Page 25 - Studio International - December 1974

(Below left) Egypt Series 3 1973
Pencil, 32 x 24 in.
Gimpel Fils Gallery, London.
(Below right) Pears and Knife 1 1973
Oil on canvas, 25 x 25 in.
Gimpel Fils Gallery, London.

Velasquez. Whistler, I think, was one of the illusionism. Velasquez had illusionism. In word also of 'touch', I don't know of any better
first modern painters to really flatten-out his Las Meninas he used the device of the mirror word to express that thing that a painter does
shapes, and in that sense I'm related to him, to to lead you into the painting. and that is to touch his canvas with the brush,
Japanese art too, as well as Velasquez. T R : In one of your paintings, one with a leaving a mark that is absolutely his own mark,
T R : I'm trying to see you and Velasquez as bottle or a pan shape, I noticed around the and I would certainly suggest to people that no
part of the same family. Velasquez, to me, is shape irritated marks which seemed to be matter how big my painting is, that they should
the one great tonal painter. Was he a flattener talking about the possibility of that particular go up close to it. I think there are very many
of surfaces? shape having form. It seems to happen American painters that you look at from a
W S : I always think of Velasquez as one of whenever your colour field hits a shape, you distance.
the first Europeans really to flatten-out his seem to be apologising to that pan, or whatever, T R : How do you react to being called an
larger shapes. Look at his standing portraits. for having to flatten it out: you just can't tell exponent of colour-field painting in the
You'll find just large black areas. Also his the lie of illusionism. American sense?
treatment of light, he flattened-out as nobody W S : Well that sounds to me excellent, if W S : I have an affinity with colour-field
else had done, and this was to be the inspiration, you can get it down in words. What you're painting, but long before I ever knew American
finally, for Manet. In the 1972 Tate catalogue trying to do is what the older generation of painting, I was doing the same thing. But I was
I don't mention Velasquez, but I do include the critics were unable to do and that is to give any using colour in a very restrained kind of way.
things that have been of great interest to me. reasonable kind of argument for my painting. Many painters had used it. Take Cezanne.
There's a detail of a Velasquez ... fish and They accept it without actually saying why. Cezanne would have a colour theme, a one
eggs. That was to become my subject. I'd like to ask them, 'if you like it, what have colour theme. It would either be a blue theme
T R : Having stared quite hard at the you observed about it? ... why does it appeal or it could be an all-over sort of cheesy colour.
Velasquez Las Meninas I remember it as a to you?' My concern, a concern of nearly every I think Van Gogh too would now be classified
painting which speaks of anything but flattening. other painter related to me in the past, is the by the Americans as a colour-field painter
There's a depth which is an illusionistic depth 'edge'. The edge is of absolutely major because he made painting just out of yellow
rather than representation of a space on a flat importance to me — that it should be right. ochre ... the yellows.
plane. This is related of course to my division of space, T R : What about Americans and this thing
W S : Although my paintings are flat, I want my painting of edge. And I think that if you called 'touch'?
to achieve an illusion of space within. You see, say that, I don't think that there has ever been W S : Very few Americans would care to
I want to have the feeling that you enter the a critic who has made that observation about think about touch. They have a bold gesture.
painting and then spread out. my painting. If they have touch at all they like to feel it's a
T R : You're talking about the organization T R : So, you're an edge-painter. very strong touch! They give no marks at all to
of the shapes? W S : I'm an edge-painter, but practically all the value of the tentative touch which an artist
W S : Yes, the organization of the shapes in my friends are edge-painters. like Bonnard would have.
which I wish you to look perhaps not at the T R : I'm interested in the way you apply T R : Do you like Bonnard? He brings to
objects but at the space between the objects, paint. Thick or thin, it's never 'dreamed' onto mind colour.
and then that your eye will travel and have a the surface. W S : I think he's a marvellous painter.
kind of a sense of a great depth. The surface, W S : Speaking in old-fashioned terms about Colour? I've never been able to put on a canvas
nevertheless, remains perfectly flat, without painting we use the word edge, and we use the a red, a green and a yellow. I'm not that kind