richard huntington

ODD PIECES FROM NOWHERE

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These are pieces that defy easy categorization. Some, like the Alice (after Balthus) examples on the left and right, make up a small group that might well have gone into The Purloined Photo because of the use of the photograph in a number of cases, dd them here in order to illustrate, side by side, the range of styles and approaches that I have tackled over the years and to show once interesting paths that, alas, ultimately ran into dead ends.
Starting at the upper left and moving clockwise: Alice, archival pigment print and pencil, 2009; Alice (after Balthus), pigment print, 2009; Butter Churner (after Millet), acrylic on paper, 2002; Nude Millet Figure with Braque's Easel, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 2000; Nude Woman Carrying A Basket (after Millet), acrylic on pigment print, 2001.
With the first Alice I began with a copy of the Balthus of the same name, his most sexually blatant painting excepting perhaps his notorious Guitar Lesson. From there I attacked  the regal calm with which Balthus treats his immodest young girl with a gaggle of abstract shapes that swarm over and around the figure. In the second Alice, I set up a model to match Balthus' pose and then altered it with piece-meal interjections stolen from the original painting. 







The Millet figures (see also under Homages) are drawn directly from the master's hard-working farm workers going about their tasks in calm dignity. In the case of the females I stripped some of this dignity by portraying them stripped of their clothes. The males, on the other hand, do manage to keep hold of their clothes, but  suffer from near caricatured renderings that are blunt and crude in comparison to Millet's firmly rounded and pleasantly solid figures.
Left: Little Picassoid Princess with de Kooning Backdrop, oil on canvas, 2007.

This contorted little figure was taken from a Mexican ceramic plate, but by the time I had reworked her features and added the de Kooning shapes, nothing much was left of her original genesis. She now seems to be a forlorn child "princess" that at some time during her royal life had run-in with the stiff little girl that we knew from the Nancy comic strip. That face could be Nancy after a Picasso make-over.
       Above: Millet Worker in Rococo Setting. 2000.                                                
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Left: Leda and the Two Ducks, pigment print with cutout, 2000.

I use a vintage pinup and reduce the Leda myth from a graceful swan to two clunky  ducks. The overlay drawing, dog and ducks is from a child's coloring book, half-colored.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
 Above: Comparison Demonstration with Smirking Mask, archival
pigment print. 2002, altered 2014.
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Left:, Hand, Hoof and Still Life, acrylic on
canvas, 2008.
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    Still Life with Modern Lines,acrylic on canvas, 2007.
Millet Figure with Golden Mondrian, acrylic on canvas, 1999.
 Henry Hudson In Chinese Landscape with a Small View By  Cezanne, archival pigment print, 2009.