’ve been waiting for eBooks to begin to replace physical Art & PhotoBooks for many years now. As 2020 closes, it doesn’t seem that we’re any closer to that than we were 5 or 10 years ago. A high quality eBook could replace most Art books published today- IF the image quality was comparable. They’re not. Screen image quality is nowhere near that of printed image quality. Then, there are Artist’s Books and PhotoBooks. Many of both are painstakingly crafted in every single detail, down to each material used, which no cyber experience can match. These books are often works of Art in themselves, and for many Artists & Photographers who don’t have gallery representation, they provide a primary focus for having their work seen on their terms, the way they intend it to be seen. Physical books in general have a charm and provide a tactile experience no eBook can match. If you value books, like I do, consider supporting your favorite local indie bookstore in person or online. While you can.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Better Days Ahead,” by Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson from the album Secrets, 1978…

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  1. Here. ↩
  2. With a caveat on the Drawings volume, so he went ahead and created a concordance to ease referencing the new Schatborn reference numbers Taschen’s behemoth uses to refer to the work to the standard Benesch numbers, available here! ↩