Personal Memorial for Robert C Morgan

Thanks Robert for letting me into your world and all the wonderful connections we got to experience together. 

I learnt about Robert C Morgan long before I had the pleasure of meeting him. His book The End of the Art World was a wonderful commentary on the downslope of serious art as he saw it. I enjoyed it as I learnt about so many aspects of art and the art world as he saw it. 

In this moment I shall share a wonderful story on how I got to meet Robert for that magical first meeting experience. This was originally to be in his last book that was for the Scully/Tomasko Foundation exhibition he was blessed to have back in 2022. 

Enjoy!

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Definitely About Robert C. Morgan

I first knew of Robert C. Morgan like many, through his writings. It’s hard to remember the moment I learnt of RCM, but the important thing is the journey that learning about him sent me on. After all the years of reading his essays and books (of which I have many) I finally learnt about his paintings.

September 5th, 2012, I had been in NYC for more interviews that I had been working on for my filming project I had at one time thought would be like a re-ignition of the great Emil De Antonio film Painters Painting, just with a new generation of artists. I was staying with painter Louise P. Sloane in Great Neck and driving my car around, which I don’t do anymore after spending almost $50 to park to visit a friend in the 70’s. This evening we were visiting the galleries on the Lower East Side, and after visiting a few we headed over to Grand Street to Strauss Gallery to see the exhibition going on there. Whilst reaching top floor we met up with writer James Panero and discussed his being in the film. Within moments of our dialog, as usually happens on Opening Night, Louise saw Robert C. Morgan and went to talk with him while I chatted with James. Once he left I went back to visiting the exhibition. It had to be a minute later my viewing was blessed with my first engagement with Robert C. Morgan. I was so surprised when he came over in his brown suit so enthusiastically of being filmed in the documentary that I was honored and a bit flabbergasted in saying Yes. It was such an honor to be approached like he did, that the memory of that moment will last forever in my mind. As Robert left to visit more galleries, Louise mentioned how James Panero had said in viewing that wonderful moment that I needed to have a crew following me around to film my own journey in making this film. I remember peering over at them while Robert talked with me and seeing their big smiles on their faces like they had been there themselves and were enjoying the flashback to the first time it happened to them. The rest of that night pales in comparison to that moment.

It wasn’t until the next year that Robert and I were able to meet up at his home for the interview, but first he asked me to check out his exhibition that was about to open at the Creon Gallery. This way I could have a much broader knowledge of his paintings since we were going to be talking in the interview about his work and it’s relations to his writings, along with all the greats he’s written about.

Stepping into Creon, the scale of the space immediately hit me, as the intimacy of the gallery was perfect with Robert’s paintings. As you know he enjoys the smaller more personal scale of painting, it made for a perfect pairing of space and Art. The energy in the gallery that evening was one of time slowing to a crawl, making you wish to spend more time enjoying the paintings as if it were your own home. The uses of metallic pigments in his work at first gives off a multitude of feelings, one of reclusiveness but at the same time the paintings bring you in as does the paintings inside a Tibetan Monastery, almost as if you were looking at something holy that had been looked up to as if it were made for healing the soul of the visitor. Personally I have a fascination with metallic pigments and even recall the first time using metallic pigments while trying to spray paint a microphone stand using lifted paint as a teen in my Mom’s back yard. This was a whole different experience I must say.

To use the term Tibetan Monastery Artwork in relation to RCM is utilizing their love of the spiritual along with the metallic pigments in their artworks, instead of the image of a Lama of the ages, this perhaps is the abstracted version of that, employing symbols and line as subject matter, each with it’s own equal beauty. I use these terms because as you know Robert is very influenced by Asian Art, as it has been a passion of mine since before I can remember being interested in “Art” as a small child, back then for me it wasn’t art, it as just drawing that I did, before I knew of Art as an everything.

It was the very next day we got together at his home. This was an exhilarating experience for me since it had been the first time I was visiting someone who lived around Union Square in NYC. Being from Columbus, Ohio and having only visited NYC for the first time in July of 2004, yep, the week before Independence Day. Having only around 3 full days to take this town in…boy was that sensory overload for a man from the suburbs of Ohio that had only a few times before even left his town on his own, yep, I was THAT sheltered. I knew this was going to be a great visit to RCM, as I had been looking forward to visiting my first author, one of whom I had his books, along with being a Painter that makes these gorgeous parables of light and shape. Upon entering his home I could tell from the space that a Painter lived there. Immediately coming upon what I will refer to as a viewing wall, where the painter places a single work upon this dedicated wall where the best light is in order to give the painting the best possible viewing of their work, the newest painting. I knew at that moment that I was going to have a wonderful time talking with him for my documentary. This is a painter of the truest sense. His subject matter happens to be purity and the sublime.

Jeffrey Collins is a Painter and Documentary Filmmaker from Columbus Ohio. He interviewed Robert for his then mega documentary which parts can be viewed on YouTube. Culminating with the inclusion of his film titled “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue” which premiered at two New York film festivals in 2014. Since dedicating his life to Painting in 1999 he has exhibited in NYC at The Painting Center along with three of the last four yearly gatherings at Richard Timperio’s Sideshow Gallery along with a solo presentation in June 2018 in Peter Reginato’s home. Thanks for Reading. 

Process

In the making of the large format drawing, I hit upon an idea to also make it a conceptual work which involved the unveiling of the entirety of the drawing but one panel at a time with no formal explanation of what was occurring. So each day a mysterious panel of colored shapes began showing up on the instagram feed. I began getting a few responses as I didn’t feel like it was going to hit on many. It did exactly what was needed. 

As time progressed I was getting more and more anxious to release more on the drawings gestalt, so I began releasing more scans of the drawings each day and within a day I believe I may have begun releasing two batches a day. All at planned intervals.

5:55 AM

10:10 AM

5:55 PM

10:10 PM

I found out the hard way how long it would take at releasing 49 individual sheets of this monstrous project so naturally I wanted to make the reveal easier. Thankfully our local Library has a wonderful large bed scanner that really scans the actual colors of the papers, the one I have made the orange look red and really messed with the greens. And of course using it was free. So every few days when I’d get a batch of paper all colored up, I’d head to the library to do some scanning. Took a few times in the directions to fully figure the system out but once that was finished it was as easy as a few buttons to pretend you are pressing on. A few more trips and all the panels had been scanned and a few more hard to find movies were in my cart, I was ready to edit all the scans. After all the decades of using photoshop I am easily used to editing my photos so that part was just a few hours and the entire project had been documented.  Then came the task of taping the whole project together for the photo documentation, I did that laying the whole line of drawings down on the bed and methodically taping each panel together. I only messed up twice in the process. One because I got too overzealous of the fun I was having and proceeded to tape one line in front of another and two more lines after, I looked at the work as I was noticing some irregularities coming from the back of the drawings. So I looked at behold!!! I had taped up one set of line too soon, so I had to get to cutting and retaping yet again. 

After the first three panels were colored in. I was so jazzed I had to take a pic. 

A Little Bit Smaller

After finishing the giant Beyond Identity colored pencils on joined paper, I knew I wanted to create another one just as large but the idea soon ran dry when I realized how long each work would take. Once that idea came I knew there had to be another way so I just figured I’d go smaller. Then the next question is, how small. After tossing around some numbers and physical papers I figured a nine panel sheet would probably be perfect to work with, since they are large enough to grab attention it’s small enough to travel easily. It also allows me to work on two at one moment. Here’s number one from this new series. 

OBJECTIVE JOURNEY 

Colored Pencils on 9 Sheets of Joined Paper

Paper Size 33 X 25.5 Inches

Image Size 29 X 19.5 Inches

Thanks. 

New format of my Artwork

For many years now I have been making drawings of what I would hope to make in large painting format as you have seen many times before. Some in new styles that connect with what you already knew. After six books of drawings I had decided to finally share them, but at that same time I had been attaching them to my painting/viewing wall to get to see them as a group, which I had yet to do. Usually I keep them in their drawing book, but recently had begun drawing on loose card stock which had roughly the same weight as the bound paper I was using. Those drawings had been brightening up my wall with their wonderful colors and shapes. As I was visiting them the idea came to me to try one thing I had dreamed of for many years in my studio which was to tile a painting into multiple pages but be the same size as my biggest paintings that I am creating at the time. So I began attaching rows of paper together to create a large format drawing of a version of one of my large paintings. As I created this paper world, I wanted to make sure it would be not only easy to store but easy to make. Since I would have only one panel to color at a time, I definitely didn’t want to spend all those hours standing up and coloring on a drywall substrate. Hence the beginning. 

Beyond Identity

Colored Pencil on 49 Joined Sheets of 8.5 X 11” Paper. 

Image is 72 X 52”

 

 

Once the initial drawing was completed as you can see in the last picture, the work began its 10 day process of coloring in each panel. I’ve never been involved with a work that was so intense in its making. Usually the wrapping of a painting takes two maybe three days depending on everything going on at the time. One thing this work truly did was light a fire to create even more like this. Which you will see in the new posts. 

Enjoy! 

Details

As the days pass. I gaze upon this glorious painting and wish that you could see it the way I get to see it. So many viewpoints to enjoy. Here’s one of them. I have added another pic that will show you where this detailed image is from. 

ANDERS 02-22-2025

 It was a long process of making this painting. Months went by between just the construction of the chassis to the final wraps of ropes. It was even an ordeal to write the paintings name on the painted chassis. I had originally planned another name but in the process of writing it, I messed up the spelling three times. So much so that on the last time I actually asked the painting what it wanted to be called. Once that thought was out the name appeared and I knew it was a painting named after a fellow painter that had helped and guided me so much in my life and work. I have been getting interested in making what I refer to as “dedication” paintings, and this desired to also be one. Anders is Anders Knutsson a fellow painter in NYC and an original member of the Radical Painting Group  

ANDERS

02-22-2025

72 X 52 IN 

Acrylic on Various Topes on Painted Wood Chassis.