Dan's Papers - July 11, 2008 - Honoring the Artist: Tom Wesselmann

While the current cover artist, Tom Wesselmann, passed away in 2004, he is being honored by this week's ArtHamptons. Which seems appropriate since both the event and the artist bring much to the contemporary art scene.

Wesselmann, like many young people with a penchant for art, left his Ohio home for Manhattan in 1956 after serving in the Army and completing his education at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

It was while attending Cooper Union and becoming inspired by the New York art community that Wesselmann started pursuing art with a passion. It was at this early time in his professional pursuits that he also developed an attachment for artists like Robert Motherwell and Willem de Kooning, saying later on that "... He (de Kooning ) was what I wanted to be." Tracing Wesselmann's aesthetic development suggests, to this critic at least, that he admired many different artists and was also influenced by many of them. For example, Wesselmann's use of line and gesture can perhaps be traced to de Kooning. Even so, his early interest as a young man in cartooning may have been a source as well.

Other sources abound. Although Wesselmann was associated with the Pop Art Movement during the 1960s, he denied this association, noting that he used ordinary objects as an aesthetic element, not as consumer items. Nonetheless, some work during this period recalls

Andy Warhol, like "Still Life #20," where a corner of a kitchen is featured. (East End resident David Gamble photographed similar scenes by Warhol in a series several years ago.) Wesselmann continued his employment of lines but often paid homage to other artists at the same time, like Matisse in " Sunset Nude with Matisse Odalisque," and Mondrian in "Still Life #20."

Wesselmann's nude motifs are especially enduing, becoming more abstract as his creative endeavors progressed. While this week's cover does not feature a nude female, per se, what's particularly intriguing is the close-cropped composition and the angle of the subject, recurring aspects seen in his work.

Along with his abundance of sources and work, we are left with a favorite Wesselmann statement made in 1987: " Painting, sex and humor are the most important things in my life."

Talking with Rick Friedman, Founder of ArtHamptons, leaves us with an additional appreciation of not only Wesselmann but other artists as well, including Andy Warhol whose work will be auctioned at ArtHamptons.

And lest we think that the economy is negatively affecting the art market, Friedman assures us that people may not be buying real estate, but they realize that art is a good investment.

The cover art is "Bedroom Face with Orange Wallpaper," limited edition, 1987, 46x52 inches. Courtesy of Waterhouse & Dodd, London.US cell: 305-546-3124.