Honoring the Artist: Keith Mantell

By Marion Wohlberg Weiss

Keith Mantell's cover this week, "Cold Day Roanoke Landing," recalls myriad paintings in his oevre. It seems somewhat similar to Frederic E. Church's "The Iceberg," a work that greatly influenced Mantell. The subject is also a signature of sorts: local outdoor scenes using a plein air approach. Yet Mantell's barns, vineyards and landscapes recur in his studio work and Polaroid images as well. Mantell's style is consistent, too, as he creates an impressionistic atmosphere with subtle Expressionism that resembles Van Gogh's paintings in some cases.

Q: You studied fine art at New Paltz and at New York's National Academy,. Where did you get your best education?

A: Working for Sotheby's, where I first was in the accounting office. But I would spend a lot of time walking through the storerooms and looking at the masterpieces, and would even hold them. Can you imagine holding a Monet or Picasso? I would also spend time in the library there, pouring through art books.

Q: What was a particularly meaningful experience you had at Sotheby's?

A: Being involved when Church's "The Iceberg" was sold. It had been lost for 100 years and discovered in a boys' school. I just love that painting. I even bid on it when it came up for auction. I guess I got carried away, and I'm glad The Hunt Brothers bought it.

Q: Church's composition reminds me of your cover this week, "Roanoke Landing." Your painting is cropped. Explain why you did that. For what effect?

A: I cropped the rock because it allows you to move your eye into the picture. If I were doing a larger piece, the rock would have a different role. Paintings are cropped nowadays like photographs, like you're looking through a window.

Q: Is that because the western mind wants the closure that cropping brings? Is it because in America, everything is a square or rectangle, like our buildings or furniture so paintings should be like boxes?

A: Actually, everything is either a cube or a tube. Figures are tubes or a cube, depending on how you look at it. I think cropping makes an image unified. A good painting has to be complete; it has to hold you.

Q: Where is Roanoke Landing by the way?

A: It's where I live in Riverhead, on Roanoke Avenue. It's a well-known place. There's a buffalo farm in the area, the second largest one in the United States. Ted Turner has the largest buffalo farm, I think in Montana.

Q: For you, what makes a good painting or a masterpiece and what makes a good artist?

A: A masterpiece should engage you, change something, depict something. A good artist should always continue to grow. That includes emerging artists as well, although many of them paint to please rather than to grow. But I love all paintings and artists. Artists are more interesting than politicians or economists or anyone.

Keith Mantell's work is at Blue Door Gallery in Riverhead and Art and Soul Gallery in Eastport. His email is keithmantell@hotmail.com.

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