WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN
The series Whereabouts Unknown began with the idea that the many works that were destroyed or lost during World War II because of the Nazis' campaigns against modern art might be at least partially redeemed by contemporary re-interpretations. Working as I was from black and white reproductions left in the Nazi archives, I thought it was futile (and not very interesting) to attempt to duplicate the lost originals. Instead, I opted to adhere to the general tenor of the work and re-imagine it through my own way of working. Hence, my re-interpretations of these works depart considerably from the treatment and the particular forms found in the original work. (See my interview on the subject under the BIO heading.)
A switch in medium alone naturally radically altered the character of the source painting. For example, in Manet's "Woman's Torso, 1875" (above), an oil painting that evidently possessed an incredible display of the artist's matchless brushwork, I treated it as an opportunity to explores free-floating, transparent areas of color anchored by black patches in the drapery and the backdrop. The severe lettering helped hold together all of this vigorous, if slightly scattered,and very un-Manetlike, action of the brush. |
Above: Max Pechstein: "Der Raucher" (The Smoker), oil on canvas, 1999
Left: Manet's Woman's Torso, acrylic on paper, 1999, 30x22 |
Prices vary widely, the prints at $125 to $200 and the Vuillard oil painting at $500.
Left: Max Pechstein: "Der Raucher," 1917, archival pigment print, 1999, a revision of a much smaller sketch. I could never quite get the spirit of this painting, thus the many variations of Pechstein's intense smoker. |
Above: Vuillard: "Woman Hiding Her Face," 1904, oil on canvas, 2000.
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Whereabouts Unknown: Erich Heckel "Bildnis der Schwester," 1928, acrylic and pencil on paper, 2001, 30x22
Erich Heckel was one of the great German Expressionists. The original of this image was a wonderfully solid oil painting whose canny distortions conveyed the anxiety of either his subject--his sister--or himself. Or both! |
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Karl Hofer, once a widely acclaimed artist, has over the decades lost much of his luster. I used this lost work in a number of variations to explore how I might construct a convincing conjunction of subject-matter and the formal arrangement of the work as Hofer originally conceived them. I hyped the clolor and used the lettering as an anchor for the composition..
Whereabouts Unknown, Karl Hofer's Ester und Ruth, archival pigment print, 2021, 22x30
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Two variations on Lovis Corinth's lost painting Death and the Maiden, 1913, a work that, best we can tell, exemplified his brooding cross between dark subject-matter and a weighty, dense kind of impressionistic brushwork of his own making. Left: Lovis Corinth, "Tod und Madchen," Pencil on prepared paper, 2008, 30x22 In this one I sought a cartoonish flippancy in what was a conscious attempt to introduce a touch of absurd comedy into Corinth's deathly scene. Right: Lovis Corinth, "Tod und Madchen," Acrylic, wash, pencil and ink on paper, 2008, 30x22 |
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Paul Cezanne, "Judgment of Paris," acrylic on paper with cut out sections, 2009.
(Private collection, Buffalo, NY) Below: This must have been a beautifully delicate drawing. One wonders what even the Nazis could find that was offensive. Perhaps the Matisse name alone was sufficient to condemn this lovely drawing. My interpretation purposefully stiffens up the handling, making it appear deadpan with the word "lost" framing out the wonderful decorative work of the patterns and turning Matisse's ebullient line into a plotted scheme
Whereabouts Unknown: Henri Matisse, "Woman Seated In Armchair," 1920, ink over archival pigment print, 1999, 16x22 |
Max Beckmann,"Der Strand," (The Beach), ink on paper, 2002.
As far as we can tell from the in situ photographs the Nazi took at the 1937 "Degenerate Exhibition," Der Strand was a monumental painting measuring perhaps 10-feet- wide. With its complex of interacting figures and powerful foreboding atmosphere, it must have been one Beckmann's great canvases. I attempted to capture some of its dark grandeur in oil paintings--an impossible task I found short of slavish imitation-- and had to content myself with any distant echos that works on paper could provide. |
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