Paul requested an "area" in the forum where he and Graig can interview each other, and maybe settle some long-standing philosophical feuding. Graig accepted the challenge. Feel free to interject with questions here, too.
Paul and I are going to turn this into a physical wrestling match with oil paint and hydroquinone. Be prepared.
I’m frightened, but here goes:
Of the photographers whose work you’ve chosen to paint more than once, whom do you think was the most gifted (not your favorite, but most gifted)? Why?
Oh man, that’s a tough question to answer. Especially since I’m focusing on something that’s still kind words of objective. Okay.
So, in terms of most gifted, the one I come back to the most…the person I probably draw way more inspiration from that I’d freely admit…it’s gotta be Hy Peskin. I love all of the other photographers so much and for so many other reasons, but there’s something in Hy’s approach that I really gravitate towards. I think that because he has such a wide breadth of how he handled seemingly mundane subject matter separates him. When I look at his baseball work, I feel like there’s nothing left to chance—everything in the composition has a purpose. And that’s whether it’s a pattern of light, diagonals of the stands against a player, or the cool reflections of the sky coming off of somebody’s nose and cheek bones. And I think that kind of thinking can only come from somebody who not only understands how to create an engaging picture, but also somebody who understands art. Folks like Leifer and Iooss exhibit that same talent, but I feel like it comes across most consistently (from what we’ve seen) from Peskin. And again, that’s just for me. I would probably change my answer next week.
Then again, the term “gifted” is tough to define. Especially since I’ve got a complicated relationship with the word, but I’m trying to not put my own crap into the answer. Yet still, it’s not crystal clear. Like, I could say Leifer was the most gifted because of all of the innovating stuff he did with his lenses and vantage points (think of that great Cleveland Williams overhead). And of course, there’s an element of luck that comes with photography—right place, right time. Marvin Newman proved that with the Mazeroski home run. Or do I go crazy and credit somebody like Van Oeyen or Francis Burke because they created such amazing photographs and were a bit more limited than Peskin and Leifer??
Or maybe I’m just spinning around too much. I think I’m going to stick with Peskin. For me, the combination of the players he shot, the soon-to-be ubiquity of Sports Illustrated (his greatest vehicle), his tastes, his abilities, and his luck—that’s one hell of a gift.
Phew.
Now, it’s my turn!!! Paul, when you first started collecting photos, your were obviously a younger man. But I’m sure you remember your first purchases well (the Ed Walsh Conlon, for instance), and the circumstances around them. What was your aesthetic criteria for the photography you were purchasing then compared to what it is now? If it has changed in anyway, what might you attribute it to?
When I first started collecting, my favorite photos were Conlon’s images of Walsh’s spitter (1913), Matty with his hands on his hips (1911)—I know you’ve painted both—and Javan Emory (circa 1885). In one sense, not much has changed.
But in another sense, everything has changed because those images posed a question that I couldn’t answer—namely, why was I attracted to them? And pursuing the answer to that question has very much changed the way I see the world. I didn’t understand it until much later, but studying photography taught me to see more beauty in the world. That might sound flowery, but it’s part of my everyday experience.
Twenty-five years ago, I knew the photograph of Javan was special; now I can write about it in a way that both laypeople and museum curators find compelling. There’s something wonderful about the experience of being a novice collector and feeling like a photograph was made just for you; and there’s also something special about the journey of learning and arriving at better and better explanations as to why.
Another one for you, Graig:
I sometimes read very laudatory comments that some people write to you on social media, and one always strikes me the wrong way—namely, “Your painting looks just like a photograph.” I would argue that, however well-intentioned the compliment, art isn’t mimicry; imitating a photograph is perfectible, and art is not perfectible. If you were to produce a painting that no one could distinguish from a photograph, it would be interesting, but it wouldn’t be art.
What you do, as I see it, is *understand* a photograph and then *interpret* it or *explain* it in paint; your paintings can provide a very different experience than the photographs on which they are based. What do you think about that idea?
Both great guests. Love looking at Graig's paintings and how real they appear. Perhaps some day we'll see one of the Babe in Hawaii, my home state. Listening to a podcast on MBH and the talk with Paul discussing Conlon's process of shooting and processing his images. Back in the day I enjoyed my black and white photography and the time I spent in the dark room. Keep up the great work!
I love this. Honestly, when somebody says that something that I paint “looks like a photograph,” it always strikes a bit of a nerve. Now, I KNOW that it’s a compliment, and that it’s coming from a good place, but in a way I feel like I’ve failed if I’m “just” making something feel photographic. Since the majority of the photographs I work from are in black and white, I do try to bring life to them with color, and as you put it, my interpretation. Granted, there definitely are some photographic elements that are unique to the medium that I try to sidestep when I can. Those can include circles of confusion, lens flare, or distortion, to name a few.
That’s not to say that photorealism is not something I really enjoy, because it certainly is. Some of those artists, like Richard Estes, (the early work of) Chuck Close, and Audrey Flack, are folks I’ve looked up to for a long time. But I also don’t feel like my work looks like theirs, or is after the same sentiments. While I do very much enjoy rendering things, I also love pushing color like an impressionist and a tonalist…having evidence of a human behind the painting is important to me too, so there’s always texture and brushstrokes.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that in the end, I very much appreciate the compliment, and what I tell myself is that most folks don’t necessarily have the artistic vocabulary to say what it is that I’m going for. Often in their heads, because something looks tightly rendered and realistic, it looks like a photograph. In an ideal world, I’d rather them say something like “that looks like reality.” Now THAT would be an accomplishment. But honestly, I’m incredibly grateful that they say anything positive at all.
And here’s another one for you:
YOU’RE the photographer. You have the opportunity to capture one moment in baseball history for posterity, predating the 1920 Chapman demarkation. You’re not limited by the capabilities of the equipment. What are you choosing and why?
@graigkreindler I think you hit it on the head with "what I tell myself is that most folks don’t necessarily have the artistic vocabulary to say what it is that I’m going for." I know when I show your work to my youngest--a budding artist--or to my parents--they say "it looks so real!" and while I get that actually, lots of your backgrounds etc. are not totally defined in a photorealistic way, I think people are really just responding to the way you bring the subjects to life. It's likely the highest praise possible when uttered in this way. And you're likely doomed to having this nerve struck forever, given that the audience for your work is not an "art insider" audience, right? Hopefully it's a small price to pay : )
What a great question—because you’ve posed it to span the 50-year period during which not a single memorable moment on a ball field was captured.
On August 16, 1909, the Giants’ right fielder, Red Murray, raced to catch a fly barehanded and, just as he caught it, a lightning bolt lit the sky, framing his body, followed by a crack of thunder that Matty said, “jarred the earth.” I can only imagine what a photograph of that moment—which both Wagner and McGraw would always describe as the greatest catch they’d ever seen—might look like. There’s a story that, years later, Murray would reenact the catch in dim light while someone lit a match behind him.
Then there’s the Merkle play on September 23, 1908. For many years, I owned the ball from the play, and I have a certain attachment to the story because for me it’s a great example of Bertrand Russell’s turkey illusion—a refutation of inductive logic—the parallel being that, just as one could never predict what will happen to a turkey on Thanksgiving based on the previous 364 days, the rule requiring a runner to touch second base had never once been enforced in baseball’s history. And, remarkably, it ends up costing the Giants the pennant and Harry Pulliam his life. I imagine just running around in the chaos, shooting McGinnity throwing the ball into the stands, Chance retrieving it from a fan, Evers standing on second, and the pandemonium on the field.
Finally, I imagine taking photographs at the Polo Grounds, 1913 or 1914—when Charles Conlon was at his absolute peak—anywhere near Conlon when he was working, listening to how he spoke to his subjects. What did he say, if anything, when he pressed the shutter? I cornered Bob Feller many years ago to ask that question. It was unreasonable to expect anyone to remember that sixty years later, but one has to ask.
When I try to choose my favorites from your work, I find myself consistently attracted to two colors—red and blue—that seem like a Kreindler signature.
On the one hand, you are scrupulously attentive to getting the colors exactly right historically; on the other hand, the reds and the blues seem to be more than just true; they also seem inspired by and pay homage to great artists like van Eyck and Vermeer. I’m thinking in particular of van Eyck’s Man in a Red Turban and your Dottie Kamenshek; and I’m thinking of Vermeer’s use of ultramarine in The Milkmaid and your Jose Mendez, Jackie Robinson, and Ernie Banks.
Talk a little about how you think about color and what you’re trying to achieve as an artist with it.
@charlesmconlon Nice! I met my wife at a bar named Merkle's in Wrigleyville. The bar owners (her friends loved the story and named the bar after him!)
@charlesmconlon Damn Paul, another great question. Color is a really interesting thing to me, for sure. And it's really the light we see that shapes the world we live in. That's what's responsible for all of the beautiful hues we're able to internalize. Well, that and the rods and cones in our eyes.
So for the most part, the colors that I'm choosing to paint are always intentional. In other words, in my head, there's a reason for them looking the way I want them to, pictorially speaking. My main goal is to give off the impression of breathable air in a particular scene, and the paying attention to the quality of light is the key part of it. What happens to a particular red cap in sunlight as opposed to it being in overcast light. Obviously there are infinite variations within that, but generally speaking, you can think of sun hitting a hat and bleaching out the red for much lighter and usually warmer hues. The shadows will be deeper in shade and color and quite cool in color temperature, all depending on the light's intensity. On an overcast day, that same hat might have a cooler red on the plains of it that face upwards. The shadows may be deep and warmer, but the jump from the light to shade is much less drastic. With any color I'm putting down, it's always keyed in some way, meaning that it's put down to create or add to an atmospheric effect.
Somebody like, say, Monet, would paint study after study of the same motif. Think of his haystacks or Rouen Cathedral. Or, hell, just think of stuff you see in nature or the city. Looking at buildings in Manhattan while being stuck on the BQE--some days, they're bright, clear and crisp, and on others they seem muted, flat and almost fuzzy. Noting how color (not to mention value and edges) can create those kinds of effects in any kind of painting is what I'm after.
But that's all technical stuff that's in the tenets of realistic and representational painting. When I think of the reds of van Eyck or the blues of Vermeer, that sort of thing ends up being the result of how they put down their color. Both of them worked with a lot of transparent glazes, which will always make color seem more luminous than their opaque brethren. Reason being is that you have light hitting the painting, and passing through and bouncing around color, illuminating it--think of stained glass (which is probably where a lot of those renaissance painters got their inspiration). And typically, reds and blues were among the most common colors used in glazing during that era.
Sometimes I do try to give that sort of thing a nod in my work, but with mixed results. It does help that the ballplayers wearing caps sometimes have those strong colors already as a base--it's just up to me to try and make them sing the way those old masters did. The key word here is always "try."
