Page 31 - Studio International - June 1972

and I think it's been destroyed now. Those meaningful position. We were talking about probably wouldn't have looked at. Perhaps I'm
paintings meant an enormous amount to me. shape and we were talking about style. But just getting an art education.
It may be because of my training that I felt what I find interesting about painting, when I As for Hofmann, he's a great painter, isn't
there was a very strong reason for figurative was introduced into painting at that particular he ? I don't have any problems with him—he's
painting, that you couldn't give it up lightly, time, people had abandoned ... people weren't just a great painter. What do you want me to
that there was a real reason to be doing these looking at shape in painting as a three say ? He made some incredibly good paintings.
things. And then I saw this Noland exhibition dimensional, suggesting three-dimensional What else can I say about him ? I haven't any
at the Kasmin and I got very strong feelings objects on a two-dimensional plane, with problems—he's easy. He follows in a tradition.
for the first time ever, about abstract painting. illusionistic shapes, shapes that can have that He's probably the one American artist—or, he's
That was in 1965. It was the diamond-shaped kind of three-dimensional structure within a become American, in his late life—that's really
paintings. I went in there and I had a bellyache, painting. That was the area. It makes a hell of a understood Matisse. I don't think anyone else
which can happen very rarely. I'd seen the lot of common sense to be in, really. People has.
Rembrandts in Amsterdam, and I'd seen van weren't used to tackling that problem. And it I don't think he has, actually, meant a lot
Goghs in Amsterdam, and I'd been ill, was a question of trying to use shapes which more to me than being a good painter. You
physically ill, looking at those paintings, and had a peculiar sensation from the beginning, know, he's a great painter. And I don't have
then I got this thing and that was traumatic for to record scale, if you like. any problem. So you're there. Hofmann wasn't
me. It was a big thing that there were paintings When I was making the pictures it was in that exhibition I was absolutely sold on.
that bold and that abstract. In fact it went impossible to stand back and look at the whole And then, because I was interested in what I'd
beyond being abstract. You can't look at those picture anyhow. The pictures were of a scale seen, I started researching, and found catalogues
paintings and call them abstract paintings. almost larger than the room I was painting them and things and Hofmann came up. Always the
You know, those were the kind of terms we in. I was painting them across the room, so it painting seemed difficult, in that they looked
looked at paintings in years ago; there was was difficult to see the whole thing. And from trivial, they looked less than what I'd been
abstract painting and there was figurative a straight head-on position, you couldn't looking for. After looking at a Rothko or a Still
painting. Some words. But you can't talk about possibly see the painting. But, I mean, what is or a Kline, at that particular time the Hofmanns
abstraction in those terms any more when you equally important is that only ever did the looked less, because more gestural paintings
look at paintings. That made me sick, and I painting work well when the two shapes were relevant. Hofmann's looked pre-planned.
went back into my studio and somehow had to conversed with each other. The things I use Pollock's were within the act of painting—it's
resolve shapes that were meaningful for a within the paintings have to be to the scale of corny—and there was a fluid rhythm about him.
particular kind of angst. That I felt. A the paintings. I mean, I can not paint small But the Hofmanns were always pre-planned,
bellyache, if you like, at that time. paintings with the same subject matter. That's out of scale, and there was something in his
At that time I was doing the grid pictures. an impossibility. Drawings, though, are paintings that I didn't understand, ever. And
Like the John Moores paintings for instance, suggestive material. Drawings grow big, they it was because I didn't understand it that I
in 1967. I still tried figurative painting. I still are big, they are suggestive, you know, out of wanted to know about it. They were an irritant
do draw figuratively, but that was a turning scale, you can make a line 4o inches or you can and I really wanted to know about those
point for me. But if I was going to make make it a mile long within six inches. It is a paintings. I think that's why, because I thought
non-objective art, the shapes I was going to use suggestive medium. I can make a line. I can they were bad, but out of the badness of them
would have to have a dignity, if you like. They make it an inch or a foot even though it only there was a goodness. You know, I could see
would have to have a presence, always, which covers a fraction of the space of the painting. the goodness but all the time I was thinking, oh
made them into some sort of a phenomenon. You can actually suggest all the space you want God, this is awful, because it was so obvious.
They conveyed feelings. They could not just in a small area within a bigger drawing. It's And subsequently what Hofmann taught me
be a red shade next to a black shade. funny that you can't do that with painting—or was to have a look at Matisse. He really
I wouldn't want to paint a picture without I can't anyhow. understood Matisse.
those shapes in. It would be easy to paint a When I choose shapes it involves a lot of Your finding that yellow picture difficult
picture like that. But I would want to give it hard work before I get there—it's that they to get into, well, you know, that's your
enough feeling. And it just happened at that should have the possibility of form. When they problem. It didn't take that long for me. It was
time and, because I was moving that way, I become boring or when they become usual or just a hunch, and I took it, and I knew it was
looked at a lot of art, you know, contemporary something they get out of the way. I'm trying believable. I was working on a series of grey
art. I didn't know I was going to take on that to think of a situation when I know when it's pictures. There were three paintings, which
problem. Or it didn't look that way. People no longer viable, when I know they've got to were the grey, the green, and the yellow
didn't think of colour as three-dimensional or be sacked, and that's usually the best time. painting. They were all grey pictures. Believe it,
that it could have shape or a meaningful presence. That's usually when you're feeling really good they were all grey pictures. And the only
It was a hard time; it was the time of hard-edge about your painting and it's looking good, painting that stayed that way, totally, tonally,
painting after '65. 'Illusionistic art or articulate, honest—right on the edge. was the lighter painting. And that's got yellow.
painting, or illusionistic shapes' was a dirty But it looks too good. It doesn't have that Er... introduced into it, actually. Of the other
word. You weren't supposed to use those kind abrasive quality in it, and then you've got to paintings, the one aggressively went darker and
of terms. Colour was one colour next to another look for something else, got to introduce a went dark greens, and then this other painting,
colour, aggravating another colour, and making problem of some sort, just throw it in almost in the same moment the other ones were
colour problems. When colour could be to me somewhere, throw something in. At that point concluded, became what it was. It was a sort of
at that time three-dimensional. you throw a lot of things in. Then you choose, instant recognition of a possibility which
I don't see my shapes as illusionistic shapes. you know. You throw them in your note books became a reality.
But that's how they've been described by one and choose. Usually when I'm unsure of the possibilities
or two people talking about them. I see them Looking at Matisse is not something I've of the shapes I collage them. When I can make
as coloured shape, which has form. Does that lived with for a long time. I've always admired them articulate, when they become as one with
make it illusionistic ? certain Matisse paintings but over the last, say, the painting then of course they're painted on,
I didn't move the shapes around on the twelve months, I've been feeling, or knowing a but when they're collaged it's usually at a stage
surface until they then reached their most lot about Matisse which can help me. You when I'm trying to find a meaningful
critical position, you know, their most know which Matisse paintings, which I introduction for them. It's that they're painting
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