Childhood Years

1947-1963

Lives with parents, Hilda and Nathan Landfield and brother Barry Sanford Landfield at 780 Pelham Parkway, Bronx New York in apartment B9 - phone number - Talmidge 2-1575; and after 1963, in apartment A5 - phone number Sycamore 2-7699.

1947-1951

Draws, invents imaginary scenarios and games, plays with toy soldiers and cowboys and Indians, spends a lot of time alone playing on the floor, coloring. Collects colorful things like comic books. Likes to compose visual tableaux’s, squints at comic book covers. Likes visual things. Plays ball and other sports with friends at home and in Pelham Parkway. Plays punchball, stickball, skelly, slug, although most kids are older, and he has a very difficult time. He’s very disappointed when his parents get rid of the piano, just almost when he was getting big enough to touch the pedals on the floor. Complains to his mother who tells him being a musician is too hard a life; she suggests his becoming a writer or a lawyer, he doesn’t agree with her, but she gets rid of the piano anyway.

September 1951

Enters public school, PS 105, Kindergarten in Miss Grazer’s class, is particularly fond of the girls named Joan and June, is hospitalized for tumor on neck, from November 1951 thru February 1952. Learns to read at home. Continues drawing. Miss Grazer visits him in the Bronx hospital.

Spring 1952

Meets children his own age at PS 105 and begins to excel at sports. Like older brother Barry becomes a New York Giant baseball fan, particularly likes Willie Mays, Hank Thomson, Davey Williams, Monte Irvin and Sal Maglie. Collects baseball cards and comic books. Attends first grade at PS 105 in September. Teacher Mrs. Lombardo encourages him to draw and teaches him to draw with pastels.

September 1953

Attends second grade at PS 105. Teacher Miss Gamzon punishes him with exile to the back table for excessive drawing in his writing notebook.

September 1954

Attends third grade at PS 105. Is hospitalized off and on, for appendicitis and other stomach ailments from September 1954 thru January 1955. Teacher Miss Maute visits in hospital. Class trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sees and studies the work of El Greco and Peter Breughel. Draws copies of El Greco’s The Cardinal.

September 1955

Attends fourth grade at PS 105 with Mrs. Godfrey. Draws portrait of Henry Hudson discovering Hudson Bay, first drawing that takes many days to complete.

1955-1958

Draws many portraits, family pictures, horses, ships, guns, trees, for his own interest.

Experiments with pastels, tempera, watercolor and pencils.

Collects comics and baseball cards from 1951 thru 1956. Often arranges and stares at the color and designs of the comic book covers and the cards for hours at a time.

September 1958

Attends seventh grade at JHS 127 in Parkchester.

September 1959 – June 1960

Finishes ninth grade at JHS 127 in Parkchester. Tries for HS of Science, HS of Industrial Arts and HS of Music and Art. Is accepted to attend HS of Industrial Arts, and the HS of Music and Art.

Parents want him to attend Music and Art, so as to go to a college oriented program. Not wanting to study fine art, but wanting to study commercial art he decides to attend Industrial Arts. Becomes HS of Art and Design in September 1960 when it opens a new building at Second Avenue and 57th Street. Promises to take college oriented courses at Art and Design and he wins parents assent. Ironically he becomes a fine artist by 1961.

September 1960

At thirteen attends the High School of Art and Design as a tenth grade sophomore. Commutes by IRT from Pelham Parkway in the Bronx to 57th Street in Manhattan. Begins to paint at home in the Bronx. Generally works with tempera and watercolor. Draws from life and imagination with pastel, crayon, ink and pencil on paper. First friends at art school classmates Roy Wallace, Lloyd Goldsmith and Harry Roseman, Sylvia Sherwin and Marsha Gold. Becomes friends with classmates Bob Lavaggi and Richie Collins.

September 1961

Meets Art and Design classmate Michael Steiner on Bleecker Street near Mcdougal Street late one evening in Greenwich Village and they become friends.

Summer 1956–Summer 1962; Spends every summer at Rubinstein's Hotel in Woodridge, NY. Works as the hotel lifeguard from July 1962 until he leaves in August 1962 for art school at the Art Students League in Woodstock, NY, on the day after Marilyn Monroe died.