I am a Washington, D.C., artist, a native. For decades I painted “Neo
Flemish” genre scenes. These sometimes surreal scenes eventually
led to a series of elaborate paintings of The Shepherd Park Go-Go Bar.
 |
||
“Grisaille in an Ice
Storm”
oil on canvas, 60 x 50,
1990. |
These
Go-Go bar paintings are quietly religious. The genre pieces and allegories
were followed by fanciful, flying, female figures floating above landscapes.
The “Edna Flying” paintings were inspired by my first love
affair. When I was eight years old I had fallen in love with a hood ornament.
It was a naked chromium woman bolted to the hood of a new ‘53 Nash.
The “Edna” fantasies
were a pleasant change from the moody, often intense genre work. Until
recently, much of my time out of the studio was spent haunting collections
of Dutch paintings in museums from Richmond to Boston. That habit began
on a fourth grade class trip to the National Gallery when I started my
half-century-long staring contest with Rembrandt’s self portrait.
Around the same time, Jack Davis’ MAD magazine illustrations strongly
influenced my drawings. Between Rembrandt, Jack and Edna it seems my life’s
course was set by the time I was eight. In 1964, Martha Mayer Erlebacher
further directed me along my path. Martha was my first year design teacher
at Pratt Institute. She was wonderfully dedicated and very intense – scared
the whole class. In the middle of one class she stopped mid sentence. Her
gaze locked on me. She marched straight toward me. My classmates parted
before her surely thinking ‘she’s
decided to kill Fred.’ Stopping in front of me she said, in a controlled
emphatic tone, “The nude is everything! – EVERYTHING!” She
then returned to teaching like nothing had happened. Martha had said just
the right thing to just the right person. It took years to really sink
in but those five words changed my life.
Recently, the legendary curator Walter Hopps accused me of doing narrative
paintings. When I took issue with him he said, “Everything you do, even
your landscapes are narrative.” Who knew? That insight led me to realize
that my artwork was all about celebration and grieving.