A Portrait of the Artist as a Not So Young Man

August 19, 2015 – A Portrait of the Artist as a Not-So-Young Man

The Elliott Art Legacy Project continues.  Next on the schedule – photo ops for the dozen or so paintings that are currently on display in the house.  This involves taking them off the walls, bringing them downstairs to photograph, and then rehanging them.  At least we won’t have to unwrap and re-wrap them, so the work should go relatively quickly. 

The process of examining the paintings one by one has rekindled Elliott’s latent creativity.  After being suppressed for so long, his inner artist is about to be released.  He’s been pouring over drawings, correspondence, receipts, teaching notes, exhibition brochures – anything related to his career as an artist.  He’s most interested in the sketches he made five or six years ago for a new series of paintings.  At that point, his vision had already deteriorated so much that he was unable to transfer the ideas to canvas.  But he’s now mentioning the possibility of working with an assistant to produce paintings under his direction. 

In case you’re not familiar with Elliott’s artistic output, he is best known for the geometric abstract paintings he produced from the late 1960s through the early 1980s.  His approach is very analytical and mathematical, and it’s fascinating to hear him explain the patterns in his paintings.  However, while going through Elliott’s papers, we rediscovered some interesting works on paper from an earlier period that are in a totally different style.  These are ink drawings, both still life and landscape, that show a Cubist influence.  Elliott did these works while living in France in the mid-1950s.  Somehow, he managed to study at an art academy at the same time he was working for the U.S. government in Paris.  

It’s deeply satisfying to see Elliott showing passion again about something that played such an important role in his life.  I can’t imagine the frustration he felt for the past couple of decades – an artist whose mind is filled with images that he can’t express in his chosen medium.  Now that he’s ready to resume work on his art, I’ve readily agreed to share my studio space with him.  

Elliott, busy at work in our shared studio

Since Marshall is nearly finished photographing Elliott’s work, I’ve asked him to take on a new project, i.e. photographing all of my fused glass pieces.  Speaking of which, a new post featuring my work from this summer is coming soon.