Matisse & Thiebaud

The Red Studio, by Henri Matisse.



I'm a beginning painter. My teacher's work (J. Rod Swenson) can be seen HERE. he lives in Taipei now with LizAnn and comes back to Sacrmento twice a year to sell his paintings.

His coloration is deeply influenced by Matisse as are some of his subjects. He, in turn, has influenced me and my coloration to come extent (not to the fullest).

So, in a way, I am one of Matisse's bastard step grand-children. I unabashedly also admit that Van Gogh and Monet have influenced me as well. And in a very real sense, just as Modernity leaves me fairly cold, so do the Modernist painters. I can admire Pollock's balls (apparently many did), and Picasso. But their works often appear to me more like philosophical treatises than transportive art.

While I would go farther than Malraux (Andre, not Maugham) and his statement that "art is the last defense against death," I do get his meaning and agree with it to an extent. The last defense against death is resurrection. Art is a fine way to open up to that. That's part of why I paint my cityscapes.

To see the best cityscapes Wayne Thiebaud has no equal. He, like Swenson and myself, are from Sacramento. I had the dubious distinction of doing artwork for the Mather AFB newspaper for a season...a job Thiebald once had in the 60s. Other than those two facts, and that we both work with oils and do cityscapes...there is no real connection at all. I stand in utter awe. Viewing his work is like pure heroin with no side effects.

You can go to MOMA in SF, or the deYoung and or go to the Thiebaud Gallery in either San Francisco or New York. The current exhibits there run through December 22.

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