THROWING OUT PAINTINGS

Thank you, friends, for your wonderful words about my website! I will respond to your comments and questions but right now I have a problem: too many paintings! I can’t believe it! I have run out of space in my studio! (Oops!) I shouldn’t have said that. Another one of those rules: an artist is supposed to produce few paintings. That makes them more valuable! If he has lots of paintings it means no one wants them and he should keep it quiet. Well I can’t keep it quiet because I need more room! I persuaded a friend to put twenty in his barn. They will smell of horses but they are out of the way. Now I need to get rid of twenty more. I am afraid to throw them out because of something that happened a few years ago.

I did a painting of some women bathing in the Ganges. I painted for several hours. When I stopped I was horrified. The women’s heads were too big. Their arms and legs looked like tree trunks. Everything was distorted! I threw the painting out with the garbage. The next morning the super said there was a garbage strike. I had to bring the painting back into our apartment. That day the head of The Selection Committee for London’s Royal Academy came to look at my work. He said, “I want to exhibit your paintings in London, and we’ll have that one there, the one with the wet paint leaning against the wall. What’s it called?” “Uh, Indian Bathers.”

London’s Arts Review critic wrote, “Mr. Black’s inspirational approach works when design combines with color intensity in Indian Bathers where the overall pattern of figures strongly suggests the exotic generosity of Hindu temple carving.” The painting was sold to the vice-president of Lloyds of London who hung it in his home next to a Picasso.