mindmarrow

December 31, 2014 Repository 165: Albert York | A Painter’s Painter Posted In: art practice, bon mots, perspective

A short post before exiting this fast and furious year. As I prepare to return in earnest to the studio, and not in the form of paper mache or glue gun art, I am currently doing research on Albert York, whose work I have been obsessed with for the past month or so. A post-humous show of 37 of his small paintings was just taken down in NYC’s Matthew Marks gallery. The following is from a New Yorker article from 1995.

Calvin Tomkins: ” Why do you paint?”

Albert York: “I think we live in a paradise. This is a Garden of Eden, really it is. It might be the only paradise we ever know, and it’s just so beautiful, with the trees and everything here, and you feel you want to paint it. Put it into a design. That’s all I can say. It’s been a rather trying business, this painting.”

Albert was an art world outsider and recluse, who happened to paint and fix houses to make a living, and somehow land in the permanent collection of the MFA Boston and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ private collection. He has been represented since 1963 by Davis & Lansdale Company, where they still manage his estate. His work is reminiscent of Giorgio Morandi, though he worked from his memory and imagination (a great place to start).

 

 

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