Dana Art Gallery exhibition list May 7, 2007

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION

PRESS ON UNDERLINED WORDS FOR ONLINE LINK

1. Church in Moonlight (1957)

12" wide x 9" high; linocut

Grade 10; Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School, South Yarmouth, MA

Awarded Gold Key in 30th Annual Boston Globe Regional Scholastic Art Awards.

2. Portrait of Albert Ricard, Age 15 (1960/61)

11" wide x 14" high; pencil drawing from sketchbook

Albert Ricard was a student in the Saturday drawing class for children at the Swain School of Design, New Bedford. At sixteen, shortly after I drew this sketch, he ran away to Boston and became involved in the literary life of the city, which included the poets John Broderick, John Wieners and Steven Jonas. During this period he changed his first name from Albert to Rene. By the age of eighteen, he had moved to New York City and become part of Andy Warhol's "Factory." He appeared in the Warhol films Kitchen (1965), Chelsea Girls (1966), Screen Test (1966) and the "lost" Warhol film The Andy Warhol Story (1966) with Edie Sedgwick. From September 29th to November 24, 1967 Ricard, writing under the byline "René," contributed to "The Talk of the Town" column of the Cambridge-based magazine The Avatar. In 1981 he published the first major article on Jean-Michel Basquiat entitled " The Radiant Child" for Artforum magazine. An art critic, artist, and poet, noted "controversial arbiter of taste," Ricard's books of poems include Rene Ricard (1979), God With Revolver (1989) and Trusty Sarcophagus Co. (1990). The latter marked Rene's first publication combining his literary and visual material.

See: photograph of Albert Ricard, by Ben Lackie, New Bedford, MA, 1963.
photograph of Rene & Nico, New York City, c. 1966.
Uncle Rene video, February 17, 2006, Hotel Chelsea (source).

From ARTFORUM Magazine, December 1981:
"What's with art anyway, that we give it such precedence? Most basic is the common respect, the popular respect for living off one's vision. My experience has shown me that the artist is a person much respected by the poor because they have circumvented the need to exert the body, even of time, to live off what appears to be the simplest bodily act. This is an honest way to rise out of the slum, using one's sheer self as the medium, the money earned rather a proof pure and simple of the value of that individual, The Artist. This is a basic class distinction in the perception of art where a picture your son did in jail hangs on your wall as a proof that beauty is possible even in the most wretched; that someone who can make a beautiful thing can't be all bad; and that beauty has an ability to lift people as a Vermeer copy done in a tenement is surely the same as the greatest mural by some MFA. An object of art is an honest way of making a living, and this is much a different idea from the fancier notion that art is a scam and a ripoff. The bourgeoisie have, after all, made it a scam. But you could never explain to someone who uses God's gift to enslave that you have used God's gift to be free." - Rene Ricard

Everybody wants to get on the Van Gogh
boat. There's no trip so horrible that
someone won't take it. The idea of the
unrecognized genius slaving away in a
garret is a deliciously foolish one. We
must credit the life of Vincent Van Gogh
for really sending this myth into orbit.
How many pictures did he sell? One? He
couldn't give them away. We are so ashamed
of his life that the rest of art history
will be retribution for Van Gogh's neglect.
No one wants to be part of a generation
that ignores another Van Gogh.
Rene Ricard

3. Hanging Bird (1960)

16" wide x 20" high; pencil drawing with watercolor

This may be the first of many dead birds I have painted and drawn. Why dead birds? I'm not sure I know; although I remember playing with the skulls of seagulls as a kid.

4. Self Portrait, Age 20 (1960)

11" wide x 14" high; pencil drawing from sketchbook

5. New Bedford Man (1961)

18" wide x 21" high; pencil drawing

This pencil drawing was done for a Swain School drawing assignment in which we were required to create a portrait from life of someone we knew, to be completed outside of school. I chose a homeless man who lived in the area near my boarding house. For a glass of wine, he posed for me in my apartment. He was surprised that I drew him with a blind eye, of which he thought no one was aware.

6. New Bedford Still Life (drawing) (1962)

24" wide x 20" high; oil on canvas duck

In 1962, when this painting was created, the City of New Bedford was the most economically depressed city in the United States. During the time of Herman Melville's Moby Dick the city, because of the wealth generated from whaling, had been one of the most prosperous and culturally rich in America. In my painting, a study for a much larger painting, the dead fish might represent the depressed fishing income and/or the death of the whaling industry. The dead sea gull, might represent the death of an era or my own lost innocence. The use of canvas "duck" was simply because this cotton cloth used for sails was more affordable than artist canvas and easily available at the area marinas.

7. Death Mask: After an Egyptian Mummy (1963)

9.5" tondo, 17" x 17.5" framed;; woodcut

This woodcut was used for the cover of The Liberal Content, issue 8, 1963. Published for the college community by the Office of College Centers, Unitarian Universalist Association, in cooperation with Student Religious Liberals. Art Director: Richard Kellaway. Two of my etchings, Homage to Roden and Santa Claus, were illustrated in the article "A Printmaking Workshop."

8. Study for 'Disabled' (1967)

18" wide x 24" high; acrylic, ink and collage drawing

Inspired by "Disabled," a poem of Wilfred Owen)
See: the painting: Disabled, acrylic & collage on canvas.

9. Three Stages of Anna (1973/74)

48" wide x 36" high; oil on canvas

I found this painting of my daughter on the walls of Eugene O'Neil's Antique Gallery, in Newton Lower Falls, on March 15, 2007. I purchased it for $25.00.

10. Self Portrait, White Point, Nova Scotia [reed pen study] (1976)

16" wide x 18" high; oil on linen canvas

My wife, two daughters, Molly the Irish Setter and I spent a number of summers at White Point, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. In 1973 we bought a small cabin from Frank, a local fisherman in his 80s.

11. 'Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone' (1978)

7.5" wide x 9" high; 16" x 20" framed; photographic silkscreen (edition of 25)

This photographic silkscreen was a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement and created as a demo for the Silkscreen Workshop at Dana Hall. The title is from a song by the great blues singer, Billie Holiday. The print is dedicated to Noel Wright, our housemate on Mt. Ida, Cincinnati, who was slain by rioters during the evening following the assassination of Dr. King. At the time my wife and I were in Wellesley for a job interview at Dana Hall School.

See: The Rev. King's Legacy, Barry M. Horsman, Cincinnati "Post" staff reproter.
Mayhem & Mishap: How They Died, "TIME" Magazine.

12. Paranoia (The Sixties) (1982)

11.5" wide x 11.5" high, 18" x 21" framed
photographic silkscreen (edition of 30)

A tribute to the protest movements of the 1960s.

"There were those - a few - who wanted a strike. There were those - a few - who saw no reason for any change in the usual schedule. . And there were those - quite a few - who knew only that they rejected both extremes, and that whatever was done, we must do together.

And so meeting followed upon meeting, and discussion upon discussion. Some groups were large, some very small. A good deal of it was painful. Not all of it was reasonable. But it produced the decisions announced in the following bulletin, and the program that implemented those decisions."

Dana Hall Bulletin, July-Aug. 1970; "Five Days in May"

See: BVAU notes
Artists in Exhile mural on Boston Commons

13. Study for 'Ident . . . Dr. Webern' (painting) (1974)

14" wide x 14.5" high; Color-Aid papers & collage

14. A Soldier: Anton von Webern in Burg-Mitteril (1974)

8.5" wide x 13" high, 16" x 20" framed; type-written poem
See: Anton von Webern: A soldier in Burg-Mitteril @ archive.org more

15. Photograph of F. Bacon on Bardwell Studio Wall (1978)

16" wide x 20" high; oil on canvas

This painting was inspired by a photograph of Francis Bacon hanging on the wall of my Bardwell Auditorium studio - now the kitchen across from the Oak Room. I used to paint in a style very much influenced by the contemporary British painter Francis Bacon. I gave up painting in this derivative manner because the works were too illustrational and lacked the raw intensity I responded to in the originals. I don't dislike these paintings, but I don't think much of them either. They remain an interesting experiment and a record of a very troubling time in my life that I have left behind me.

16. Reflection: Spathe Flower & Dead Oriole (1980)

20" wide x 24" high; oil on canvas

17. Dead Oriole on Shelf (Entombment) (1981)

A tribute to Hans Holbein's The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, 1521

18" wide x 24" high; oil on linen canvas

An oriole found on the road into the Wellesley Dump;
a bright orange speck resting on a dull tar background.

18. Self Portrait with Casts, Rowayton, CT (1979)

16" wide x 18" high; oil on linen canvas

I painted this self-portrait on a hot humid day at my mother-in-law's house in Rowayton, CT. I was inside because I had a hard time walking with a cast on my leg. The cast I was painting was a copy of Michelangelo's preparatory model for a sculpture of the River God in Casa Buonarroti, c. 1521-34

19. Self Portrait with Hanging Ivy Plant (detail) (1979)

16" wide x 20" high; oil on linen canvas

20. Self Portrait #2 after Tear Duct Surgery (1980s)

12" wide x 13.5" high; pencil drawing

21. Life Drawing (portrait on blue paper) (1980s)

13" wide x 15" high; black & white chalk on toned charcoal paper

22. John Jagel Seated in Trench Coat (1986/87)

8" wide x 10" high; monoprint

Somerville artist John Jagel (1929-2006) and I drew (he sometimes painted - I never did) each other every week for nine months; we then exhibited our portraits of each other in an exhibition titled "Portraits of the Other" at Radcliffe/Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. It was a remarkable exhibit but very few people saw it because Boston's art critics were mute.

23. Profile Self Portrait (1987)

22" wide x 30" high; charcoal drawing

24. Portrait of Queen Anne (1985)

22" wide x 30" high; charcoal drawing

25. Study for Frontal Portrait of John Jagel #1 (1986)

18" wide x 24" high; charcoal drawing

26. Study for Profile Portrait of John Jagel (1987)

22" wide x 30" high; charcoal drawing

27. Seated Self Portrait #3 (1986)

21.5" wide x 30" high; charcoal drawing

formally in "The Claflin Collection," City of Newton

28. Eye (2003)

10.5" wide x 10.25" high; charcoal drawing on museum board

Private collection

29. Road Kill: Cape Cod Crow on Pizza Plate (1980)

20" wide x 20" high; oil on linen canvas

30. Seated Portrait of Lucian Freud (1985)

29" wide x 54" high; charcoal drawing

31. Portrait of Francis Bacon #1 (1986/87)

34" wide x 42" high; charcoal drawing on museum board

32. Expulsion from the Garden [detail] (2002)

18" wide x 12" high.

Oil paint on canvas, charcoal, pigments & collage on museum board.

Private collection.

Inspired by "A.D. 2267," a poem by John Frederick Nims; "Expulsion from the Garden of Eden," (c. 1424-28), a fresco by Masaccio; and a drawing (n.d.) by Raphael.

A. D. 2267
Once on the gritty moon (burnt earth hung are
In the black, rhinestone sky - lopsided star),
Two gadgets, with great fishbowls for a head,
Feet clubbed, hips loaded, shoulders bent. She said,
"Fantasies haunt me. A green garden. Two
Lovers aglow in flesh. The pools so blue!"
He whirrs with masculine pity. "Can't forget
Old superstitions? The earth-legend yet?"

John Frederick Nims

33. Paper Prayer: Love Life (1993)

4" wide x 12" high, 9.5" x 14.75" framed; charcoal, paint & collage

Private collection

34. Spider Monkey (after Redon) (2004)

9" wide x 8.5" high; charcoal drawing on museum board

Private collection

35. Maine Horse Skull: 'Fire' (1986)

34" wide x 42" high; charcoal drawing on museum board

This is the first in a series of charcoal drawings on 'The Elements' using a horse skull found in the woods of Maine with my friend from graduate school, Jeff Elgin (past art teacher at Skidmore). From the remains of the horse's skull and skeleton it appears the horse was trapped in a fire and shot in the forehead. Other drawings in the series I have completed and working on are Air (smoke), Earth (ashes), and Water (rain).

SLIDESHOW of DISPLAY CASES

A special thank you to Dana Art Gallery co-directors
Michael Frassinelli and Mary Ann McQuillan
for all their hard work in making this exhibit successful.

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