Saturday, July 23, 2011

In Memoriam: Three Archived Posts

I'm working hard in the studio and can't spare the time to blog right now although I'll be back soon. Meanwhile, here are three interesting posts I wrote about the dear departed along with the reasons why I chose these particular ones from among the many. I think they are worth reading or rereading. 

The Queen portrayed by Lucien Freud

Lucien Freud: My post of February 4, 2011 here.
When I looked at the stats for my blog last night, I saw that the number of hits on Thursday and Friday was in the thousands! Between the two days, there were more than 5000 hits, where they are normally in the hundreds. At first I thought they were all New York dealers responding to my work as publicized in Joanne Mattera's blog (irony), but actually they turned out to be people who were somehow directed to the post I had written about Lucien Freud last February. An unknown search engine listed my post and directed people to it because of Freud's recent death. Here's what I said about Freud last February after reading a book about what it was like to sit for a portrait by him.



A portrait of Roy Neuberger reading, by his grandson, Matthew London

Roy Neuberger: My post of February 19, 2011 here.
Last night I received a comment on a post I had written about Roy Neuberger from his grandson, Matthew London, a New York photographer. Neuberger was a well-known art collector and founder of the Neuberger Museum in New York. He lived to be 107 years old. Matthew thanked me for writing about his grandfather and directed me to a website he had set up for him. He also listed his own website, where he had posted portraits of his grandfather. Matthew London's photographs are strikingly beautiful and I urge you to visit his website to see them.



Rob Moore from the Boston Sunday Globe article about him

Rob Moore: My post of December 17, 2009 here.
I continue to get comments on this post from people who search Rob's name and find it. There is not much available on Rob, a wonderful painter and teacher at Massachusetts College of Art for 26 years. Rob Moore died in 1992 at the untimely age of 55, before the internet could immortalize him. Only years after graduating from MassArt and painting many paintings was I able to understand what Rob meant in his criticism of my work and assignments in color theory classes. He was a brilliant teacher and a very colorful personality. He is still very much missed by his students. How I wish I could show him how my work developed. It only took me 20-some years after studying with him.

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