Pl. 17, "The Carpenter Series,"
from Liber Studiorum, 1973.
Handcolored offset lithograph,
24 x 35 in. |
In late 1966 through May of 67,
I made several hundred paintings on 24 x 36 inch oatmeal paper. I
called them "The Carpenter Series." A few years later I made this Plate
17 of Liber Studiorum as a remembrance of them Most of the
Carpenter paintings have been destroyed or lost. This print is
their memory. In June of 1967, I took perhaps fifty of
the Carpenter paintings to New York to show my dealer there who did not like
them. I had read on the plane to New York that the greatness of
American painting lay in its vast size, and on my return to Oakland I
determined to try vastness as the path to greatness.
I re-organized my studio to paint
the largest possible things—all about 66 x 84 inches—and on canvas and
in acrylic (in themselves then the mark of greatness for painters in
the way that bronze and marble once were for sculptors) rather than
the paper and watercolor that had been my medium. For imagery, I
began with the "Carpenter" images I had been using. The paintings
below are typical of the first group, of which there were thirteen all
together. The paintings are
identified by number in the series "Large Acrylics," followed by the
date of the painting, followed by the title. The final number in
the series was #105, July 1970. |
1.
#1. July 1, 1967.
"Come."
approx. 66 x 66 in. |
2.
#2, July 2. 1967.
"Well."
approx 72 x 66 in. |
3.
#3. July 3, 1967.
"The Well in the Mountains." |
4.
#5. August 6, 1967.
"Drinking Bird with Well." |
5.
#6. August 7, 1967.
"Marriages are made in heaven." |
6.
#8. August 8, 1967.
"Under the Blanket." |
7.
#9. August 8, 1967.
"Egyptian Pyramid." |
8.
#10. August 12, 1967
"Arborvitae (Tree of Life)" |
9.
#12. August 18-19, 1967.
"In the Museum." |
