Where It All Began
In September 1960 I was among the very first students to attend The High School of Art and Design in its new building on Second Avenue and 57th Street. I was 13 years old, entering the 10th grade as a sophomore. I always loved to draw, and as a kid in the Bronx during the 1950s I was inspired to pursue my artistic talents, although I wasn’t sure how. I took the test for the High School of Industrial Arts on West 79th Street in Manhattan during the early winter of 1960 and I was accepted as a student. I was surprised to learn that during that year the school changed its name and moved into a brand new building on Second Avenue between 57th and 56 streets. That September we entered a new building equipped with escalators and a terrace; as well as state of the art spacious classrooms.
After a few months I befriended several young and hopeful students, and the friends that I made formed a tight circle centered around the idea of becoming successful students and for some of us - serious artists. As the months passed I learned that my interest in art had expanded to include the fine arts. Initially my interest leaned toward drawing, and illustration and I became a cartooning major. However by the time I entered my Junior year I was painting full time.
Although most of the other students were 1 or 2 years older than me I soon became a part of a small circle of friends from the Bronx and Manhattan and I soon discovered that the location of the school was in close proximity to the most sophisticated and advanced contemporary art galleries and museums in the world. Almost daily after three o’clock my friends and I would meet at the Bodley Gallery on 60th street between Second and Third Avenues across the street from ‘’Serendipity 3’’. Sometimes we’d just talk with the owner and David Mann the gallery director before leaving for home in separate directions; sometimes we’d make plans to visit the galleries along 57th street or we’d go to the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art that were inter-connected between 53rd and 54th streets. Sometimes we’d go to Central Park to paint and we would often visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well.
By 1961 I became interested in painting. After an initial period of landscape and figurative painting my work was influenced by abstract expressionism. Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Hans Hofmann quickly became my favorite painters – along with Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and El Greco. I painted my abstract oil paintings at home in the Bronx sometimes to the chagrin of my parents. I also began taking life drawing classes at the Art Students League on 57th street – drawing the figure. I became an avid gallery visitor, often going to the Sidney Janis, Betty Parsons, Tibor de Nagy, Fischbach, Green, Pace, Knoedler, and other art galleries along 57th street as well as the Sam Kootz Gallery just north on 5th Avenue and the Poindexter Gallery on 56th street. I also began to travel afield uptown to visit the Stable, Martha Jackson, Leo Castelli, Staempfli, and other galleries and downtown to visit the galleries on East 10th Street and the East Village.
By 1962 I was becoming committed to creating my paintings and more and more I became interested in becoming an artist. In addition to visiting the galleries in mid-town Manhattan I’d often visit the Four Seasons Restaurant to see the Picasso Tapestry and the few other works of art there. In the summer of ’62 I spent August at the Art Students League in Woodstock where besides creating my paintings I participated in an Allen Kaprow happening with artists that had come up from New York City and I met dozens of new serious artists, including a young painter named Eva Hesse and her husband the sculptor Tom Doyle among many others. When I returned to the city in the fall I helped create a large theater set as a backdrop to a show several dance and theater students mostly from Art and Design put together at the Rodale Theatre on East Fourth Street in the East Village. I had my first exhibition of paintings in the basement of that theater during the run of the show. I was 15 years old.
I saw some powerful exhibitions in New York City that season including Arshile Gorky: 1904-1948 at the Museum of Modern Art; Willem de Kooning and Barnett Newman at the Allen Stone Gallery and one of the most memorable events of my time at Art and Design occurred in October 1962 when I saw an exhibition that blew my mind and blew the art world apart at the Sidney Janis Gallery called ‘’New Realism’’. That exhibition showcased what became Pop Art featuring artists like Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, George Segal and others – that forever changed the direction of the art world in its wake. As the New Realists became more widely known and new geometric artists like Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland, Al Held and others appeared on the scene the New York artworld began to change right in front of my eyes. For a 15 year-old kid from the Bronx, a junior at the High School of Art and Design I was getting an education in the Fine arts better than anywhere else in the world.
My teachers at Art and Design included Tom Wesselmann who was showing at the Green Gallery where I would visit often and where I first met Richard Bellamy the gallery director. My other teachers including Marge Trauerman, Roz Schomer, Frank Eliscu and Alvin Hollingsworth would often discuss these great and world changing exhibitions a few blocks away from Art and Design along 57th street. In 1963 when I turned 16 my English teacher the poet Daisy Alden introduced us to the New York School of Poetry and our class was visited by her friend, the writer Anaïs Nin. I had some profound encounters during my gallery visits including a conversation with Hans Hofmann at the Samuel Kootz Gallery during an exhibition of his paintings in 1963. That year I saw major Robert Motherwell and Adolph Gottlieb shows at Sidney Janis and later in 1963 I met Man Ray at the Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery at 980 Madison Avenue. The Marlborough Gallery opened a branch on 57th street in 1962 or 1963 and in the wake of the New Realism show at Janis, Marlborough began picking up artists who left the Janis gallery. By the mid-60s the Marlborough Gallery represented Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Larry Rivers, and Mark Rothko among others.
By June 1963 when I graduated from Art and Design I needed to make a choice as to where to go to college. I was accepted to The Cooper Union, The Pratt Institute and the Kansas City Art Institute as well. I was accepted by virtually all the schools to which I applied thanks to the tremendous experience afforded me from the High School of Art and Design.
All of my best wishes go to the new students and to the old ones of the NEW High School of Art & Design into the 21st century. Be the best artists that you can be.
