A selection of paintings,
The Third Series of Large Acrylics, 1968-69.
All paintings are acrylic on
canvas, approx 64 x87 inches
Images marked
** are described
in the catalog for my 2003 Retrospective at the Oakland Museum of California.
Click the
** to go to the
description.
Scroll down for the paintings, click the image
for a larger view.
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I had made many big paintings to make me glorious, but I began to feel
that the imagery was too fixed—like the melody of a folk song instead
of the complex variability of a symphonic theme. One summer afternoon
in 1968, I saw what seemed to be a half nude man coming up out of Lake
Merritt. High cirrus clouds were curling in the sky above his head.
That night I decided whenever a form in my big paintings started to
close like a folk melody I would break it with another form only that
form would be broken in turn. Out of that streaming of broken
forms—the “primary process” speaking from the unconscious—I would then
use all my art-craft to make a whole out of parts. Looking back, the
man coming out of the lake was my “primary process” saying “LOOK AT
ME,” and the curling cirrus in the sky was the streaming of my art to
come. |
1.
#38, June 17, 1968. |
2.
#41, July 16, 1968
"The Golden Wings of Kumanon" |
3.
#42, July 16, 1968. |
4.
#45, July 29, 1968. |
5.
#46b, August 2, 1968
"Gold of the Caucasus II" |
6.
#51, September 9, 1968.
"A Fountain in the Mountains." |
7.
#51b, October 12, 1968.
"In the Cliffs of the Rio Grande." |
8.
#50, October 22, 1968.
"A Sunset in Protestant Lands." |
9.
** #54, November 11, 1968.
"Johnny America Still Life."
(Collection Oakland Museum) |
10.
#60, December 21, 1968. |
11.
Unnumbered, 1968.
"Ah, Sunflower," or
"Jack's Big Bean Stalk." |
12.
#62, December 29, 1968.
"Self-Portrait as Tree Trunk."
(Private Collection, Montreal, Canada) |
13.
#73, Undated in 1969. |
13.
#74, April 28, 1969. |
14.
#77, June 20, 1969. |
15.
#78, June 30, 1969. |
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16.
#83, September 16, 1969.
(Collection Oakland Museum)
Click
here for the fourth group
of large acrylic paintings,
"The Rainbow Bridge." |
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