I knew about Peter Saul’s paintings for over 20 years – Peter Saul has been painting for about 55 years – has a large body of work – and tonight I decided to cover Peter Saul’s opening at Leo Koening.  Hopefully this will lead to an interview of the artist either by email or in person sometime soon.

Becasue there’s a lot of material to cover – I’ll make this a two or three part post. I’ll use the photos provided by the gallery and put my own in the last post of this series.

When I walked into Leo Koening tonight – the first painting I saw – Self Portrait as a Woman – painted this year, care of Leo Loening Inc.

According to the catelog – which I bought and got a signed copy by the Artist – “Self Portrait as a Woman” tells a true story. 

“Sally (I think she’s Peter’s wife) and I were mistaken for 2 woman, a number of times, about a year ago.  Mybe it was our similar hairdo, maybe it was the dim light, but we decided it was O.K. as long as we weren’t mistaken for 2 men.

Artistically, I wanted to bring back, and improve, if possible, a certain pornographic-cartoony quality I remember having in my pictures of 1969 (Clement Greenburg etc).  It’s set in a doctor’s office because Sally was reading Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” out loud and it got into my head”.

This painting reminds me of a comic book panel – I was not aware,btw, that all of these paintings are in acrylic, it looked like they were done in oils – because of the blending of colors.  Shows you – you can do a lot with any medium – it depends on how it’s “worked”.   I grew up in the 1960′s and 1970′s as an artist, a teenager in the 1970′s, Acrylics was a new medium at the time – and Ralph Mayer – who wrote the book on Artists Materials which was the “Bible” of many artists – especially then – questioned the longevity of Acrylics.  Funny…no one gives a damm now – it’s not even a question anymore.  When you look at Saul’s choice of acrylic as a medium – in context (I’m assuming he used Acrylics in the work he did from the 60′s on) it was more of an issue then; today, no one cares – it’s the work that matters.

I spoke to Peter Saul for a minute or two; he said to me – as he looked at me last night….”who the hell are you”?  Me: I’m Marshall Sponder, and I’ve admired your work for a long time – I have a copy of your catalog – can you autograph it for me?

I told Peter Saul that I found out about his show tonight using Artcards.cc and only decided to come attend as I left work tonight.

Peter said – “Oh…the computer thing”….I don’t get involved with that!   

I guess, maybe he does not need to be connected as much to the internet – not needed for his work.

It’s like Peter Saul to take something – anything – and make a story about it – like a image map.  His name becomes a face, with an ear and a hand, indentifying himself and speaking to me – in a picture.   I think Peter was being as real as anyone could be – who does not know the person he’s speaking to – he made is response – a picture.

I’ll cover the rest of the show in my next two posts – stay tuned.